Its nice to see Leica glass in DSLR format but its really a shame its not on a full frame CMOS camera to take advatage of it. The 4/3 format drives me crazy. Nothing like only using half the lens surface, mirror and sensor being nearly half the size. I would really hesitate putting tons of money into a lens system that is not necessarily as established or as mainstream as Canon or Nikon.
Well, first of all, the FourThirds system was designed from the ground-up, so everything, form the lenses to the mirror box to the distance from the rear element to the sensor, is optimized for a sensor that size, in the same way that a 35mm film camera's internal parts are for the 35mm format. That is the main difference (besides sensor size, of course) between FourThirds and "crop" formats.
Canon's for instance can't be fully optimized, because the distance from the mount to the sensor is limited so it can take regular EF lenses. The same should go for Nikon's.
Secondly, the FourThirds format has not half the sensor surface nor size of a 35mm format camera. It is more like 1/4. It IS that small. My gripe with FourThirds is that their advantage is in size/price, and NOT image quality or control. Up till now, they haven't taken any of those advantages at all, they seem to wanna compete with the likes of Canon's EF-S and such, and unless they take the size/price advantage, they will always lose. Their cameras are the same size, or bigger than Canon's offerings.
And even if what you said was true, what surface of what lens (element) are you talking about? Even with actual "crop" cameras, every point of the front element is used, so for longer focal lengths, the size and weight of the lenses will be pretty much the same. The difference is that for a similar angle of view, with a FourThirds system you will need half the focal length. The advantage also comes with the wide angles. That is where the same focal length lens will be smaller and lighter for a smaller format.
I think the FourThirds system is very interesting, but it is trying to reach for too much. It could be a very good segway from compacts to "full-frame", but it can't pretend to be as "prosumer" as a "crop" camera, which still has a considerable sensor size advantage. It HAS to take the size/price advantage against it. It can't compete for quality or control as they are pretending.
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Its nice to see Leica glass in DSLR format but its really a shame its not on a full frame CMOS camera to take advatage of it. The 4/3 format drives me crazy. Nothing like only using half the lens surface, mirror and sensor being nearly half the size. I would really hesitate putting tons of money into a lens system that is not necessarily as established or as mainstream as Canon or Nikon.
Well, first of all, the FourThirds system was designed from the ground-up, so everything, form the lenses to the mirror box to the distance from the rear element to the sensor, is optimized for a sensor that size, in the same way that a 35mm film camera's internal parts are for the 35mm format. That is the main difference (besides sensor size, of course) between FourThirds and "crop" formats.
Canon's for instance can't be fully optimized, because the distance from the mount to the sensor is limited so it can take regular EF lenses. The same should go for Nikon's.
Secondly, the FourThirds format has not half the sensor surface nor size of a 35mm format camera. It is more like 1/4. It IS that small. My gripe with FourThirds is that their advantage is in size/price, and NOT image quality or control. Up till now, they haven't taken any of those advantages at all, they seem to wanna compete with the likes of Canon's EF-S and such, and unless they take the size/price advantage, they will always lose. Their cameras are the same size, or bigger than Canon's offerings.
And even if what you said was true, what surface of what lens (element) are you talking about? Even with actual "crop" cameras, every point of the front element is used, so for longer focal lengths, the size and weight of the lenses will be pretty much the same. The difference is that for a similar angle of view, with a FourThirds system you will need half the focal length. The advantage also comes with the wide angles. That is where the same focal length lens will be smaller and lighter for a smaller format.
I think the FourThirds system is very interesting, but it is trying to reach for too much. It could be a very good segway from compacts to "full-frame", but it can't pretend to be as "prosumer" as a "crop" camera, which still has a considerable sensor size advantage. It HAS to take the size/price advantage against it. It can't compete for quality or control as they are pretending.