on 12/5/03 8:53 PM, NSURIT@xxxxxxx at NSURIT@xxxxxxx wrote:
> I've been to the mountain (or at least my local retailer) and unless this
> thing goes in the tank in the very near future, I'll probably have one in the
> next year or so. Probably the E-2. Can see 3 or 4 lenses taking the place
> of
> many more I now own (no, I'm not getting rid of them). The camera has a nice
> feel to it and with the battery pack & standard zoom lens, I think it is
> probably lighter than my OM 2S with winder and 35-105mm Zuiko.
>
> Has anybody mentioned that the 4/3 format is the same as for a standard TV
> set, which means absolutely nothing unless one wants to speculate that it was
> designed by the TV generation rather than the guys who designed a camera
> around
> a movie film format. I'm sure this may be way off and it may generate another
> OT thread that when rolled into a ball stands 14 ft tall and sets a new
> Guinness World Record.
>
> Hey man, all I did was plant the da#eed. I didn't know what would grow
> out of it. { 8^) Bill Barber
>
Bill - The 4/3 format is the same aspect ratio as standard TV because TV
evolved from the old-timey movie format... which was based on the
'single-frame' 35mm -- which Olympus was quite familiar with from the Pen
series. The Pen's 18mm x 24mm negative is a 4/3 ratio, which is portrait
oriented rather than landscape. That's not necessary with the digital sensor
because there's no film movement to accomodate.
A side note, Yashica made a landscape-format half-frame camera, which ran
the film vertically and looked sort of like a compact camcorder.
I think the 4/3 format works pretty well for digital because until recently
most computer monitors were also 4/3 aspect ratio, so the display could be
'full monitor' quite efficiently... this changes now as the HDTV aspect
ratio is more like 16:9, or 'widescreen'. I think the 4/3 ratio also matches
to 'standard' paper sizes more efficiently, like 6x7 fits onto 8" x 10"
paper more efficiently.
--
Jim Brokaw
OM-'s of all sorts, and no OM-oney...
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