Nicholas,
I'm not disagreeing with you on the facts, but possibly so on the premise.
Do I personally believe that a "less than full-frame sensor" is
inferior? Well, yes, I do. The proof in the resulting images from the
various sizes of sensors is proof. As sensor and processing technology
continue to improve, the smaller sensor cameras are able to match or
even better the image quality from earlier generations of full-frame
sensors, but at the same time, the technology is being applied to
full-frame sensors so the concept of "Image Quality" remains a moving
target. We do, eventually, reach a point of sufficiency. In reality,
we reached that point years ago. From what I'm seeing from the OM-D,
even Four-Thirds sensors have finally arrived. Olympus and Panasonic
have done very well with this new sensor and I really don't have any
issues with it, other than it's just a couple meg below what is now
the standard pixel count for a professional-grade camera. However,
even at that, I can give Olympus a pass because an 18mp 2x3 sensor
will force you to throw away 2mp to match Four-Thirds sensors in many
common print sizes.
So, this leaves the lenses to consider. I do have a problem with this
because I personally am not willing to abandon film quite yet. In
fact, I will likely keep shooting film for as long as I am not on the
root-side of the flowers. I also greatly value the particular way the
lenses I use happen to "draw" the image. I've gotten very accustomed
to the way the OM Zuikos draw and find most other brands of lenses to
draw in a way that I find less appealing. Not bad, but they just don't
rock my world. So, Olympus and Panasonic have some really amazing new
lenses for the digital cameras. They are EXCELLENT lenses, but few of
them draw the way I like them to draw. The 45/1.8 is very close,
though. But these are one-off lenses, not the entire series. Most
modern lenses are more utilitarian in the way they draw. Not bad at
all, but also a bit too true. I like my images to have some character
and the OM Zuikos provide that.
Are the digital lenses with telecentric designs necessary? Back 10
years ago, the answer is "yes". But since then there have been a lot
of advances in the IR/UV/AA layers over the sensor. The stack in front
of the E-1's sensor is among the thickest ever made. You really don't
need a dust system with the E-1 because the dust specs are a LONG
distance from the sensor itself. When the light path has to traverse
this filter stack at an angle, very bad things happen. But when the
filter stack is kept thin and the UV/IR filtering is done using
coatings instead of glass band-pass filters, off-axis light paths
don't matter as much. The AA filters are so small now (pixel density)
that they have little effect on off-axis light. The microlenses are
also significantly different now than 10 years ago.
I have many thousands of images taken with the E-1 and DMC-L1 using
the OM lenses that prove that whatever fears of using legacy glass
instilled by Olympus or whomever, is largely unfounded.
Honesly, my one real reason for wanting a larger sensor is to allow
use of these legendary lenses in a way they were originally intended
with the designed coverage angles. That's why I've suggested time and
again for the use of the reducing optics to make these lenses work
with the same coverage angles that they do on full-frame. Nothing
magical.
AG
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