Olympus 4/3s technology

Potentially great news for Titan owners! Check out dpreview for Olys prototype next DSLR with removable lenses. The body looks identical to the E-20. Perhaps with new ports we'll be able to upgrade our Titan housings!!!

Olympus has a tradition of reusing camera bodies and upgrading the "guts" and lenses. This is probably not great for marketing topside cameras, but absolutely priceless for us underwater guys. Especially once you've invested in high dollar housings!!! I'll be first in line to upgrade my Titan.

Kasey

Why would you consider this beneficial?

Obviously, this vapor-ware camera will up the pixel count, but other than that I don't see the advantage... maybe I'm just being obtuse.

One of the biggest positives about the 'prosumer p&s' and the E-10/E-20 cameras is the zoom lens. In one camera, you get a very versatile package that will do nice close up, nice macro, and okay, not so great wide angle.

Without reviving the contentious topic of Wetmate lenses, these add-on's to the Tetra/Titan housings further expand their capabilities.

To me, saddling the Titan with a single focal length lens would be a big step backward. I just don't see that whatever perceived difference there is in the quality of fixed vs. zoom lenses would offset the loss of versatility.

On top of this, consensus on other forums seems that the 4/3 may be a 'flash in the pan' and is not likely to be adopted by other camera or lens manufacturers and will be only an expensive memory within a few years.

What am I missing?

Richard

With no specifics on the new camera, here is what I would like to see:

8mp or higher

large lower noise CCD

faster focus

better low light focus

I think that interchangable lenses topside would be of great advantage, and the larger CCD would facilitate more extreme wide angle lenses - 16mm, 12mm fisheye, etc. - for underwater.

I am not that happy with the macro capability of my titan system, the add on lens forces you to be too close to get 1:1 images. A telephoto lens with good close focus would be better. All this becomes possible with the advent of interchangeable lens systems.

Most of all, I'm excited that Olympus has chosen to reuse the E10/E20 body. Whatever the advantages of the new systems are, that gives us hope that our Titans may live on when our cameras become obsolete.

Kasey

Some Oly answers about 4/3 and E-xx at Photokina...

• 4/3 will be 5MP

• development will continue on E-xx series

full text is at:

http://www.dp-now.com/cgi-bin/forum/photokina2002.pl/read/20 ://http://www.dp-now.com/cgi-bin/forum...002.pl/read/20 ://http://www.dp-now.com/cgi-bin/forum...002.pl/read/20

It's getting really hard to keep up with all of this!

Richard

This honker (4/3 prototype) is not gonna fit into a Titan housing!

The larger CCD will have much better dynamic range. IMHO the 8 bits dynamic range is single largest drawback of the consumer type camera using the small Sony CCD's.I lump the E20 in this class based on the CCD; it's the same as the one in the Nikon 5000. A greater dynamic range is what seperates the images you can get with a DSLR like the Canno D60 vs. any taken with a small Sony CCD.

Since the camera is still vaporware, the CCD it'll have is still just speculation. The most likely candidate is this one http://www.kodak.com/US/en/digital/ccd/kaf5101ce.shtml . Looking at the signal to noise specs, looks like it will have 11 bits of dynamic range which will put it in the same class as the current batch of DSLR's with the added advantage of dedecated lenses for this format. If they can come through, this system should be able deliver images comparable to a Canon D60 with better wideangle lenses and lower cost. If you want to shoot with a field of view equivalent to that of a 15mm lens on a 35mm film camera, looks like it's either this or anti up $4000 for the new Kodak full frame DSLR.

Herb

re:This honker (4/3 prototype) is not gonna fit into a Titan housing!

Isn't that exactly an E20 body + the optional battery pack?

That's actually a "one-piece" unit. Look closely and you'll see that the bottom part is seamlessly connected to the camera.

The text says that the battery pack is removable, but I think that's wishful thinking.

Cheers

James Wiseman

It's a pipe dream. Oly and others dream of being able to offer an SLR with interchangeable lenses that don't require a Nikon or Canon lens mount.

Those who already have Nikon or Canon glass won't be interested. Those who are buying an SLR for the first time would be, but only if someone produces good glass. Certainly, Nikon and Canon won't be reinventing the wheel.

I've got a Vivitar 135mm telephoto manual focus f5.6. It cost me over $100 around 20 years ago. Man, what a lens. It was so dark, it was near impossible to focus the thing. Cheap glass on an expensive camera doesn't cut it.

You may be right. They will have to deliver soon.

They have the potential of delivering images comparable to those from a Canon D60 at perhaps half the cost in body and lenses, with a wide angle range that's not available in a D60 because of the focal length multiplier.

They'll have to get it out before something like the new Kodak 14MP full frame camera comes down to $2000.

We'll see.

Herb