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Re: [OM] New Digital OM compatible system coming!?

Subject: Re: [OM] New Digital OM compatible system coming!?
From: Jim Brokaw <jbrokaw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 15:56:02 -0700
on 8/22/02 12:04 PM, Stuart Landrum at slndrm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

> I hate to say it, but from what I'm reading here, it just doesn't sound like
> Oly's new digital camera is going to have a lens mount that is big enough to
> take our Zuiko's.  Sounds like they want to get away from that restriction,
> and make pro-level DSLR's that are small and light.
> 
> These are just my thoughts, inspired mostly by what I got out of reading
> Keppler's two articles, and his foreknowledge of what Oly will show at
> Photokina.  But maybe he'll be surprised!
> 
> Sorry for the ramble.
> 
> Stuart

I'll have to offer the historical example of the Pen F series and the OM
lenses adapter. Assume that Olympus offers a new digital interchangable-lens
SLR with a 4/3" sensor and smaller, lighter, digital-only lenses. Further
assume that Olympus goes to the current state-of-the-art and uses
electrical/electronic coupling for these lenses (as Canon etc. does now).
There is still a mechanical flange to mount the lenses.

As there is presumably a shorter back focus for the smaller lenses and image
sensor, there will be *someone* who can engineer an adapter that will fit an
OM lens onto the body... there's room to do it, all it is then is a
variation on a manual extension tube, with the digi-SLR mount at one end and
an OM-mount at the other....

But, while OM lenses would then fit, they will be 1)manual focus 2)stop-down
metering 3) stop-down picture taking (like the old preset lenses, without
preset) 4) if shutter prioirity automatic is offered in the body, will still
need to be stopped-down 5) will have significant focal-length factors when
used with that small image sensor. I bought a Pen F to OM adapter, but its
cumbersome to use... as I have a good range of Pen F lenses, I can't really
see using it all that much.

Its also not clear to me that the camera body will work without getting some
kind of electronic 'handshake' from the mounted lens... so an adapter might
have to spoof being a lens of some sort, just to make the camera's meter and
shutter work. With all these compromises required, I'm not sure an adapter
is worth pursuing.

Consider the image sensor as being roughly the equivalent of a 16mm movie
film frame... or a current camcorder. Look at some of the zooms made for
these cameras. Its possible that Olympus can offer a lens which is the
equivalent of a 18-180 f2.0 in 35mm, because the smaller image sensor allows
different physical constraints in lenses design to be exploited. While a
lens covering a 35mm frame with those specs would be huge, and making good
glass pieces of the necessary diameter expensive and physically difficult,
covering a 4/3" image sensor area to those specs is simpler and much more
possible...

I'm really looking forward to seeing what Olympus will introduce.
-- 

Jim Brokaw
OM-1's, -2's, -4's, (no -3's yet) and no OM-oney... 


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