Future of Olympus System

I was just curious if anybody has any idea whether or not Olympus will develop a

DSLR with more than 8mps. Anybody know?

They have always maintained that an E-1 successor is in the works. I hope they are taking

their time to get it right!

 

Personally, I don't care much for more than 8MP; I'll take quality over quantity any day and

more pixels doesn't always mean "better"... But I would like to see an "E-3" that is as good

- build, handling - and feature wise, but with an 8MP or more chip of higer quality than

the one found in the E-500.

 

The last week of September is Photokina time, which has always been a popular place to

introduce new products.

I agree with Bas. It would be really nice if Olympus came out with an E-2 or E-3, that had

the modern advancements shown in the E-500 and E-330, but with the build quality,

durability, and ergonomics of the E-1. It having a modern 10 MP sensor with very low

noise wouldn't be bad either.

Yes.If Olympus is going to stay in the high end product game,it clearly has to decide to match,- close anyway,- enough the pixel power of the well regarded Nikon D200.10 MP would be a realistic and technically achievable thing from the 4/3 sensor,so I garner from my readings around the web. Getting also the higher ISO performance expected without losing other things probably is what has had Tokyo Olympus engineers up at night,filling ashtrays with cigarette butts:-)... I have seen no suggestion that it won't happen,but WHEN is the kind of talk that makes for fun guessing at this time of year- big announcements typically come at the bi-ennial Cologne photo EXPO, starting this Sept 26 as mentioned above. From a marketing standpoint,Olympus would be nuts not to go to a 10mp model and soon...I like to think the delay in a successor to the E-1 has been because of unwillingness to compromise what is already right about the E system. (But I am definitely prejudiced and atypical. For my needs, even 6mp to 8mp would do well enough..)

 

I would bet,Matt, on some announcement of the next Olympus model around end of September,not far away now. The question is often asked another way- Is there any obstacle to Olympus coming out with a 10mp sensor,a la Nikon and now Sony? No,but the technical challenges get tougher,as one can read in Atkins et al articles on sensor sizes.

 

The megapixel arms race is flattening out,since 8-10 is permitting some film-comparable results from the reviewers. Consequently,as Bas reminds us, other features of the processing design then become equally key.

 

(Anyway,Matt,to throw this back at ya,just curious,sir,why do you ask? Holding off on a personal buy? Wondering if Olympus will stay competitive? Thinking of buying one of those upscale Zuiko ED telephoto lenses called "little tuna" and "big tuna?" and want the pro body to mount them on?)

Here's a conspiracy theory for you: Oly teams up with Leica and Panasonic to come out with a blockbuster E-2. I get to use all my fabulously expensive and contrasty Leica glass, have the E-1 as a backup (with adapter) and all those Nicanon guys sit around biting their lips. Now, what to do with my M bodies???

 

Works for me. What do you think?

 

Ray Hull

The availability of an E1 successor has been speculated for a long time.Unless a unknown sensor is available; I cannot see a E1 replacement as yet. As of now ; I am happy with the E1's 5mp.I have no doubt that most future DSLR's will have double digit sensors. It would seem to me that Olympus intend to work from the bottom up with cheaper more profitable cameras such as the E330 & E500.Once they have a more established market they are more likely to introduced a "professional" camera.

Michael Reichmann over at Luminous Landscape was quite taken by the Leica lens on the

new Panasonic L1 4/3 DSLR:

 

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/Panasonic-L1.shtml

 

It'd be nice to see this lens available seperate, as well as a good comparison review of it

and the Oly 14-54!

 

Melvin: Canon and Nikon keep their new sensors a secret until they show the new body to

the world; I would expect Olympus to do the same. (as they have done in the past)

Quite taken? You didn't read the review that carefully, did you... Aside from finding noise above ISO 200, he finds faults with the eyelets, shutter release, dark viewfinder, lack of LCD info screen, anomolies during manual metering and poor dynamic buffering.

 

He calls it a "mixed offering" that sells for $2,000 as a kit.

 

Taken aback is more like it.

Oh Z, good to see you again and making a fool of yourself. I did read it properly, that is why I

made the comment: "quite taken by the Leica lens on the new Panasonic", which he calls, and

I quote, "a jewel".

 

I read the article, but did you actually read my comment?

Unfortunately for you I have better reading comprehension, yes.

I think the most important feature for Olympus (and Panasonic) to incorporate is anti-shake technology in the camera body, a la Minolta/Sony and Pentax. <i>That</i> will be much more important than merely raising the pixel count!

Indeed, Fast Prime. Hope they can cadge the Minolta (in-body) system, rather than inserting them into lenses.

 

RWH

If you are an amateur who wants a new DSLR and has a budget of about a thousand dollars, would you buy an E-1 with 14-54mm, or go with a Nikon or Canon? Assume you have no heavy investment in lenses to tilt your decision one way or another.

 

This is another way of asking the same question about the future of the Olympus platform - i.e. would you buy into the system with an older but well made body and a great lens at a sharply reduced price with the expectation that you could upgrade the body later?

I certainly would. The E-1 worked for me 2 years ago and it works now. You can now get it

with the excellent 14-54 lens for $900. It will give you as good or better quality (it's the

lens!) than any body + standard zoom Canon or Nikon offer at that price.

 

(Nikon well sell you a D70 + 18-70 for the same price, Canon sells the Drebel XT with nasty

18-55 for about $750. Any lens from them that compares to the 14-54 is over a grand on its

own)

<i><blockquote> If you are an amateur who wants a new DSLR and has a budget of about a thousand dollars, would you buy an E-1 with 14-54mm, or go with a Nikon or Canon?

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

The two-year-old E-1 design has 5MP, is decidedly noisy above ISO 200, and has a small complement of lenses and accessories to choose from, with a tiny resale market, and its limited MP limits the size of prints to around 8x10 inches. Canon's new400d/XTi has 10MP, far better low light/high ISO performance, has a huge reservoir of lens choices (and used gear) to choose from and can print larger (or offer better ability to crop).

Come on man, get your facts right if you want to do some serious Olympus bashing: the E-1

is well over THREE years old now!

 

Tell me, where did you get this 400D from you used for testing?

 

And when was the last time YOU actually printed anything from an E-1. Heck, what was the

last time you actually saw a print?

I've seen prints, and I've seen reviews -- valid, repeatable tests which you prefer to ignore.

I wonder how amazingly good these Olympus (or now Leica) lenses can be. To have a 4/3 sensor with 10 MP is equivalent in pixel density to a full frame Canon (so far, sadly, Canon is the only contender) with 40 megapixels. Canon has trouble delivering sufficient image quality from its L lenses for a 16MP full frame body. It is also strange how Olympus can make such great cameras and lenses that the laws of physics no longer apply, being able to make large, low noise prints from a small sensor with high pixel density. I wonder, if they really are so good, why is Olympus continuously losing market share even from the minuscule amount it ever had.

I appreciate Ilkka's point and certainly have no bias for or against Olympus. But isn't the "limitation" equally valid for, say, a D2X with an APS-C sensor and 12 MP as it would be for a hypothetical 4/3 sensor with 10?

 

I am no expert, but I have read that digital sensors require physically larger lenses for edge to edge sharpness. It would follow that for the same lens, a smaller sensor would be less demanding. The tradeoff is obviously higher noise. It would indeed be a violation of the laws of physics if anyone achieved optimum sharpness across the frame along with lower levels of noise than a larger sensor.

D2X sensor is about twice the size of 4/3, so the 12MP is equal to about 6MP. I think Nikon has some trouble matching the quality of that sensor as well but because of the crop factor, using the best centre portion of the lenses, less than Canon. Smaller sensor of the Olympus helps but it cannot perform miracles.

 

The future of Olympus is sad, really, because they got to a very good start and the system has some merit. They should have got Leica/Panasonic behind it earlier, and introduced more/different bodies at much faster pace than they did. Of course, it comes down to resources available for a company an dOlymp[us must have been a bit short. Small sensor like that would actually be enough for most people and a great improvement over the tiny digicam sensors in use today.

You'll never (well, never say never) have squeeky clean prints from ISO 3200 images at 10MP on a 4/3s sensor. I would say to that: barhumbug. Seriously, I don't care; I never used colour film faster than ISO 400 either, I can cope. Especially when that means that in return I pay half the money and carry half the weight in lenses around.

 

It's an easy trade off. One (Canon) shoe does not fit all.

Half the money and half the weight? I don't quite follow. Olympus lenses are hardly half the price and certainly not half the weight. And considering that due to the smaller sensor you would need 1-2 stops faster lens to allow the use of lower ISO, the difference could actually go the other way.

Have you checked the price and weight of the 24-70/2.8 and 70-200/2.8 lenses of the competition lately?

 

What other lenses do you think compare to the two Olympusses mentioned?

Oh, and ISO and fastest f-stop are unrelated; you need a certain DOF for an image and that is what you set your aperture for.

 

You can't just open up the aperture to take in image in lower light. Ever tried taking a photo of a group of people in a restaurant at f/1.4? It doesn't work, you need f/5.6 or smaller regardless of the available light.

 

In that case, the smaller sensor will actually work to you advantage; you don't have to crank up the ISO as the sensor will give you a 1-2 stop DOF advantage compared to "full-frame".

 

That does take away from how shallow you can go but I think I have demonstrated in another thread that 4/3s is perfectly capable of a shallow enough DOF.

<i><blockquote> You'll never (well, never say never) have squeeky clean prints from ISO 3200 images at 10MP on a 4/3s sensor.

</blockquote> </i><p>

 

You'll never get clean prints from an E-1 at ISO 800 either. Now compare those results to Canon's lowest-priced DSLR body....