The mantra of Olympus designers, past and present,
seems to be that of always trying to make something as
small as it can be, but not sacrificing quality to do
so. The OM system and most of their point and shoots
and even most of their digital cameras seem to follow
this mantra. (Although with circutry the way it is I
think it is much easier to shrink a digicam than a P&S
any further) Maitani seems have been the best at this,
he made an entire full featured SLR system basically
form scratch that was unimaginably small and light
(and it is still small, although not light, from
today's standpoint) in just a few years.
Oly point and shoot designers squeezed every last mm
out of some of their designs, and yet they didn't
skimp on quality nor did they price their cameras
outside of the normal person's price range for such a
camera. Heck they designed their cameras specifically
for the normal person, but still retained features a
pro could use. Without Oly I think today's cameras
would be a whole lot bulkier than they are.
One of the best things that Olympus did was to
incorporate titanium as a standard in their OM camera
bodies. Other manufacturers did this and dropped it
quickly, but Olympus made it a standard design
feature. I wonder what would happen though if someone
did vcome out with a carbon fiber constructed camera.
It would be light, but probably a heck of a lot
stronger than the plastimagic SLR's of today. Too bad
it would probably cost a mint and there is little
market pressure for this type of development (I think)
Mark Lloyd
--- Tom@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 12, 2001 at 15:35, Daniel J.
> Mitchell
> wrote re "RE: [OM] Trouble in OM paradise" saying:
>
> > > Way back when Maitani came up with some
> brilliant
> > > ideas to conserve camera weight on an SLR and
> thus the
> > > OM system was born.
> >
> > Just curious -- what did he do that made them
> lighter than the
> > competition?
>
> No removable prism. Shutter dial around lens.
> Re-design from first
> principles. Use shutter strings not ribbons. Use
> latest materials (as of
> 1972) See
> http://www.geocities.com/maitani_fan/om_1.html
>
> > > Today the thinking seems to be
> > > 'its plastic, it'll be lighter so lets just
> replace
> > > every metal piece with plastic.' The metal OM
> bodies
> > > just can't compete with an all plastic body in
> terms
> > > of lightness; same thing about lenses.
>
> Well, if they used more titanium & carbon fibre....
>
> The Olympus Stylus Epic is probably the smallest
> full-frame 35 (The
> Tessina is smaller but heavier and has 14x21mm negs)
> and it has auto
> focus, spot metering, motor drive & rewind and
> energy-saving flash.
> Plastic body, f/2.8, 145g, the size of 3 film boxes,
> and $80. So they
> haven't lost their creativity.
>
> tOM
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