Hi OM folks
I am new to the list and have enjoyed the threads in here, and learnt a lot
already since joining on Saturday! I am old to OM however, buying my first
OM-1 some 23 years ago. I run a new media company here in the UK and spend
too much time using Photoshop, digital cameras/video and generally working
with pixels!
After a brief flirt with C*n*n on a safari in Kenya this year, I have
actually "rediscovered" the joy of the OM's, and have bought some wonderful
gear (OM4Ti, 21mm 3.5, 55mm 1.2 F280 flash, MD1....) thanks to the great
online information now available and to the ubiquitous e-bay!
I am very confident that the OM system has plenty of years left in it
because it combines the essentials: great optics, best-in-class metering,
durability and portability, etc etc.
I would like to drop my 2 cents into the digital debate, and say that like
many technologies, digital cameras are finding their place, but just as
medium format has survived many years after 35mm, I'm sure that digital will
continue to make great strides into the consumer p&s market as well as the
speed-of-production pro markets such as journalism and real estate.
For photo enthusiasts and pros striving for quality, I'm sure that film will
remain the medium of choice for many years. I also work in pro audio, where
there has been a renaissance in analogue recording equipment. Vintage mics
and pre-amplifiers sell for amazing prices now, as engineers know that
analogue circuits distort out-of-range sounds in a much more pleasing way
than digital. I think we see the same results with pixels, where silver
halide grains can produce beautiful results when deliberately over or under
exposed, whereas a digital camera's CCD can easily distort bright or dark
areas. Colour temperature and saturation are other examples where film is
still far more sophisticated than the CCD.
For the camera just like the microphone, the point of capture is the most
critical part of the signal quality chain. We can use the film scanner or
drum scanner to translate film into digital with far greater depth and
resolution (non-real time) than a camera-sized real time CCD will ever
achieve. As camera CCDs become more advanced, so will film scanners, so we
can be confident that film will stay ahead of digital cameras for resolution
and image quality.
In the mean time, for those of us who also occasionally need speed of
production, how about a digital OM body, Olympus? I know Olly have focused
on the all-in-ones, but both Canon and Nikon offer hi-end digital SLRs (D30,
new EOS 1d and D5 etc) which make sense for pros who have invested in their
lenses. Likewise, it would be great to have a digital OM-body to share our
investment in all these wonderful Zuiko lenses? This would provide Olly
with a great flagship digital product, while combining their film/digital
expertise and helping to boost Zuiko sales........
Sorry for the long rant as a first posting!!
Laurence
Laurence Pearce
St Albans, UK
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