Real Advantage of 4/3rds

[erichK]

The 4/3rds alliance may not quite have achieved it, but the real potential of this smaller format is to do what the Leica initially did: use and existing image-receptor format to create a new, much more portable and handy to take along image-taking device.

Over the years, as it became more of a bullet-proof, motorized, multi-accessory monster, the 35mm SLR bloated into such 5 or 6 pound, $5 or $6k battleships as the Nikon F5 and numerous only somewhat smaller and cheaper semi-pro bodies. IMHO, while such a large and heavy body delivering such a tiny inch by inch-and-a- half -image may serve certain purposes (covering wars and natural disasters, photos on the moon, Antarctica, or volcano craters, bivouacs in Jungle canopies), they are overkill verging on the absurd for most photographers.

It is important to remember that Olympus created some revolutionary inroads in this trend with the OM system, and not just their earlier fallure with the Pen Ft/Fv.  The E300, too, may have been somethining of a mistep.  But as people criticize the bulk and weight of the E-1 they tend to forget that this is a ruggedly-built, weather sealed camera and lens system that should more properly be compared to N and C's flagships, or at least the models just below them.  Compared to those, I have found it to be a superblyportable--and reasonably-priced--system.

Real innovation--as opposed to endless feature and spec inflation--seems to be poorly rewarded in the camera industry.  Somehow, most photographers did not seem to notice that N and C were, for a  long time, basically offering smaller than 35mm sensors in warmed-over 35mm film camera bodies, using full size 35mm image-circle lenses.  Michael is to be commended on his recognition of the superb photographic tool that Olympus dared to produce in the E-1.  He may--unfortunately--have been right about the long term future of 4/3rds.  (There were many examples of failed attempts to introduce smaller formats to replace 35mm.)

However, I hope that this will not be the case, and have every intention of using this excellent, handy, and highly portable approach to an image-making system as long as it is available.

[Peter Jon White]

The trouble is, ergonomic requirements make it impossible to reduce the overall size of the camera in any significant way. The sensor may be half size, but the human interface is basically the same as most other 35mm format cameras. If humans were half the size they are, cameras could be shrunk further down. But as long as humans remain, well, human, cameras are going to remain the same size.

So given the requirements of a hand grip, LCD for chimping, viewfinder, all the buttons for controlling the thing, and the need for lenses to be a certain size to handle well, it makes little sense to shrink the sensor. All you're doing is limiting the potential resolution of the final image.

The only size savings comes with telephoto lenses. But the lenses we use most often are basically just as large in the 4/3 system as with Canon full frame.

The 35mm frame is successful because it's the largest format that doesn't require huge lenses in the focal lengths we use the most. Medium format lenses are huge compared with 35mm. Every 80mm lens for medium format at f/2.8 is much larger than the 50mm f/1.4 lenses we use for 35mm. And nobody even dreams of an 80mm f/1.4 lens for a Hasselblad. But there isn't the same size and weight savings between 35mm and 4/3 as there is between medium format and 35mm. That's because the lenses just can't get smaller and still be useful. We can't get our big hands around a 25mm f/1.4 lens that's half the size of a 50mm f/1.4, hence nobody's going to build it that small, even though they could. So what's the point?

[erichK]

Thank you for your points. They are good ones.  However, the E-1 is considerably smaller and lighter and somewhat quieter than a Canon 1D or such weather-sealed film cameras as the Nikon F5.  My E-1 with 11-22 (=22-44), 14-54  (28-108), 50-200 (100-400) zooms, all of them 2.8-3.5, and the 50 (100) f2 macro fits in a little Adorama Slinger bag.  An APS sensor camera with a simillar wide range of focal lengths, in comparably fast lenses would be significantly bulkier and heavier.  Full frame-sensored models would be larger still.

There is a rumour that the E-1 successor will have an integral handgrip to provide space for a larger LCD. I hope not.  Or at least, that there will be alternative bodies. Experience with a Leica M4 and with OM cameras makes me appreciate the take-along portability that was the orginal reason for 35mm's success.  While your point that it it may not be useful to produce cameras significantly smaller than, say a Leica CL, is a good one, it is nevertheless quite useful to produce full-featured, weather sealed and ruggedized cameras much smaller than N and C's flagships. Especially for those of us who travel, or like to always have a camera along.

[macgyver]

I think the point of size differences is a good one.  When I first read this post, I sort of balked at the notion that one could so easily take a dim view of a large, full featured flagship camera.  Then, the more I think about it, while I may want one of those when I'm on location shooting away or, as you put it, "covering a war", I do long for a smaller and lighter camera that can accompany me anywhere.  Though I shoot canon gear, Oly's offbeat path does intrigue me.

[Peter Jon White]

Thank you for your points. They are good ones.  However, the E-1 is considerably smaller and lighter and somewhat quieter than a Canon 1D or such weather-sealed film cameras as the Nikon F5. <snip>

Well sure it's smaller than a 1D*. So is a 5D. The E-1 has a sensor just a hair more than half the size of the 5D's sensor, but the camera isn't 1/2 the size of a 5D. And it couldn't be 1/2 the size and still have the same features and functionality to humans as the 5D. A 5D could be made with weather sealing and be no larger than the current 5D.

My point is that there's an optimum sensor/film size that's dictated by the size of the creature operating the camera. That optimum size has been proven over many decades to be the size that current 35mm cameras are; something in the range of an M4 to a 1D*, depending on the features required.

Make the camera body and lenses smaller to go along with a smaller sensor, and you end up with a camera that mainly 5 foot tall women with small hands are happy with. Make the sensor/film larger, and you end up with a camera that is too large and heavy for anyone but an NFL lineman to carry around comfortably all day.

[gochugogi]

The main thing I don't like about 4/3 is the aspect ratio. It's the old view camera ratio and I prefer the look of 8 x 12 and 12 x 18 prints. I rarely crop my prints. In fact, I like the aspect ratio of HDTV and Apple Cinenma Displays much better than old school 4/3.

[erichK]

The main thing I don't like about 4/3 is the aspect ratio. It's the old view camera ratio and I prefer the look of 8 x 12 and 12 x 18 prints. I rarely crop my prints. In fact, I like the aspect ratio of HDTV and Apple Cinenma Displays much better than old school 4/3.
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Then you have an excellent reason not to opt for 4/3.  The debates about ideal formats are endless and there have been many experiments over the years to "correct"  the elongated 3/2 of 35mm, which was initially based on the doubling of a 18/24 cinematic film frame, with formats like half frame, APS, 24x32, etc.  There does remain a somewhat significant advantage in the more effective utilization of a lense's image circle by formats that are closer to square.

This  brings me back to my real main point  "gingerbaker" made it rather weell on another thread (comparing the N and C's latest) in his april 17. 2006. which I hope he doesn't mind my quoting:

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If Atkins' "bigger formats will prevail" argument worked, medium format would have taken over from 35mm format film rather than the other way around. The basic flaw of all such arguments is ignoring or denying the advantages of smaller formats, such as size, weight and cost, advantages which have driven shifts in market dominance from 8x10" format to 4"x5" format to medium format to 35mm format, and now to APS-C and smaller digital formats. History shows that as image quality improves at any given format, an increasing proportion of photographers opt for the advantages of a smaller format.

Likewise for Michael Reichmann's "Please sir – could I have a smaller negative?": that is _exactly_ what a great proportion of photographers asked for when they started buying 35mm gear instead of the previously dominant medium format, particularly in the late 1950's and 1960's, once SLR's like the Nikon F came along.
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4/3 is IMHO primarily a courageous attempt to start another such trend.  Other motivations, such as Oly's occasional penchant for weird optical systems (possibly a step child of their endoscope, etc. extpertise), search for a market niche, sensor cost likely also obtain. But compactness and weight are the most important advantages.  They may have jumped the gun, as the long wait--perhaps eternal--wait for a 10+ mp E-1 successor suggests (and as they did with the PenFT/Fv, whose half-frame images the films of the times were not really adequate for), but their confidence that sensor quality will improve was a reasonable assumption which I still hope will be proven correct.  I really enjoyed being able to continually take pics as I scrambled and slid through the soaking rainforest of Dominica with a near battleship of a camera body that only weighed about a pound and a half and-with three lenses!- tucked easily into a little slinger bad when we had to actually climb or leap.