I received the following letter from John Knaur from Olympus in regards to
building a
digital body to take advantage of existing Zuiko lens. Although his explanation
may contain
some factual technical reasoning, it falls way off the target of explaining
Olympus's
motives. I believe Olympus feels it will be much more profitable for their
company to sell
their consumer grade single chip digital cameras than to produce a professional
digital
system. There are some absolute professional digital systems running of of
traditional
lenses designed for film. It's appears that Olympus is just trying to confuse
the market
into believing that their consumer grade digital cameras are of high enough
quality for
professional imaging. Lenses are designed to produce an image form light
falling on to flat
plane ... digital or film. Sure the field of view may be different using the
same lenses
for digital vs. film, but that's about it. This is marketing mumbo jumbo.
John Knaur wrote
"Phillip,
I am only guessing as to your question, our server crashed after your mail came
in and the
message was damaged.
We at Olympus are dedicated to the highest image quality, In 35mm photography
this
manifested itself as the OM system and many
remarkable lenses. As we designed these for the film market we also have the
same dedication
to the digital market. This unfortunately means
that lenses designed for film are not really usable in the digital world. I
know many of our
competitors are offering this functionality, we feel we
can do better. Attached is a power point show which should run on your computer
with a
couple of illustrations on the differences between
digital and film lenses and why we are now designing digital lenses instead of
recycling
older designs and technologies.
Like myself I am sure you have a large investment in OM lenses and do not wish
to abandon or
replace these lenses. They will work well with you existing OM bodies, but we
feel are not
adequate for true digital photography.
John Knaur"
I will forward the lens.pps Microsoft Power Point file if the list is
interested.
Phillip Franklin
< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >
|