New Digital Format, Of Interest to RFF?

visiondr said:
You can also forget about selective focus using wide open apertures as the geometry imposed by these tiny sensors creates huge DOF even wide open. You'd need a very large aperture 25 mm lens to even come close to a 50 mm f/2.8 in terms of shallow DOF.
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Yes a 25/1.4 actually - one exists. Leica designed it and Panasonic built it and it performs shockingly well. There is also a 24/1.8 and a 30/1.4 so they do have normals well covered. The trouble is if you want really shallow DoF - it isn't the right system them but for all of it works quite well. It makes a good compromise in the price vs size game - compare an E420 say to the smallest FF DSLR the 5D which is three times as expensive, three years on. Besides I've my OMs if I want shallower DoF. The talk about the system not having selective focus is uninformed nonsense.

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More if you like - http://flickr.com/photos/gnarayan/tags/25mmf14/
 
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It is a very interesting idea. I would not get too excited if you are used to a good optical VF, an EVF may come as a shock/dissappointment. I have a Panasonic that has an EVF and works fine with AF but is hit or miss when used to manually focus. Adapting Leica lenses to this system would be a no go for me because I don't want a 35mm to become the equivalent of a 700mm lens and I certainly don't want to have to buy more lenses.

Bob
 
Wow, I AM impressed.

'No mirror box' does not need to equate to 'rangefinder'. A while back I said that SLRs and rangefinders are both outmoded concepts (a bit tongue in cheek).

I don't know about you, but I'm excited. Now we can get really small cameras with interchangable lenses and a big sensor. And as Leica is partnered with Panasonic in the 4/3 game already, it doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to envisage a Leica rangefinder based on this concept.

Btw, would it be possible to make an M series adapater for this system? I just bought a VC 25mm, would make a nice normal...
 
A great concept to play with - but the EVF and AF only may turnout to be a couple of flies in the soup. Let's hope that any future AF primes match the coverage of existing accessory bright-line finders.
 
Nothing to stop them overlaying a digital RF spot in that EVF. Imagine the following:

Manual focus lens. EVF that shows the field of view of the lens. Custom mode so that a half press of the shutter release overlays an RF spot for critical focus, or just does say a 5x mag of the centre of the scene that fills the whole finder. The upcoming Panasonic LX3 does something similar I believe.

Alternatively the "rangefinder" that Nikon have implemented in the D60 works fairly well.

Can I be first in line for a Pen-F -> Micro4/3rds adapter? How cool would that be 🙂
 
I do know that many digi cams that you use the screen to view with jump the sensitivity many many stops to let you see an image in the dark, seems like the camera might do this if you stop the lens to its taking apeture but then you would have to compose and focus with what would be a grainy looking image.

Also if anyone has used a nikon d3 or d300 or even a 700 you know the LCD technology there is great, maybe there is some way to incorporate that type of high density LCD into a electronic veiwfinder and back LCD which would vastly improve the manual focus/focus confirmation ability of the camera. Just a thought.
 
I'd be more impressed by oldskool optical rangefinder with LCD indication overlay (framelines, exposure data etc), but perhaps am asking for too much.
 
leicasniper said:
This system views through the lens. An adapted M mount lens would have to be focused wide open and then stopped down. Maybe with a superbright EVF they could make it work, though.
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Good point, though it doesn't hold true if they create a 'real' rangefinder based on it. Anyway, stopping down isn't the end of the world, and with good LCD/EVF technology it isn't a problem at all.

Boy, I'd like to see the flame wars begin if Leica announces a 4/3 rangefinder with a set of primes and an M-adapter at Photokina. It will probably have Oly and Panasonic genes, but I think a lot of people will have their wallets out in a flash. I think I won't order that D-700 just yet...

Just imagine using my Summicron 50 on it. Joy.
 
While this may be the beginnings of a new compact digital RF...

I must say that unless companies who use this micro 4/3rds system (and even the normal 4/3rds system) dont start making super wide lenses then it's just going to be rediculous.


That's the most stupid thing I thought about the newest olympus 4/3rds (with the pancake 25mm lens). The fact that a crazy ass wide lens like 25mm is now a 50mm lens.

As colin already mentioned, any standard RF lens that might work on it is going to just be retardedly long. Aka, not useful at all.



However, I'm sure if they're investing in this technology they would invest in creating lenses that are appropriate for it. 🙄
 
The point is that it will be small, about the size of the Hexar AF and with small interchangeable lenses. It has to be an improvement over current pinkie nail sensored point and shoots. I can imagine someone making adapters for a variety of lens mounts such as the Pen F half frames, etc.
 
jbf said:
While this may be the beginnings of a new compact digital RF...

I must say that unless companies who use this micro 4/3rds system (and even the normal 4/3rds system) dont start making super wide lenses then it's just going to be rediculous.


That's the most stupid thing I thought about the newest olympus 4/3rds (with the pancake 25mm lens). The fact that a crazy ass wide lens like 25mm is now a 50mm lens.

As colin already mentioned, any standard RF lens that might work on it is going to just be retardedly long. Aka, not useful at all.

However, I'm sure if they're investing in this technology they would invest in creating lenses that are appropriate for it. 🙄
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What you're not realising is that the 25mm f2.8 pancake is MEANT to be a normal FL lens. If you want wide, you can have the 7-14 f4 (14-28mm equivalent - among one of the widest zooms in the world, and also one of the best optically), or the 11-22 (compact, optically excellent), or the new budget 9-18mm lens which will be selling for under $500us.

I really think olympus will bust out some small high quality primes with this new camera. Think around 12mm f2.8, 17.5mm f2, 25mm f1.8 or 1.4 etc. If they do, they'll be laughing.
 
Rayt said:
The point is that it will be small, about the size of the Hexar AF and with small interchangeable lenses. It has to be an improvement over current pinkie nail sensored point and shoots. I can imagine someone making adapters for a variety of lens mounts such as the Pen F half frames, etc.
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Beat me to my standard battle cry...Digital Hexar AF! 😀

I think it's significant that they are talking about adapting their current 4/3 lenses for use with the new micro 4/3rds system.

Very exciting.
 
now there is another thought. I never thought I would say this but I think I might actually consider this technology when a couple examples of cameras come out for sale because I really really do need to use small cameras to travel around with, the reason my 20D has sat in the dry box for so many weeks is its too big to just have on me. I will take a hit in image quality so I can have my ricoh grd on me. And if there is a way to do other lenses on the system, I will take it.


I wonder if there will ever be a mode on cameras for smarter stop down metering. For instance the Bessa's and M Leicas and Zeiss ikon and all those other rangefinders meter at the taking aperture, if they can do it with their simpleton metering systems, why can there be some setting on a damn modern digital camera that you tell it to meter in stop down mode ala rangefinder style rather then wide open???
 
varjag said:
I'd be more impressed by oldskool optical rangefinder with LCD indication overlay (framelines, exposure data etc), but perhaps am asking for too much.
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Im afraid camera companies (except voigtlander who is the only camera company that actually makes a decent viewfinder anymore) dont care about viewfinders. Why? They cant be bothered to let us see what we are taking photos of clearly as long as we think that a bunch of megapixles and face and ass focus modes will take good pictures for them.
 
Avotius said:
I wonder if there will ever be a mode on cameras for smarter stop down metering. For instance the Bessa's and M Leicas and Zeiss ikon and all those other rangefinders meter at the taking aperture, if they can do it with their simpleton metering systems, why can there be some setting on a damn modern digital camera that you tell it to meter in stop down mode ala rangefinder style rather then wide open???
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That is how the Olympus DSLRs meter "legacy" lenses and I believe Canon too, and probably the rest. Stop down metering has never been an issue as far as I know. The headache I have with manual lenses on the E510 I have is that I need to focus them wide open and compose as well typically because when I stop down it becomes too dark to do it easily. Why would you want it to meter stopped down with lenses with electronically controlled apertures?
 
Stop down metering works pretty well with DSLRs as long as you don't use evaluative/matrix mode. I use center-weighted average or spot metering w/ my old flektogon.

CameraQuest said:
This new standard may allow a digital future via lens adapters for two popular but previously digital dead end film systems:

The Olympus Pen F series Lenes
and the Canon FD Lenses!

Stephen
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I'm glad I didn't get rid of that FD 24/2.

This is very exciting. It's theoretically possible to make a micro4:3 camera with an RF and VF and an adapter to take and focus M lenses. This is highly unlikely, and would be very cool, but I actually hope that they decide to move in a new direction.

I think/hope that Leica (and others) will make some high quality auto-focus compact wide lenses and that we can get a nice compact camera with anti-shake (and maybe active AF). There have been countless posts about how it's time to move away from the idea of simply making digital versions of film cameras, and this may finally be the gutsy innovative move that does it.

I just really want a real VF of some sort, even a zooming one. Shooting live-view only is nice sometimes, but most of the time it doesn't hold a candle to actually looking at your subject.
 
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The problem is that many times you need to compensate for the metering yourself because there are problems with it actually metering stopped down at different apertures. That is a bloody pain in the neck. For instance at 5.6 the camera might meter ok, but then at 4.0 it meters a stop under, then at 2.8 a stop over, then at 1.4 two stops over.
 
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