Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/02/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I think you could come out with a concept of a format of any size you want but if you have INTERCHANGEABLE MOUNTS ... as was the 4/3's deal from DAY ONE: there's no way you can go wrong. Come out with a format 10mm by 30mm with rounded edges and an egg shape bump on the bottom. No problemo with Interchangeable mounts. Interchangeable mounts is a goldmine. It's a no lose situation. Like that shiny 12 cm disk Sony came up with. I don't think 13.5 x 18mm is that kind of a magic number. (4/3s) It's a solution for a problem that's not going to happen. I think Olympus was in a jam as they were competing against all the other camera companies which had an established body of glass to fit their new digital camera bodies ... Ported over from their film bodies. Olympus was in a unique position of having dropped completely out of the running years and year ago. Decades. They were nowheresville. A burgeoning non-happening concern. Solid non contenders. Pleading nolo contendo. ...instead of a bum, which is what they were, let's face it. It was you, Charley. No AF lens line. Very frustrating as the OM 1 system was so beyond excellent. Changing the face of 35mm SLR film photography where cameras larger and heaver then Hasselblads and Rolleiflexes and with little dark viewfinders were shooting chips of film measuring 24x36mm. It was absurd! But then Olympus dropped out when no one was looking when everyone went AF like it just couldn't cope! They opted for the mass point and shoot biz. Glad poor Maitani wasn't around to see that! The toy business! Now they are looking at a burgeoning digicam market which has transformed the pro and prosumer market to much closer terms with mainstream. Olympus needed to stake out a new playing field. With them in it. Wearing nice new uniforms. Someone with a Nikon, Canon, Minolta or you name it system just adds a digital body to their existing camera system. Poof they can-do digital. Olympus is caught between a rock and a hole in the ozone. So it comes out with it's own format. And calls in a few favors. I'm sure Sony and Panasonic will call in that marker from Olympus the next fine mess they get themselves into. I agree with Feli that 10 megapixels is seeming to lots of people like a nice round juicy apropos number. Fitting existing gloves and so on. And that 6 or 8 is starting to feel a little thin. And that an ACROS or what I like to call "half frame" sensor size is straining at its capabilities to produce file sizes that size with a nice noise level that it gets with 1600 ASA and beyond so far. Turning slow cheap zooms into Noctili. They are just able to do it. Smaller no. Remember the the size of the Olympus F half frame cameras designed by Maitani? Remember the much more cute size of the Nikon SLR ACROS camera bodies and lenses that lasted for five minutes? Darned small. A real size class below what we are used in in SLR's designed for 24x36 image sizes. (half frame is 18x24 ACROS is 16x24! Gee! If they stuck to 18x24 and left out all the baloney the "new" or "not so new" format (re-introduction) would have been a success IM not so H0) But so far all the camera bodies for digital have been ported out from full frame 24x36mm camera bodies. Maybe they need some extra room now for wires. Well I think sooner or later we can expect the proliferation of ACROS format digital cameras which are the mainstream now to be sized down just like the ACROS format film cameras and the ACROS format digital glass which is coming out every day to fit that smaller image circle. It will all line up and make smaller sense. 4/3's is not there yet. In the year 2525 maybe. With holographic attachment and viewer. And antigravity gyro. Mark Rabiner Photography Portland Oregon http://rabinergroup.com/