I am in agreement about the full-frame compact that takes our old
lenses. We're getting closer and closer, but never so far away. I'm
just dragging my feet.
We've gone through dark periods before in the photographic industry
where all the fancy advancements were in junk cameras. It took Canon
almost 10 years before the EOS film cameras evolved to the point where
you could settle into one for the long-haul. The EOS-1 was the
exception, but even that took a long time in coming. Nikon hadn't
matured the AF film cameras until the F5/F100 combination. In digital,
DSLRs finally reached a maturity and are now into the next phase of
feature creep.
In the compacts or mirrorless or EVF cameras which are now all the
rage, we are, by no means, anywhere near maturity of product design.
We're still in the mode of jumping brands every six months because of
the rapid developments in this arena, but not a single camera
introduced or being introduced is anything more than the model of the
year. I was hoping the Sony NEX-7 would be something worth a few years
worth of use, but it isn't the complete package either.
When Olympus developed the OM system, it took five years for them to
build the system with 250 possible componants. Of that 250, only one
was a camera body. These 250 items were all available at launch or
near launch. It was complete at the start. Everything after that was
improvements are variants of existing. So far, in the world of these
new mirrorless cameras, the "system" aspect is pretty much limited to
"hey, we've got two zoom lenses."
The new Fuji XPRO1 is going to rock. You could fill up a swimming pool
with my drooling. Full-frame? No, unfortunately. If it was full-frame,
Fuji would instantly launch themselves into the Number 2 or even 1
camera manufacturer position. I believe that the pent-up demand is so
massive that whichever company does this will literally dominate the
industry and be the game changer like Canon was to Kodak. As long as
the price is reasonable and not moronic like the Sigma DSLR, it will
be curtains for a lot of companies.
I'm seeing a pattern with the Olympus leaks. Been there, done that. I
hope they have plenty of soap. They're going to have treadmarks from
the bus all over them.
AG
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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