C H Ling wrote
> In the old days we appreciated the small OM system and Olympus claimed the
> 4/3 is smaller, lighter and cheaper so we have to compromise for a small
> sensor and higher noise.... but nothing came true. Then now we are happy
> with the big lenses and bodies ?????
Well said.
And remember, due to Olympus designing vibration-induced image degrade
into the OM system because of the particular aperture stop-down system
used in the lenses, having extra mass on the camera, or using a tripod
combined with prefire mirror raising and aperture stopdown, were the only
ways to get the best out of the manual Zuiko lenses.
I still have a winder attached to my OM4Ti, not that I use it as a winder (I
usually do not) but to give extra mass and a good handgrip for my larger
hand.
It's ironic; now that the OM system is largely redundant, the excellence of
the manual Zuiko lenses is being appreciated by Canyon digital users
(apparently, so I'm told), and this is possible because the aperture stop-
down mechanism is set well before exposure is made.
The Olympus OM optical engineers must have been tearing their hair out in
frustration at the fact that their very well designed optics didn't deliver
their
full potential in practice on OM bodies. I wonder if anybody at Olympus
actually knew the reason? Or was there serious rivalry between the optics
people and the others. Did anybody really know before Gary Reese did his
classic series of tests?
I think one of the reasons that the PEN series of film cameras was (is)
capable of delivering such good images, is that a different lens operating
system was used.
I often wonder if the fortune of Olympus, in the OM era, would have been
different (better), if this design flaw had not existed to degrade image
quality. It would have given the lie to the Canyon claim that they deliver the
best images.
My 2 cents' worth ( inflation accounts for the larger number of words)
Brian Swale.
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