{"id":3082,"date":"2010-02-28T08:54:06","date_gmt":"2010-02-27T22:54:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3082"},"modified":"2010-02-28T09:37:59","modified_gmt":"2010-02-27T23:37:59","slug":"the-very-exciting-future-of-micro-four-thirds-cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.ayton.id.au\/wp02\/?p=3082","title":{"rendered":"The very exciting future of Micro Four Thirds cameras – native field of view and SWD AF for Olympus OM lenses as well??"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite all the other cameras that I own, including dSLRs such as Canon 1D Mark III, Olympus E-510, Olympus E-330, it is the unique characteristics of design of the Micro Four Thirds<\/a> which has me, and much of the photographic world truly excited.<\/p>\n

It has sufficient image quality to address the needs of most photographers<\/strong>, indeed, the DxO tests of the Panasonic GH-1 showed it to have less image noise and more dynamic range at ALL ISO levels than the new Canon APS-C dSLRs – the Canon 550D and Canon 7D.<\/p>\n

The system now has enough lenses and bodies and versatility<\/strong> that there should be a reasonable selection of a compact, light, relativley quiet and non-intrusive high image quality camera kit which you can take anywhere and also do HD video, and in the case of the GH-1 and its excellent HD kit lens, you get the only continuous AF HD video capability out there.<\/p>\n

One of the beauties of its design is it very short lens mount flange to sensor distance<\/strong> which not only allows use of almost any legacy lens ever made to be used on it such as Leica M rangefinder, Olympus Pen half-frame, and ANY 35mm film or digital lens – albeit in manual focus, but it’s design allows the fastest access to accurate manual focus currently available.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, when used on Olympus bodies, all these lenses can be image stabilised<\/strong> and used at up to ISO 1600 with good image quality – something 35mm film photographers could only ever have dream’t about.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but you can now get adapters which will also convert nearly ALL those 35mm lenses into tilt and shift lenses<\/strong> for awesome versatility unheard of before, and now Olympus has also filed a patent to create a 0.5x wide angle converter for OM lenses<\/strong> so that they can be used at their native field of view and aperture, thus an OM 21mm f\/3.5 lens when currently used on a M43 camera has a field of view of a 42mm lens, while letting in the equivalent light of a f\/3.5 lens and having a depth of field similar to a 42mm f\/7 lens, this new wide angle adapter means that this lens will once again have a field of view of 21mm lens and a depth of field of a 21mm f\/3.5 but an exposure capability of an f\/1.7 lens, and be image stabilised.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but if I am reading this patent<\/a> correctly, it will convert ALL Olympus OM legacy lenses back to their native field of view and depth of field and with twice the brightness for shorter exposures AND adds SWD autofocus capability to all of them!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now wouldn’t that be awesome!<\/p>\n

And of course, you can extend this versatility to your creative needs by using the nice Art Filters, and do all this even in HD video with full manual exposure control if you wish.<\/p>\n

BUT, this is only the beginning of this revolution!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

The next Panasonic GH-2 is likely to have high end HD video capability<\/strong>, but more importantly, the first global silent digital shutter <\/strong>which has the potential to radically change everything:<\/p>\n