New baby Oly

T

Terao

Kiloran
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Olympus E-420 plus a 25mm f/2.8 (50mm efov) pancake. Whole package is TINY for a DSLR.

Looks cool, is this a late-60s SLR for the digital age? Really appeals to me, as soon as I saw it I thought "Ideal for my father, just like his old film camera he used for so many years"
 
The new E-420 with the 25mm pancake lens reminds me of a semi-automatic SLR from the 1980s. I'm thinking of the Minolta X-series, the Nikon FE/FG, Canon AE-1, Olympus OM-series and others.

If the E-420 and pancake lens prove to be good performers then Olympus will have a real winner on its hands. I'm glad I didn't buy the Canon G9 a few weeks ago 🙂 !
 
I was thinking the same thing - it looks fantastic.

The body is only 380g. For comparison the Zeiss Ikon is 500g. Leica M7 610g.

Also of course, what's to stop them from taking away the prism and flash?

There is real potential for a 4/3 mount rangefinder-style camera I think.

Possibly something like using the live view at the back for AF confirmation where necessary. An external finder could be used for composition where you are happy to let the camera decide where to focus. How does the Hexar do it?

As a matter of wild speculation it is of course the case that Leica already make 4/3 mount lenses - even AF ones. So if anyone could do it then they might be able to.
 
Hopefully somebody will finally realize that both the SLR and RF are outmoded concepts. For those who don't need or want to added complexity of those two viewing/focusing systems but do want state of the art technology... I'd say the time is right for an interchangable lens compact. Sigma DP1 with an M mount and 28/50/90mm APS-C optimized (=small) primes...
 
Ronald_H said:
Hopefully somebody will finally realize that both the SLR and RF are outmoded concepts. For those who don't need or want to added complexity of those two viewing/focusing systems but do want state of the art technology... I'd say the time is right for an interchangable lens compact. Sigma DP1 with an M mount and 28/50/90mm APS-C optimized (=small) primes...
Click to expand...
[italics mine] Huh? If they're APS-C optimised then all an M mount buys you is the ability to scale focus old lenses - and if they (the new ones, I mean) are autofocus (without a viewfinder-based focusing system, what else are they going to be? You going to sell scale focus as a "new technology"??) then how does that even work with an M mount?

Why the insistance on preserving the M mount for new cameras, as opposed to digital versions of old cameras? The latter makes sense, but I see no advantage (and many problems) with the former.

[edit]And the new Olympus looks really nice with that pancake lens. Looks very useable.[/edit]
...Mike
 
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No thanks.

Where is the 25/1.4?

I prefer 4/3 from 1967:

PenFT_00_m.jpg
 
Terao said:
Olympus E-420 plus a 25mm f/2.8 (50mm efov) pancake. Whole package is TINY for a DSLR.

Looks cool, is this a late-60s SLR for the digital age? Really appeals to me, as soon as I saw it I thought "Ideal for my father, just like his old film camera he used for so many years"
Click to expand...

Looks pretty neat, and the price is terrific! A shame I'm heavy into Pentax P/KA lenses, or this would be a real competitor for me when it comes time to replace my *ist DS.

I'm going to guess that the image quality is high as well, I'll be interested to see what the low-light performance is like.

Anybody know how hard or easy it is to manually focus on one of these 'live view' cameras if you have an M42 lens mounted to it?
 
That does look nice and compact. Wonder what it's like to hold?

Mind you, that Pen-F looks pretty nifty too!
 
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The price of the Solms glass is about 3 to 4 times the Oly glass. Perhaps Oly will realize they can come out with OM size and speed prime glass for the E-420. Not enough manual controls for me, but very attractive none the less.

B2 (;->
 
Yep... I'm getting the e-420 + pancake combo for sure. Sigma DP1 was on the wish list for a while, but my father uses an e-410 (which is superb in image quality), and now that Oly have released this pancake, it's a sign of better things to come. A while ago they patented a (if I remember correctly) 12.5mm f/1.8 which would be absolutely superb on something like this. All the new Zuiko digital lenses are absolutely stunning and leave most of canon/nikon/pentax offerings in the dust for image quality. Note that little pancake 25mm is only about 300us as well!

intropic.jpg


And just look at the Leather cases being offered!!!

nr080305ecasej_04.jpg

nr080305ecasej_05.jpg

Also available in black and brown.
 
Does anyone knows whether they will be selling the lens alone? I have among other things an E-330 which I want to keep just for when I don't feel going out with eavy or expensive gear and it would be nice to add a light lens to the 11/22 I always use with.

GLF
 
giellaleafapmu said:
Does anyone knows whether they will be selling the lens alone? I have among other things an E-330 which I want to keep just for when I don't feel going out with eavy or expensive gear and it would be nice to add a light lens to the 11/22 I always use with.

GLF
Click to expand...

Yes, expect around 300us
 
In Germany the lens is announced with EURO 229,--.

Olympus did something I was expecting earlier. The E400 and E410 were promising, but the only primes were to macros of 35mm 50mm. Maybe the masses don´t use primes but a fast standard prime for old fashioned people like us should be in the line up of lenses.

One last remark: the pancake is a sweet little lens, but is it really fast enough?

Thomas

P.S.: I´m using my D80 mostly with two small primes (24 and 50) and think that this is really a useful combination - just like in the old days ...

😎
 
I think the pancake is fast enough for a pancake. How is ISO1600 on these cameras?
According to the Olympus people the sensor in this body is the one from the flagship E3, looks to be great value.
 
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