Olympus retro Micro Four Thirds concept

Joshua - what ever micro 4/3rd gets developed, it will feature auto focus.

Contax G2 - RF optical viewfinder with auto focus and interchangeable lenses.
Nikon D80 DSLR - SLR optical viewfinder with auto focus and interchangeable lenses.
Micro Four Thirds - Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens camera with AF as well.
P&S - Electronic viewfinder with a fixed lens

EVIL is the new niche between P&S and a DSLR.
 
Joshua said:
I could be uneducated, but I thought the definitions were pretty simple:

SLR - Single lens reflex, e.g., viewfinder through the lens itself ... mirror flips up on shot.
RF - Uses a rangefinder for focusing.
P&S - Doesn't use a RF for focusing and you don't look through the lens when focusing.
Click to expand...

But...you will be looking through the lens to focus. You'll just be using a digital path vs an optical path.

Now I'm afraid my pinhole cameras are "point and shoot."

I think we're looking at a lot of blurred lines here, getting harder to define all the time.
 
Joshua said:
SLR - Single lens reflex, e.g., viewfinder through the lens itself ... mirror flips up on shot.
RF - Uses a rangefinder for focusing.
P&S - Doesn't use a RF for focusing and you don't look through the lens when focusing.
Click to expand...

So everyone who uses an external viewfinder on their RF and scale focuses is using a P&S now.... what does this make the Contax G2? It uses a rangefinder but for AF. Most compact digital cameras do look through the lens when focusing, just on an LCD, rather than througha viewfinder.

To describe them as P&S is to dismiss anyone who has done any good work with one and there are plenty of those.

There are quite a few good reasons to use a digital compact too. They are much smaller, even compared to an RF, often quieter, usually cheaper, record movies, something SLRs haven't been able to do until very recently - for a lot of street photographers who prefer a lot of depth of field and want a small, quiet and unobtrusive camera a digital compact is the camera of choice.

There are drawbacks - the LCDs are often rubbish, the sensors are tiny to reduce cost and suffer in low light and offer no DoF control, the AF systems are slow, and they often lack any degree of manual controls because the companies that make them have decided that the people that buy them wouldn't use it. None of these are fundamental limitiations to the format of the digital compact - just their implementation thus far.

There isn't any reason one cannot build a digital compact with a good electronic viewfinder or LCD, with a large sensor and actually put some R&D money towards their performance. That is exactly what this micro 4:3rds initiative is.

Besides, cameras don't point at anything and shoot anyway. They sit there doing nothing. People take snapshots. People point and shoot. Sometimes they actually pay attention to what they are doing and make good pictures but a lot do not and the reputation of digital compacts have suffered from the association.
 
What's in a name?

What's in a name?

I think we need to focus on what aspects of RF do we like, rather than the fact that we focus using an optical rangefinder developed YEARS ago. I would be happy to give up the rangefinder and let a computer tell me when a part of the picture is in focus. I do however want to have an optical viewfinder (Bright Line Please and Thank You) as well as an LCD.

Be it a DRF, MIC, KEY or an MOUSE I do not care. I want light weight, small, interchangeable prime lenses and bright line optical finders (and a good LCD).

B2 (;->
 
As I read the micro-4/3rd's system description (at www. four-thirds.org) it is intended to make for more compact camera designs, using the same sensor as the 'standard' 4/3rd's format, but without optical viewfinders, mirrors or rangefinder focusers. The whole point of the new format is about compact sized cameras with the image quality of the larger 4/3rd's format. I don't see this new format morphing into the hoped-for mini-dRF everyone (here) is hoping for.

~Joe
 
Mine was first

Mine was first

Hi All,

I was just looking at the site posted in the OP, and what to my wondering eyes should appear! :eek:

I finished my RC project about a year ago and now this. It's funny, but I sold my dressed up 35RC at a garage sale this summer, maybe the guy worked for Olympus. :)

Steve
 

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I wonder if they could engineer a pop-up brightline finder for those times you don't want to use the LCD?

That said, a true full-time optical finder with projected framelines and decent AF would be my ideal.
 
Ken Ford said:
I wonder if they could engineer a pop-up brightline finder for those times you don't want to use the LCD?

That said, a true full-time optical finder with projected framelines and decent AF would be my ideal.
Click to expand...

I just don't think we're ever seeing an optical finder with framelines on anything like this.
I would be happy with a hot shoe finder.
 
I don't think we are going to see a decent optical finder in a small camera like this any time soon either. The world has forgot what an optical finder is and we have taken a huge step backwards for convience...again...

Speaking of finders, I was tinkering with my gf's 5D and her canon 30v film camera. The 5d has more coverage (just) but the finder in the 30v is significantly bigger. That is really sad because modern finders in cameras are more and more disapointing to me like the new Sony a900, there are all these extra lines in there that don't need to be in there and it's just annoying that camera companies really don't care about how we see our pictures anymore just that there are enough gadgets to make sure we don't have to do anything.
 
An optical finder would be good. I have a real hard time trying to see most LCDs, especially outdoors. I think Avotius and dazedgonebye are correct above though, and I will continue to tinker and enjoy my obsolete film cameras as long as there is film available.

Steve
 
With an AF camera, how is it so different to use an external finder than a built in optical finder?
No, you won't have multiple frame lines and you will have to change finders as you change lenses. Not a big deal for me.
 
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