Olympasonic to confuse 4/3 system buyers August 5, 2008
Posted by tcbp in : News & Rumors , add a comment
Olympus seems to have been the primary supporter of the 4/3 system since it was announced. They have offered a full line of cameras and lenses which take advantage of the specification. However the system has always failed to come through in my opinion on what was one of the early promises: cheaper glass. For example, Olympus offers a 300mm f/2.8 which on their system is over $5000 but there is no 600mm f/2.8 available for regular . That’s quite impressive then! However that’s not really a fair comparison either. The Canon and Nikon 300mm f/2.8 lenses are both over $1500 less than the Olympus 300 f/2.8! And they must cover a much larger sensor. Certainly there’s an issue of scale, the Olympus 300 f/2.8 won’t be as widely used just like the 600 f/4 lenses available for 35mm/full frame, but it still seems like too much.
I can’t complain about the pricing of some of their cameras though, like the E-420. I do like the idea of the 4/3 system, but I think the price of some of the lenses is a big obstacle for them.
This new Micro Four Thirds specification from Olympus and Panasonic may not change that however there is a good chance it will confuse some consumers. It also obviously won’t usher in a new collection of “proper” SLRs (no mirror) but I’m sure there will be electronic viewfinder based cameras *cue cringing*.
A more interesting prospect is the opportunity for an interchangeable lens digital rangefinder system that is more flexible, affordable and probably feature-full than the Leica M8 (in spite of having a smaller sensor than the Leica). I am very curious to see where this new modification to the 4/3 system will go and how much the different manufacturers will take advantage of it. Given how Panasonic is in bed with Leica it would be really interesting to see a lower level Leica system pop up based on this spec and to see what lenses Leica could produce to support this Micro Four Thirds system.
Now if only someone could tell Olympus a thing or two about why putting too many pixels in to a small sensor is not such a great idea.