Lens Olympus NEEDS to release

[jsmisc]

Thanks everyone; all your comments are very much appreciated.

The viewfinder issue is important to me. I use Contax SLR's and the digital SLR viewfinders I have tried in shops have disappointed apart from the Canon 5D which is full frame (and much more expensive) and was better, although not of the same standard. Full frame is probably the key to viewfinder size.

Still, everyone seems to like the E1 a lot and I think I am going to go for it. Those lenses certainly do look tempting and the system is tried and tested and no doubt will continue to expand.

It's probably just a question of getting used to it. I noticed the wedding photographer at our daughter's wedding used a Fuji S3. He took superb pictures and I think the viewfinder on that is tiny. It is also a large camera and I want a small one.

The E system is innovative and a bit different and I like that. Now that Kyocera has pulled the plug and Contax is out of the market place, if I want to go digital I have to look elsewhere and Olympus appeals - always has.

An E1 would certainly be a toe in the digital water - perhaps more like a whole foot which will probably follow on to the rest of the body.

Thanks everyone, I will come back when I am an Olympus owner and have a proper right to chat here and let you know how I get on.

Best wishes,
John

 

[weedram]

Just to clarify a bit ...

First, I do not really live in the past, even if might seem so. I'm a pretty modern guy ... network engineer, HDTV, modern vehicle, etc. I DO paddle a custom, hand-built cedar-strip canvas canoe, I suppose there are people who would laugh and ask why I don't buy a cigarette boat. It's their loss.

Anyway, I know full well that the chances of getting a DSLR with an OM quality viewfinder is slim to none. And I noticed that the second time I put an E-1 to my eye, I felt it was better than I first remembered. Yes, I'm sure I could work with it; after all, I work with the viewfinder in an Oly C2000 when I want digital! I was just responding to the "as good as any DSLR" statment, which I thought really odd as this is an Olympus list, after all!

But the viewfinder in an M8 (or R-D1) is, well.... an M (or Bessa) viewfinder! Save for longer telephoto, macro and sports applications, I prefer an RF so being used to a bright, large, inclusive viewfinder makes the transition to a smaller, "tunnel-vision" viewfinder somewhat jarring.

B.D.: My only point about the "obsolescence" issue is that if a camera makes great files today then will it not make great files 5 years from now, assuming the electronics are still working OK? Same with the M8, which I expect to be "better" than the E-1. I could happily live with both, I'm sure. The E-1 (or E-x) with primes and macro, the M8 with wide to short telephoto.

As far as handling goes, I have heard nothing but great things about the E-1. It seemed a bit strange in my hands at first. And I actually preferred the initial feel of the E-300 when I picked it up. As far as the OM goes, I'm so used to them it's hard for me to imagine something better. Something to look forward to.

The price of the E-1 right now IS alluring.

 

[bdcolen]

That canoe sounds terrific... Yes, if an M8 produces excellent images today, they will be excellent five years from now - by today's standards. But digital excellence is still very much a moving target, and it is highly unlikely that what is considered acceptable - or even excellent - today, will be considered excellent, or even acceptable, in five years. Granted, we are hopefully near the end of the 'ours is bigger than yours'/more pixles are better period; now comes the quest for better pixels, better color, more accurate rendition of detail, and so on. So that $5K M8 of 2007 isn't likely to be worth $500 in five years. Further, Leica has not exactly been a world beater when it comes to electronics - how reliable will an M8 be? As to the viewfinder - I'd love a good digital rangefinder. In fact, I urged my Olympus contacts to think seriously about using the E330 box as the basis of a rangefinder - but it's unlikely that will ever happen. For $2K I'd snatch up an 8-12 mgp digital rangefinder today.

The reality is that Leica long ago priced itself out of the serious photography market and landed itself in the 'neck jewelry' market. Yes, there are still pros using Leica Ms, but very few - just as there were very few before digital took over. But the days of all the major PJs and documentary photographers having a brace of Ms for wide and normal focal lengths, and a brace of SLRs for long lenses, is long, long past.

 

[weedram]

The canoe is terrific. It has real soul; the first time I paddled the builder's personal s&le, (I spent a whole autumn one year test-paddling boats from various builders), I immediately knew it was meant for me. It is sleak, fast, and highly maneuverable. My father-in-law, who was an Adirondack Guide for many years, says it is the nicest boat he's ever paddled. One day I'll make a better photo of it that I currently have, and post it on flickr or somewhere.

To have one built today would cost nearly as much as an M8 body.

Yes, the price of the M8 is high, and you make a good point about Leica's reputation in electronics; that's a worry. For me, the potential depreciation isn't an issue, but that's just me. For others, it just won't make sense.

It's all a pipe dream unless I am financially fortunate, anyway. At some point I'll make the decision on a digital RF or sticking with my film bodies and getting a DSLR and going with the flow, unless I hit the lottery. Yes, the days of the PJ using Ms is pretty well gone, and I don't really expect that to change when the M8 arrives. A few might, but I doubt it will be significant to photojournalism.

My "tag line" on RFF says "Waiting on Maitani". As good as the E-1 may be from a design point of view, I don't get the same feeling from Olympus since Maitani retired. I suspect if he were back at Olympus we might just see that E330-based dRF.

 

[dirk]

@ all

pleae stick in the future more to the topics and for new questions please start a new thread, so others will have it easier to read. Thanks.

@ Bdcolen

lens flare is the "achilles heel" of the photo industry.

As far as I experienced it, Zeiss lenses are doing the best job in this respect (in the order N-lenses, G-lenses and then RTS lenses - I have nottested yet the new Zeiss lenses like Zeiss Ikon, ZF and ZA).

After that comes Leica lenses and after that a long time nothing...

In one of our meetings with Zeiss, they told us that lens flare/ghosting is a problem of both, the lenses and the body. So it is necessary to make the appropriate steps for the producer to reduce this alos in both, the leneses and the body. We were talking at this time about film bodies, so I do not know whether this chnged with DSLRs now. But lights get reflected alos within the film body and you need a special coating inside of the body to reduce that. Depending on whether you use a tele lens or a wide angle, lens flare is cause more by the body or by the lens (I do not know anymore which for what).

With Contax cameras, the new internal body "protection" was done for cameras and lenses designed rougly after 1996/1998. This is the Contax Aria, Contax G2 and the Contax N System. For the lenses it is some G-lenses and all N-lenses.

In the Zeiss Interview we made public on the German Camera-info.de site (English will be hopefully released soon):

http://www.camera-info.de/Zeiss/Carl_Zeiss_im_Interview_mit_Camera-info.html

Zeiss said that the lens flare reduction for ZF, ZI and ZA lenses are similar to the N-System.

See also the reoprt of Erwin Puts Leica FFL asph. lenses vs. Contax N zoom, in whioch the N-Zoom wind in lens flare, considering it is a 16-lens zoom vs. a prime:

http://www.imx.nl/photosite/japan/contaxn1.html

So this is an issue nobody wants to talk about normally, because nobody really mastered it in the past

Zeiss lensses are not perfect in this respect, but they are the best "compromise" in this area.

The good thing about the E-System is, that more producers are joining it. So Leica will design lenses and probably also cameras for this system. In case you do not like the lens flare with the Oly lenses, just put the new Leica lenses on your E-1 et alii.

@ all

IMHO the advantage of the E-System is not only the "digital-only design". It is also the size of the sensor, which is in other respects a disadvantage.

Assuming that technology will give us in 3 years better images for all sensor sizes, only Olympus / E-system partners are able to make the DSLRs still a step smaller than the competion. The size of The E-1 or E-330 might be seen as "big" in 5 years time. The smaller the sensor, the smaller the camera and the lenses. This size and weight difference might give Olympus a new niche market.

The downside of this size is the IMHO always worse noise performance compared to other sensor sizes of the same innovation cycle and the DOF. But this would be a question/subject for another thread I think...

Regarding viewfinders, I do not think that a viewfinder of a DSLR has to be dimmer tahn of a film camera. The fact that you do not find a bright viewfinder is IMHO because of 2 issues:

1. The indsutry does not care about it at present, because brighter VF are more expensive and bigger, so they prefer to invets the money in the sensor technology (customers seem to buy nowadays only because of the sensor techznology, not beavsue of veiwfinders, otherwise no DSLR with 1.6 crop factor would exist)

2. The lenses are responsible for the brightness of the viewfinder too.

An ex&le: I tested with a friend Zeiss RTS lenses on a Minolta Maxxum/Dynax 7D. Zeiss 50/1.7MM vs. Minolta 50/1.7AF on the 7D DSLR.

The Minolta 7D DSLR is known for a very bright & big viewfinder compared to other DSLRs. But if you "hold" both lenses on front of the 7D, you will see a difference like day & night on the same camera.

I guess that the lens flare reduction is responsible for this. Unfortunetaly, there is no adapter for Zeiss RTS lenses to Minolkta/sony alpha mount

But this only as a side note when speaking about viewfinders...

@ John

Hold on until Photokina. Do not buy within the next 4 weeks. All major news will be public at photokina. Maybe not the fullsize sensor of Nikon, but this will be IMHO anyway too expensive right now for a normal user/ non-professional.

 

[jsmisc]

Hi Dirk,

That is very interesting. I wouldn't have dreamt that lenses with the same aperture size but from different companies would have made such a difference.

I shall take your advice and hang on. It is only 4 weeks after all.

Best wishes,

John

 

[dirk]

Hi John,

yes, I was also surprised when I realized it. Normally you just see an image and you like it or not. Colours, sharpness, contrast etc. But after investigating further, you get to know more and more details what is responsible for which effect in lens design.

For the lens flare problem it is AFAIK a puzzle of different factors which do influence this:

- the glass you are using
- haw many lenses within one zoom or prime for ex&le (the more glass surfaces, the more likely is lensflare/ghosting)
- what kind of coating on the lenses (every manfucturer is different, with significant differences)
- what kind of "black" was used for the colour inside of the lens. Zeiss has for ex&le 7 different layers of black to reduce light reflection within the lens barrel. AFAIK they have a patent on this- Leice has its own formular with 5 layers AFAIK. All other companies have a lot less.

If you look i.e. at Hasselblad, you will see significant better iamges, when shooting with the newer Zeiss CFI lenses, which have the new coating etc., although the same lens design (i.e. the 80/2.8 newest edition).

Same for the bodies. Using a Hassy body produced after around 1996 (I am not sure about the exact year), it will have the new "anti lens flare coating" within the body. So the lens-design of the lens and the body is the same, but you get better images with the newer versions. Significant better images.

This is why I still watch closely the Sony Alpha route. Because there will be Zeiss lenses designed for it.

I would love to see Zeiss lenses designed specifically for the E-System. This would be a killer kombination and we could be sure that there is more long-term committment for a Oly-DSLR system than we can be at the moment with Sony DSLR System...

 

[dirk]

FYI

I moved this thread to the Lens section within the forum, since it was originally a lens question/discussion

 

[jsmisc]

Hi Dirk,

Interesting about the different coatings and blackings. I hadn't realized that the type of black made such a difference. Nor that the newer Zeiss lens coatings were so much better.

I knew that firms have had to improve anti relection since the advent of digital because of relections from the sensor and I have noticed special "digital" filters being advertised with improved coatings. They must be better for film users too.

One of the things which appealed about the E system was the thought of putting the new Leica lens brought out with the new Pansonic 4/3 camera on it, both because it is a Leica and because it has anti shake built in, I believe. I also thought that if Leica are supporting the format and maybe be introdcing a 4/3 body, it must have a lot going for it.

I hadn't thought of Zeiss making 4/3 lenses but it certainly is a wonderful idea. Can you use your influence? Perhaps we could have a 4/3 Contax.

I agree about us just not knowing with Sony yet. If they got fed up with their concept or found they were not doing as well as they thought, they have the resources to pull out and concentrate on one of their other interests. It is a big gamble for us to take to jump in at this stage. It was the Zeiss lenses which attracted me to them in the first place but I don't really like the current A100 body and would need that to improve anyway although reviews of results the camera produces are generally pretty favourable. Now we have news of Sony batteries catching fire - crumbs!
John

 

[dirk]

"...Can you use your influence? Perhaps we could have a 4/3 Contax..."

I would love to, but since Kyocera left its photo business, there is not much to do. The DSLR market is a different one to the analogue market. Very strong competition, short life cycles, big $$ investments with a high risk because of new innovations, which turn 1-year old technology almost immediately into a dead product. And many decision makers who think that they know user preferences better than the costumers who shall buy the products

We had many meetings with all major brands and predicted basically in 2002 everything what will happen in our view, because we know due to our forums, what the user wants to have. And it actually really happened exact this way. But at that time, nobody wanted to believe us except Kyocera, (and Kyocera was too slow). The results /big losses over the last 2 years of many firms are well known by now. This happened not by accident. And many decision makesr had to leave because of this...

The potential of Zeiss is limited. In the old days, they only designed and deliverd on demand, without taking any risk. Zeiss Ikon was the first change regarding this. But I do not know, whether there is enough comittment for the photo sector, to take even more risk and invest even more to think about a 4/3 solution. I doubt it, especially if they want to have also a cooperation in the future with Sony Alpha

But maybe Zeiss surprises us, who knows. Things that have been said today can be totally different tomorrow. Everybody in the industry is under pressure and has to react quickly to new situations. This leaves space for surprises and in most cases good results for the users. Companies who ignore costumers interests and/or are too slow to communicate with the users will die. IMHO this is with a few exceptions good.