Think of it this way, if they made an adapter, how many serious OM shooters
would buy the E-1 lenses, if they could easily mount an OM lens onto an E-1
camera?
Sam...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joe Gwinn" <joegwinn@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <olympus-digest@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, October 10, 2003 7:32 AM
Subject: Re: [OM] E-1 lenses resolution vs. conventional lenses - fact or
hype?
> At 3:20 AM +0000 10/10/03, olympus-digest wrote:
> >Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2003 18:19:49 -1000
> >From: "Danrich" <danrich@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> >Subject: Re: [OM] E-1 lenses resolution vs. conventional lenses - fact or
hype?
> >
> >Because more resolution to the digital world (CMOS/CCD) is what is
> >needed according to the comparison to old world principles of the
> >mastery and marriage of film and a well made lens.
> >XDan
> >
> >Olympus is claiming their new E-1 lenses have greater resolution and
> >this is a necessity for their new system, as well as one of their
> >reasons for not offering the OM adapter. I am skeptical about this.
> >Why are they all of a sudden able to produce lenses of supposedly
> >superior resolution? What new technology in glass or lens design has
> >enabled this? Why have no other manufacturers come up with it? For
> >years, the various manufacturers have been in hot competition to win
> >the best lens resolution test scores, and the Zuikos were always at
> >least in the top tier of lenses. If there was a way to make a lens
> >with higher resolution, why didn't all the manufacturers jump on it?
>
> It's a tradeoff. What those manufacturers meant was that they produced
the best resolution (for the price). Far better lenses are possible, but
not at a price (or weight) suited to photography.
>
> As for the E-1, we do know something about the 5-mpixel CCD that will be
used, the Kodak KAF-5101CE -- its pixels are square, 6.8 microns on a side.
This is comparable to the resolution of silver-based film of reasonable
sensitivity.
>
> So, there is no point in making the E-1 lenses a lot sharper than for
film. In fact, lens resolution exceeding 6.8 microns will only cause
aliasing.
>
> What is different is that the KAF-5101CE CCD has a microlens on each
pixel, limiting the allowed angle of incidence of light onto the CCD surface
to something like +/- 5 or 10 degrees from perpendicular. How wide an
angular range is acceptable depends on how much light falloff in the corners
is acceptable. Anyway, film has essentially no angle restriction, so lenses
with short focal lengths can be a problem with such CCDs, in that the
corners may be darker than with film, and Olympus may not wish to attempt to
explain the reason the the mass market.
>
> Even if the marketing types are unclear on the technical rationale and
emit spurious arguments, I don't really think that Olympus Corp is trying to
force OM lens owners to repurchase everything, even if that is the effect.
Simply put, there are not enough of us Zuiks to matter in a photo market
where the least significant digit is 100,000 cameras sold, and the internal
debate at Olympus on production of an OM-E1 adapter probably turns on the
likely profitability of such an adapter were it offered, and not on any
possible effect on the larger market for the E1.
>
> Joe Gwinn
>
>
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