No offense, but you're not going to buy enough 4/3 equipment to sustain the market.
The essential problem with 4/3 involves resolution and sensor/pixel size which, so far, have been pretty much unbeatable. Bigger sensor, more and bigger pixels equals better quality...and it really doesn't matter how good the Olympus lenses are. We're no longer using film, where everybody had the same sensor, so that lenses were *the* critical element in the system. Now, sensors are just as important. So if you want the best quality in 35mm-sized equipment (without going to the outrageously expensive and only marginally better MF gear), then you go with full-frame gear, or, at least, with a system that could accommodate FF gear eventually, as with Pentax or Leica. 4/3 is designed *not* to accommodate FF sensors. If you don't need the resolution or quality of 35mm gear, then why pay near-FF price for an Olympus, when you can get such good-quality cameras as the G9, or the many super zooms, which are both smaller and cheaper?
JC
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Honestly, I'm confused. You start out talking about bigger sensor equals better quality, then you end up praising the G9 which has far less than 25% the surface area of a 4/3 sensor.
I don't agree at all that you have to go to FF 35mm to get "quality" images. Although it is true that bigger pixels will be quieter than small pixels, the issue of "fill-factor" still exists. Also, there is more on-sensor noise-removal/reduction and other advances in in-camera image-processing going on to choke a horse. Look at how noisy the Canon 10D looks now. A few years ago, it was the cat's meow in ultra-quiet sensors. Now, the G9 with a sensor 1/6 the size is rivaling it or exceeding it in quality. At what point have we hit the point of diminishing returns? At what point do we recognize that the sliding scale of "image quality" is just a means of getting us to part with our money for new equipment?
Of course, we're hanging out on the website of the poster-child of "Seekers of the Holy Grail." When was the last time we've seen Michael say "this sensor/back is now sufficient". I wonder if he even has his G9 anymore--of which he praised to the point of near embarrasement.
Personally, I am very interested in the micro 4/3 for more reasons than I could outline here in a few moments. When you consider that 95% of my images are cropped to 5x7 or 4x5 ratios, an APS-C or even FF 35mm frame is heavily wasted. I have further discovered that DoF and Bokeh issues are MORE an issue of lens design than "format". Maybe that's why I still prefer to use 30 year old lenses on my DSLR. (yes, my entire stable of FF 35mm lenses are used on my 4/3 camera)
Granted, I am still saddened that Olympus did not persue FF-35mm digital. That has been a thorn of contention for me, but the fact is, that I can count on less than a full hand of fingers the number of images not adequately fulfilled because the sensor was only 4/3. No more than TWO images per year. But that's me, and if I think I want FF-35mm for an image, I happen to actually use the ultimate 35mm film-camera--an OM-4T. (yes, I am biased). But that's what professionals do--they use the proper tool for a job and no more. No need to haul out the 8x10 field camera to do a grip-n-grin for the newspaper.
As innovative as Olympus has been through the decades, and with the exceptional lens quality they are known for, I can't imagine that Nikon and Canon will stay quiet for long. We've been crying for a camera of this category for years. The bridge cameras got really close before they ALL disappeared from the marketplace. The Konica-Minolta really ending up being best-of-class followed very closely by the Olympus C8080. Now, nothing.
More power to Olympus for taking the risk. Had they not, we wouldn't have had the Pen series, the OM-series, which were absolutely tiny compared to every other DSLR at the time, the XA, and of course, they pioneered the concept of the bridge camera or "all-in-one" camera.
But none of these advancements matter not to the modern armchair photographers who compare which is "best" based totally on the noise-comparison and res-charts published on DPR. But ask these same people how a camera will capture the colors of an African Violet??? Do these same poeple know what the actual wavelength sensitivity curves are for a given camera? Do they realize that some cameras cannot capture the color purple at all--except for the purple rendered in pigment or dye on a MacBeth colorchecker?
No, it's all resolution and high-iso sensitivity. Yes, ONLY Full Frame 35mm will deliver the "best". That's it--everything else is an "also-ran".
Meanwhile, ever since day one of digital, it has been generally accepted that with rare exception, Olympus has not only the best skintones and image-color, but the best overall lenses. Even the least-expensive kit lenses are excellent performers. Can the same be said of the other manufacturers?
Excuse the rant--this is NOT aimed at you, John. I know my fanboyism is showing, but I can give you a whole list of areas where Olympus DSLR products stink, but strangely enough, not in the areas that you'd assume.
Ken
