Olympus admits a try at "pro" would gut their 4/3rds system
RichA
made a go for the professional market in meaningful way. The end of
4/3rds as a viable sensor format. They have to go with something like
the 35mm (kudos for Olympus for asking "what does FF mean anyway?"
earlier in the interview) sensor size, no matter what format. I would
personally like to see a 4/3rds proportioned sensor with a diagonal of
40mm as a pro camera. I still dislike 3:2 as a format.
This, from a Dpreview interview:
Dpreview:
But the point is they have the advantage that they can offer both full
frame and smaller sensor bodies, and whether you can persuade enough
professionals that you can offer a viable alternative to the full
frame systems offered by other manufacturers to justify the continuing
development of your professional system. To us the E-620 is represents
exactly what FT is 'about' and the sensor format gives it genuine
benefits over the competition. It's easy to understand its position in
the market and its easy to see its appeal.
Olympus:
MAG: If we were targeting to really lead the professional market this
would be a key issue. So the question is, are we targeting to lead the
professional market in the short term? Today that's not in our plan.
If we really wanted to succeed we would have to look at all the
alternatives, which would most probably break all the work we've done
on Four Thirds.
Robert Coe
: I think that pretty much sums up what it would cost Olympus if they
: made a go for the professional market in meaningful way. The end of
: 4/3rds as a viable sensor format. They have to go with something like
: the 35mm (kudos for Olympus for asking "what does FF mean anyway?"
: earlier in the interview) sensor size, no matter what format. I would
: personally like to see a 4/3rds proportioned sensor with a diagonal of
: 40mm as a pro camera. I still dislike 3:2 as a format.
You're swimming against a very swift current. Remember that the the 4:3 aspect
ratio (common in early digital cameras) came to the industry from the
television set, by way of the VGA computer screen. Now even TV sets no longer
use 4:3, and it has almost disappeared from computer screens as well.
That said, the history of 3:2 is pretty hard to fathom. It's the ratio
traditionally used in 35mm film cameras, so it's arguably the "right" ratio
for a full-frame digital. But in most of the film era, 3:2 was rarely used for
prints. (In the U.S. the picture postcard is the only common example.) And
though it's been a long time, my recollection is that even slide masks
generally shorted the long dimension. Given all this, the contemporary
reversion to 3:2 is a bit hard to explain. But it's no less real, and I'd be
very surprised if 4:3 makes a comeback in any professional camera product line
in the foreseeable future.
As for Olympus, minaturization has been their schtick for a long time. Their
early film SLRs were a third smaller than those of the competition. Many
serious photographers, even professionals, liked their smaller, lighter
offerings, and they did pretty well. But Olympus didn't have the option of
changing the film size. (What would they have gone to? 110?) So their images
had to be the same size as those of Nikon or Canon (or Exacta or Miranda or
Asahi Pentax or Contaflex or ...). The unstandardized world of digital sensors
freed them from that restriction, for better or for worse.
Bob
David J. Littleboy
"Robert Coe" <b...@1776.COM> wrote:
>
> That said, the history of 3:2 is pretty hard to fathom. It's the ratio
> traditionally used in 35mm film cameras, so it's arguably the "right"
> ratio
> for a full-frame digital. But in most of the film era, 3:2 was rarely used
> for
> prints. (In the U.S. the picture postcard is the only common example.)
But with the advent of European/Japanese standard paper sizes, it's become
much more reasonable: at super A3, printing 12x18 on a 13x19 paper leaves
nice 1/2" borders all around, and 7 x 10.5 printed on A4 does roughly the
same (16mm border). And "2L" in Japan is 5x7, which allows a 4x6 print with
a 1/2" border. Leaving a nice border is, I find, a lot classier than
borderless (which I used to do all the time to show off as much detail as
possible; I'm a bit less nuts about that nowadays); you can even put a
border of some sort around the image and still retain even borders.
Which is why it's a shame that the new Fuji folding camera is 6x7 and not
6x9. Sigh.
> And
> though it's been a long time, my recollection is that even slide masks
> generally shorted the long dimension.
The slide masks at hand are 34x23, which is only barely short (0.5mm) on the
long direction at all, and most of the slides here aren't centered correctly
with the long axis shifted enough to expose the black film border enough to
result in a longer, not squatter, format of the image actuall projected.
> Given all this, the contemporary
> reversion to 3:2 is a bit hard to explain. But it's no less real, and I'd
> be
> very surprised if 4:3 makes a comeback in any professional camera product
> line
> in the foreseeable future.
Well, there's the Fuji 6x7 folder. (Which I really reall want, but since my
film scanner's dead, the camera + new Nikon 9000 would be around US$5,000;
an amount I can't really justify for a fixed lens camera in a focal length I
don't really like (I prefer 65mm rather than 80mm on 6x7). I should just
shut up and buy a used GW690III (90mm on 6x9) and the 43mm lens for my 6x7
camera and the US$3000 Nikon 9000. A mere US$5,000 for a camera system that
wouldn't be significantly better than the 5DII<g>. Or maybe that's a frown.
> As for Olympus, minaturization has been their schtick for a long time.
> Their
> early film SLRs were a third smaller than those of the competition.
Yes. The OM series was real nice. I owned two OM-1n cameras over the years.
Although they were not very rugged. I got a tour of the Olympus factory here
in Japan in '79, and one of their engineers offered to check mine out for
me. He reported that there were oxidation problems in the internal
mechanisms. Oops. But the camera was nice enough that I just replaced it a
few years later.
> Many
> serious photographers, even professionals, liked their smaller, lighter
> offerings, and they did pretty well. But Olympus didn't have the option of
> changing the film size. (What would they have gone to? 110?)
How short and fleeting is the memory of man: you've forgotten the Pen and
Pen F cameras. Lovely half-frame 35mm cameras.
> So their images
> had to be the same size as those of Nikon or Canon (or Exacta or Miranda
> or
> Asahi Pentax or Contaflex or ...). The unstandardized world of digital
> sensors
> freed them from that restriction, for better or for worse.
No. Again, you've forgotten their half-frame history.
--
David J. Littleboy
Tokyo, Japan
nospam
<b...@1776.COM> wrote:
> That said, the history of 3:2 is pretty hard to fathom. It's the ratio
> traditionally used in 35mm film cameras, so it's arguably the "right" ratio
> for a full-frame digital. But in most of the film era, 3:2 was rarely used for
> prints. (In the U.S. the picture postcard is the only common example.)
4 x 6 prints are the most common sized print and those are exactly 3:2.
prior to that were 3.5 x 5 prints and that's almost 3:2.
> And
> though it's been a long time, my recollection is that even slide masks
> generally shorted the long dimension.
slide masks are slightly smaller than the frame size but retain the
aspect ratio.
> Given all this, the contemporary
> reversion to 3:2 is a bit hard to explain. But it's no less real, and I'd be
> very surprised if 4:3 makes a comeback in any professional camera product line
> in the foreseeable future.
>
> As for Olympus, minaturization has been their schtick for a long time. Their
> early film SLRs were a third smaller than those of the competition.
perhaps at first, but the pentax mx and nikon fm & fe were basically
the same size as the olympus om series.
Wally
<dav...@gol.com> wrote:
>But with the advent of European/Japanese standard paper sizes, it's become
>much more reasonable: at super A3, printing 12x18 on a 13x19 paper leaves
>nice 1/2" borders all around, and 7 x 10.5 printed on A4 does roughly the
>same (16mm border). And "2L" in Japan is 5x7, which allows a 4x6 print with
>a 1/2" border. Leaving a nice border is, I find, a lot classier than
>borderless (which I used to do all the time to show off as much detail as
>possible; I'm a bit less nuts about that nowadays); you can even put a
>border of some sort around the image and still retain even borders.
Seems to me the aspect ratio should fit the picture, not the paper.
Wally
Wally
David J. Littleboy
Yes. But I find that I compose to the viewfinder. When I carry my Rollei
TLR, I look for and get pictures that fly as square compositions. When I
shoot 645 or 6x7, the images usually don't work when cropped to either 2:3
or square. That said, with 2:3, I find a higher percentage of shots that can
be (or need to be) cropped to 4:3 than I find croppable shots with either
4:3 or square, but it's still only a very occassional image.
Rich
news:ZI-dnQAQl91xOFvU...@giganews.com:
>
> "Robert Coe" <b...@1776.COM> wrote:
>>
>> That said, the history of 3:2 is pretty hard to fathom. It's the
>> ratio traditionally used in 35mm film cameras, so it's arguably the
>> "right" ratio
>> for a full-frame digital. But in most of the film era, 3:2 was rarely
>> used for
>> prints. (In the U.S. the picture postcard is the only common
>> example.)
>
> But with the advent of European/Japanese standard paper sizes, it's
> become much more reasonable: at super A3, printing 12x18 on a 13x19
> paper leaves nice 1/2" borders all around, and 7 x 10.5 printed on A4
> does roughly the same (16mm border).
That's nice, but in the professional print world, 4:3 is still a lot closer
to the average picture format than 3:2.
Alan Browne
As if that means anything.
It really doesn't matter what the frame proportions are within a
reasonable range of 1:1 to about 2:1. Photographs are not supposed to
be stuffed into a restrained proportion anymore than a painting is.
--
-- r.p.e.35mm user resource: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm
-- r.p.d.slr-systems: http://www.aliasimages.com/rpdslrsysur.htm
-- [SI] gallery & rulz: http://www.pbase.com/shootin
-- e-meil: Remove FreeLunch.
-- usenet posts from gmail.com and googlemail.com are filtered out.
Alan Browne
> But it's no less real, and I'd be
> very surprised if 4:3 makes a comeback in any professional camera product line
> in the foreseeable future.
Hasselblad's H series is 645 (film) and most of the digital backs are
4:3 at various actual sensor sizes.
Rich
news:jq6dnfvAI4drclrU...@giganews.com:
> Rich wrote:
>> "David J. Littleboy" <dav...@gol.com> wrote in
>> news:ZI-dnQAQl91xOFvU...@giganews.com:
>>
>>> "Robert Coe" <b...@1776.COM> wrote:
>>>> That said, the history of 3:2 is pretty hard to fathom. It's the
>>>> ratio traditionally used in 35mm film cameras, so it's arguably the
>>>> "right" ratio
>>>> for a full-frame digital. But in most of the film era, 3:2 was
>>>> rarely used for
>>>> prints. (In the U.S. the picture postcard is the only common
>>>> example.)
>>> But with the advent of European/Japanese standard paper sizes, it's
>>> become much more reasonable: at super A3, printing 12x18 on a 13x19
>>> paper leaves nice 1/2" borders all around, and 7 x 10.5 printed on
>>> A4 does roughly the same (16mm border).
>>
>> That's nice, but in the professional print world, 4:3 is still a lot
>> closer to the average picture format than 3:2.
>
> As if that means anything.
>
> It really doesn't matter what the frame proportions are within a
> reasonable range of 1:1 to about 2:1. Photographs are not supposed to
> be stuffed into a restrained proportion anymore than a painting is.
>
Part of the brag of the 1.5 crops over 4/3rds is that it is a bigger frame.
It isn't if you crop it even a little.
SMS
> I think that pretty much sums up what it would cost Olympus if they
> made a go for the professional market in meaningful way. The end of
> 4/3rds as a viable sensor format.
But it also means the end of Olympus as a viable digital camera company.
While it seems like it's far too late for them to try to catch up with
Canon, Nikon, and Sony, the no-go scenario is even worse, they clearly
can't build a viable business on 5% market share of 4:3.
By stopping at 12 megapixels, they're essentially going into harvest
mode. They'll make minimal investments in new products, with just minor
tweaks for new models, and sell what they can. No big investments in
sensors or development of a professional system.
Alan Browne
As Lee Iacocca used to say:
"Lead, follow or get out of the way."
Looks like they've picked the third option. They are no longer in the
35mm format world and can't grow much further within their 4/3 world.
Honestly, they could make a strong push for the news photojournalist
world (web, newspapers, magazines) as the more compact system (and
perhaps esp. micro-4/3) should make that set of pj's happier and 12 Mpix
is 3 - 4 times what is typically needed for web and newspapers and
adequate (and then some) for most magazines.
SMS
> Looks like they've picked the third option. They are no longer in the
> 35mm format world and can't grow much further within their 4/3 world.
Hence the term "harvest mode." A lot of semiconductor companies have
lines of products that they make no investment in in terms of updated
products, or sales and marketing, but that provide steady revenue long
after the initial investment has been paid back. You can sometimes build
a pretty good business on these products, there just isn't any growth
opportunity.
> Honestly, they could make a strong push for the news photojournalist
> world (web, newspapers, magazines) as the more compact system (and
> perhaps esp. micro-4/3) should make that set of pj's happier and 12 Mpix
> is 3 - 4 times what is typically needed for web and newspapers and
> adequate (and then some) for most magazines.
They don't have the necessary lenses for many photo-journalist tasks.
The wonderful thing about a full-line manufacturer is that you're not
constantly being constrained by "well most users will rarely need such a
lens (or other piece of equipment)." If you need an odd piece of
equipment it's out there, either to buy or rent. There's no
rationalization necessary.
Alan Browne
Generally true, but newsies are not like that. A general assignment
photographer for a large city daily can do pretty much all of his work
with three holy trinity lenses.
For 4/3 that would be the 7-14 f/4, 14-35 f/2 and the 35-100 f/2.
Many combat PJs preferred systems like the Leica M (except the M8)
series. Fixed focal length lenses, limited long lenses. Very reliable,
compact, unobtrusive.
I have little doubt that Oly can make such a system (reliable, compact)
with micro 4/3.
Whether they would get the pj's to buy in is another matter.
Alan Browne
You only crop if you need to for whatever end use is needed. So the
counter argument goes that when you need a larger aspect ratio photo,
4/3 wastes more pixels while getting less resolution for the image.