The Online Photographer

Following days of rolling leaks, it's finally official, at midnight tonight here in the wilds of the American Midwest: Olympus has released its long-awaited and much-anticipated Micro 4/3 camera, the "Pen" E-P1. By most estimations it's the fifth camera of the new breed of large-sensor compacts. The advantage of a large-sensor compact is that it can be as portable and handy as a digicam, while yielding results of sufficient quality to treat interchangeably with your DSLR pictures.


The retro-styled E-P1 hearkens back to Maitani's Pen 35mm half-frame cameras, as emphasized by Olympus in its teaser campaign. But it's a fully "convergent" appliance, with video and sound recording in addition to having the digital image recording functions of a still camera. Naturally, much of the press information has to do with all the nifty things the onboard processing can do (19 scene modes and so forth), and the fact that, in the words of the press release, "its diverse multimedia features offer something for everyone." (I've been disciplining myself all day not to make any snide wisecracks about "art filters" applied to videos. We'll see how I do.)

However, it certainly also looks like a mouth-wateringly appealing camera, for those of us who are mainly photographers. Eamon Hickey has actually spent time with the camera and lenses, so I will mostly defer to his report (which will follow this post, tomorrow morning). But here are a few random observations and points of interest from me, before I turn it over to Eamon:

• There's a full set of accessories, including straps and cases, a dedicated flash, two lenses, a matching optical viewfinder for the 17mm lens, protective filters, and lenscaps in three colors: magenta, green, and black. (I'm not sure about lens hoods.)

• The estimated street prices for the U.S. will be $750 for the body, only $800 for the body and zoom, and only $900 for the body, 17mm, and* the 17mm's matching optical hot-shoe-mounted viewfinder (such viewfinders can usually cost $150 0r more all by themselves). It would seem fairly obvious from that pricing structure that Olympus would like you to buy your choice of its matching lenses and not just the body.

• There are two dedicated adapters available out of the gate from Olympus, one for full-size 4/3 lenses and one for older manual-focus 35mm OM Zuiko lenses. Leica M, Canon FD, and several other adapters are already available for Micro 4/3.

• The two initial lenses, a fixed-focal-length 17mm ƒ/2.8 (34mm-e) that takes 37mm filters, and a 14–42mm ƒ/3.5–5.6 (28–84mm-e) zoom that takes 40.5mm filters, are available in either silver or black.

• It has body-integral image stabilization (a feature I personally have a big weakness for, comma, yikes).

• It has Olympus's Supersonic Wave dust reduction system, but is not weather sealed or splashproof.

• Hers and his? Olympus isn't marketing them that way, but the two available color schemes sure have that look to me.

The new E-P1 is obviously a deluxe product, on which a great deal of thought, care, and design effort has been lavished. I can't wait to read the coming tests and reviews, see the results it's capable of, and of course hold one in my very own hot little hands.

More to come.

Send this post to a friend

Featured Comment by Luke Smith: "E-P1 design theme:

"The Voigtlander 35mm VF works fine except for the greasy noseprints on the screen. The aspect ratio is a little off, but close enough for snapshots."

Featured Comment by Sam G.: "I can just picture photojournalists from the 1930s talking about that new 35mm format: 'What, no groundglass? That's a deal breaker.' 'You mean I gotta close one eye and look through this little viewfinder? Maybe my wife would like it but I don't think it could be used for anything serious.' 'Look at the size of the film! There's no way you could get a good print out of that.' 'Sure it could fit in my briefcase, but if I'm going to bring that I might as well bring my Graflex and get better image quality.'"

Mike replies: Sam, you laugh, but in point of fact that IS how photographers in the '30s reacted to 35mm. Back then, even rollfilm cameras (what we would call medium format) were sometimes referred to as "miniature," because of all the folding cameras used by amateur snapshooters. For a long time 35mm was considered a "toy" and only a few iconoclasts like Rodchenko and Cartier-Bresson attempted to commit to it for serious work. It wasn't until the '50s that it began to gain widespread acceptance, and not until the '70s was it really accepted for much professional work outside of a select few fields like sports and photojournalism—until then, pros from advertising guys to wedding shooters shot large and medium format for the most part. And many continued to. I knew a small-town portraitist in the late '90s, a very interesting guy of the WWII generation, who had never used a 35mm for his work—he just used them for fun and family snapshots. Even mass-production school portraits he shot on 70mm long rolls.

The web is awash this morning in Olympus Micro 4/3 leakage...check out this page at Xitek.com for a summary. There is surely much unhappiness at Olympus over this, but hey, once it's out there, it's out there....

Send this post to a friend

ADDENDUM: Optical viewfinder for the 17mm pancake.

By Dean Johnston

'Tuther day, while at my local book store, I discovered the new DP2 & DP1 Manual in Photo Mook format. A mook is a combination magazine/book, a particularly Japanese thing. They tend to be mini-books focused on one topic/product printed in higher-quality magazine format, with nice heavier-than-usual stock for the pages and good printing of images. They can be quite lovely. The content tends to be a combination of nice examples, fatherly technical advice, nice display of accessories (from various sources) and gentle comparison with other products in the same market. This one is published by Nippon Camera.

Anyway, what really caught my attention about this one was one of the photo example/essay sections. Seems someone has taken the time to visit Wetzlar and Solms with a DP2 and take some landscapes and street shots! I had to chuckle....

Send this post to a friend

Sigma DP2, shown with Lensmate DP1 adapter and Vivitar lens shade, Delkin LCD shade, and Helios viewfinder

By Roger Suppona

It didn't take long into the ownership of my first DSLR for me to realize that a heavy slab of a camera would not be the best choice for many occasions. So I've been on a somewhat futile search for a carry-around camera that would be the digital equivalent of the classic 35mm rangefinders like those from Yashica, Canon, Minolta, etc.: Competent devices with decent lenses. The Sigma DP2 is my current choice as their equivalent. And, as Ken notes in his review, the DP2's got issues.

The DP2 shines a bright light on a sad fact: purchasing a "prosumer-grade" digital point-and-shoot camera is to understand and accept that you will not get what you want. You will get a subset of what you want. For everything else you will either do without or you will accept the manufacturer's methods and specifications for those features you once deemed "must haves." Imagine if the DSLR side of the house was run that way. There are certainly compromises to be made when choosing a DSLR, but I'd argue that many of them result from brand loyalty or very specific requirements.

I'm into my third attempt at ownership of a small, high-quality digital camera. My DP2's predecessors were a Konica-Minolta A2 followed by a Canon G9. The A2's battery life was about as bad as the DP2's. The vertical grip/two battery holder was pretty much required and pretty much made the A2 as bulky as a DSLR. Couple that with a sensor and firmware that turned images captured at speeds over ISO 100 into mush. Still, it had a fly-by-wire focus ring mounted on the lens; manual focus was a dream compared to most digital P&S cameras. The G9 almost made it to ISO 800 before its images turned to mush. The viewfinder was useless enough that it could have been omitted. Manual focus was fiddly and shoving it into or taking it out of a pocket generally resulted in some dial getting twisted from its intended setting. More than once I was confused by the camera's antics until I figured out it had ended up in video mode. For all that it was one well-built camera. It felt right in the hand and turned out very nice images at sensitivities below 800.

Now there is my DP2. I've owned it for about a month. What a ride: It has locked up three times (but not since I've since updated the firmware to v. 1.01). I thought it was defective the first time I experienced the cacophony that is the sound of its autofocus. The icons on the black buttons are also black. I have to remember which menu-entry point has the thing that I want to do. I suspect I will end up with a third battery to overcome the camera's electrical gluttony. Despite all of that, I'm picking up the DP2 and taking it out and using it almost every day.

I want to learn this camera, understand its weak and strong points and figure out how to make it all work. It's a love-hate relationship that seems worth the effort. I did not feel the same way about the A2 or the G9. Blame it on the sensor and the glass in front of it. I like the look of the images that come off the DP2's lens/sensor combination. I described it in my comment to Ken's review as "film-like." I can't think of a better quality for any lens/sensor combination.

The glass works well: It's a fixed-focal length that opens to ƒ/2.8. It's field of view is equivalent to a 41mm lens. Close enough to my favorite focal length of 35mm. A sweet wide-normal lens with a practical maximum aperture; life is good. Then there's the sensor. It's DSLR-class in a P&S body. There's a pushed-processed film look to its ISO 1600 images that work very well when converted to monochrome. It's as if Sigma decided to embrace sensor noise rather than fight or obfuscate it. I've not played with ISO 3200 much but there are excellent examples on the web. I'll get around to trying 3200, but I suspect that 1600 will be my top end: I like its look. On the low end is ISO 50; more opportunities to shoot wide open.

About that green cast. Mine has it under certain conditions. It is easy to spot if I make a test shot through the Chinese "white balance" lens cap I've stuck on it. But otherwise I have a hard time seeing it. I convert my images to monochrome so I'm not going to agonize over it. I do hope that it can be corrected or at least the conditions identified that contribute to the effect. I've noticed that it's less pronounced when I process images via the new release candidate version of Adobe Camera Raw instead of Sigma's software, so there's hope.

The DP2 is Good Enough. I would recommend one to a friend. It would be an Informed Consent, The Usual Disclaimers Apply, Your Mileage May Vary sort of recommendation. It's a good camera that's much more capable than my duffer-class photographic ability. I don't know if Sigma is listening to all of the yammering about the various issues folks are having with the DP2. I hope that they are and that they will take them to heart should they announce a DP3.

This camera's got legs. They just need to be a bit stronger. Regardless, I'm keeping mine and investing time to learn how to use it.

Roger

Send this post to a friend

Thanks to L•Camera TV.

Mike
(Thanks to Vlatko)

Send this post to a friend

Olympus has [apparently] started a teaser campaign linking the [alleged] upcoming Micro 4/3 camera with the 50th anniversary of Maitani-san's famous half-frame Pen camera. It looks like it's going to be a long, hard slog before we get to real information, so just keep telling yourself "they could be telling us nothing, they could be telling us nothing..." as we go along, and try to enjoy it....

Send this post to a friend

Featured Comment by Ray Bullen (Ow, Dept.): "Surely it's an Olympus Pen-Ding for now...."

Fast, compact, and quiet—that's the gestalt of the K-7, which is a perfect match to Pentax's beautiful Limited prime lenses.

Finally, finally, finally, a Japanese camera manufacturer has broken with the size/quality lockstep that has been like a hard-and-fast, albeit unspoken rule among Japanese cameramakers throughout most of the digital era. I've long noticed it and bemoaned it many times...better cameras always have to be bigger, and smaller cameras are always aimed at lower levels of the market, typically the undemanding "entry level" that doesn't mind the inevitable cut corners. The new K-7 supersedes the K20D as Pentax's top-of-the-line offering, and it's higher spec'd in almost every way, but it's appreciably smaller than even the smallish K20D...and much smaller than something like the Nikon D700.

Well, all right.

K-7 vs. K20D size comparison. 756g vs. 815g as shown here, with batteries.

Features (some of 'em)
Okay, now, as you might expect, the new camera, which will list for $1,299, has video. But since that's not my thing, I won't say much about it—I'm sure you're capable of reading the spec sheet for yourself. But here's a rundown of the features you probably expect, followed by a few you don't:

New stuff:

Big honkin' Nikon next to the cruiser-class Pentax. AF-Nikkor 28mm ƒ/2.8 on the left and DA 15mm ƒ/4 on the right. As shown, 1,306g vs. 937g on the ol' Pelouze scale.

Shutter noise
One of the big deals about the K-7 to me is the shutter noise. It's very quiet. The main point of having a smallish camera is so that it's easy to carry it around with you wherever you go; and if you're using it as a visual notepad, you might call it, then quite often it's useful not to call attention to yourself by clacking away piercingly and drawing stares from anyone nearby. The K-7's shutter is quiet for an SLR by any standard, both in the level and the type of noise it makes. The AF noise is actually louder than the shutter.

Handling
Although I'm sure Pentax has worked very hard on the many improvements embodied in the K-7, to some extent we take these incremental improvements for granted (fairly or not): it's faster, it meters better, it's got more features (I like the way it automatically corrects image orientation, for example). Etc. But really, the big deal about the K-7 is handling. It's a carry-around style of camera, and feels good in your hand and on your shoulder. In case you can't quite read the picture above, my son is holding the camera up in the air; the point is that the handgrip is beefy and deep enough that you can easily hold the camera with just your four fingers stuck in the grip while you change cards with the other hand. (The card compartment, despite being weatherproof, is the new style that opens with thumb pressure, too, like the D700 and other newer cameras. It's an improvement on the overly fussy latch on the K20D.)

A brace of K-7's...on the left with the DA Limited 15mm ƒ/4, on the right with the DA Star 55mm ƒ/1.4.

I'll have more to say about the K-7, I'm sure, in the weeks to come, especially if and when Pentax sends me a final production version with no restrictions on image publication.

So, more anon.

Oh, and one more trivial point: it's handsomer than the K20D, too.

Mike

Send this post to a friend

DxO Labs announced today that the 60.5-MP Phase One P65+ medium-format digital back, with a DxOMark Sensor score of 89 points, has taken the lead in the overall DxOMark Sensor rankings on its popular www.dxomark.com website. Up until now, shooting in low light has been challenging for medium-format cameras when compared to other digital cameras, but thanks to a newly-revised binning implementation (incorporated in its new "Sensor Plus" feature), the P65+'s low-light performance has helped closed the gap. Its higher Low-Light ISO score, combined with excellent scores for both Color Depth and Dynamic Range, has propelled it to the first-place slot among all cameras in the DxOmark database, regardless of format. (MSRP on the P65+ is ~$40,000. See Michael Reichmann's review here.)

(See the Phase One P65+’s DxOmark ranking or read a more in-depth explanation. Note that these links are working only intermittently this morning, doubtless due to heavy traffic.)

Send this post to a friend

Featured Comment by Ctein: "Dear Folks, Michael [Reichmann] very kindly sent me a 24 x 36" print of the following photograph made with the new back:

"It's purdy, pardners. Really, really, really purdy. Sigh."

The Sigma DP2 has apparently been released into the wild...B&H is listing it as "Out of Stock" (doesn't that mean it had to be "In Stock" for a while?), and Amazon is listing it as available through 47th Street Photo, albeit for $50 more. Adorama says "Not in stock yet."

It's still possible that nobody's actually shipping it yet.

Let's Go Digital has some nice shots showing what the camera looks like, as well as some gee-whiz samples you're especially going to like if you happen to have a thing for big rigs. Most of the online samples I've seen so far look pretty darned impressive.

And wait, there's more...Check this out. Woo-hoo! Due out in early June. Jason is a veteran camera collector and was for many years the Editor of Popular Photography & Imaging when the late Burt Keppler was publishing director. Should be good.

Mike

Send this post to a friend

Carl Rytterfalk has posted some samples from the new Sigma DP2, including several shot wide open.

Starting tomorrow morning, I'm going to be doing a daily "countdown" of the current T.O.P. Recommended Cameras. I'll begin with #10 and count down to #1.

Obviously, any such list should be considered highly subjective: just one writer's take on the current state of the market. I almost opted to simply call it "T.O.P. Ten Cameras We Like." However, that list would actually be different: it would be more idiosyncratic and more subjective. The upcoming list will be tailored to recommendations: cameras in the market that we think are particularly good choices as purchases.

You will think that at least two of my choices are cop-outs, for reasons that will become clear once you see them. I consider them more in the category of "correctives," to counteract an impression that is now widespread on the web. I shall 'splain, when the time comes.

There is only one film camera left on the list. Perhaps time for a separate list?

See you tomorrow.

Send this post to a friend

Featured Comment by Gordon Lewis: "I already disagree with your choices. (Heh, heh....)"

Featured Comment by [another] Mike: "Time to settle in while Mike prepares himself for 10 days of verbal abuse at the hands of his readers."

Stephen Gandy at CameraQuest is accepting refundable deposits for those who want a Bessa III 667 from his first shipment, due in June. Announced price: $2250.

Anybody know the last time a new 6x7 or larger folder was introduced?

Send this post to a friend

Featured Comment by Harry Lime: "Very nice, but at $2250 very expensive. I suppose its relative compactness is a big selling point but for that money or a lot less you could buy...

• A mint Hasselbad with filmback and 2.8/80
• A Bronica 645RF with several lenses
• A Mamiya 7 II with lenses.
• A mint Rolleiflex or several Rolleicord with a full overhaul.
• A mint Plaubel Makina 67 2.8/80mm or 4/65

All of these options are equally portable and provide competitive or better performance. I was very interested in this camera, until I saw the price. Does it really cost Fuji/Voigtlander more money to make one of these than it does Nikon to make a D300? Do I really have to get a job with AIG to be able to afford one of these?"

Featured Comment by Tim Bradshaw: "I disagree that this is an incredibly expensive camera. I think, rather, it's probably about what you'd expect to pay for such a thing.

"Rather, I think that we've all become spoiled by how amazingly cheap things, if made in sufficient quantity, have become. It is astonishing that you can buy a DSLR for well under $1000, and even more so that you can get a perfectly decent laptop for much less than that. There's a lot of technology in these things, and a lot of design goes into them. I don't completely understand what makes them so cheap, but I'm guessing that manufacture in large numbers is important.

"If they made this thing for almost nothing it still would not sell in large numbers, because just not that many people are interested in medium-format, however cheap the camera. The only difference if they did that is that they would not be able to cover their design costs, and would lose money on it.

"I'm a (bad) guitar player, and since I'm kind of bored doing what I do most of the time, I've wondered about making guitar amps. I got as far as trying to work out costs, and it's basically depressing. If I actually wanted to eat, I'd have to charge well over £1000 for an amp (okay, quite a nice amp), and perhaps nearer £2000. The amp I use, which is a pretty nice but not 'boutique' model, was £500, and you can get fairly minimal amps for around £100 now. And these are valve (tube) amps. Someone setting up in the business, unless they had really significant funding to cover the start-up costs, would simply have to go for the high-value small-production-run market. And the valve guitar amp market is a lot bigger than the medium-format market, where the start-up costs probably dominate the recurring costs for any plausible sales volume.

"I'd encourage anyone who doesn't believe this to pick something of interest to you that you might be interested in making and do the costings properly, remembering what your time needs to be billed at if you would like to eat. It's a salutary experience.

"So, no, this isn't expensive: everything else is cheap."

Featured Comment by Craig Arnold: "Despite the price I find I cannot imagine not having one. Oh dear, looks like my 5DMkII is going to have to wait."

Sometimes I suspect that one reason companies announce things so far in advance of their actual release is because it means they get to show the product at more than one photo show. I noticed (with a certain bemusement) that Pentax is announcing its medium-format digital camera yet again. This thing has been doing duty as an upcoming product at photo shows for so many years now that I wonder if it qualifies as some sort of Orwellian perma-vaporware, as unending as the distant wars in 1984 (or Afghanistan). I'll probably have snow-white hair and not be able to remember the way to my rocker and I'll still be reading about the Pentax medium-format digital camera that's just about to be released. Generally, it seems a condition of the New World: seasons flash past with a cloud of promised products always hovering tantalizingly just out of view. Imagine the money our strapped car companies could save if they could keep showing the same new models and the same concept cars at show after show, year after year. It would sure beat the challenge of having to come up with something new for every exhibition.

Sigma has renewed its promissory note for its upcoming DP2 large-sensor compact at Las Vegas, by unveiling a flashy website (the adjective is chosen advisedly) with some impressive new samples, one of which is above. Sigma can take its time with the DP2 as far as I'm concerned, though, as long as it gets the details right when the product finally gets here. The first iteration of the concept—the DP1—was fascinating, but some of its highlights were, um, lowlights, mainly having to do with several kinds of speed—lens speed, for one, and raw throughput speed if I remember correctly. Many wholly-new products are vastly improved by their second major iteration, however, after the product's public has time to sort out its pecadilloes and the project engineers have time to respond.

You can't really tell a whole lot from a website that moves slowly from scenic to scenic with soporific Satie in the background, or from a handful of online samples. But one thing I could tell from the samples is that ƒ/2.8 is likely to be a fully usable aperture on the DP2. Remember, with lenses—especially fixed ones—especially slowish fixed ones—it's not only important what the widest aperture is, it's also important that the widest aperture be fully usable. Meaning, the performance wide open can't exact too much of an optical penalty, something wide-open apertures often do. Long ago I had a camera that I really liked that had a fixed ƒ/4 lens, but the lens ended up limiting the camera too much: ƒ/4 was a useless aperture. Performance was so bad at that setting that you had to stop down at least to ƒ/5.6 to get it to behave. And that was just too slow in those days, pretty much limiting shooting to broad daylight. I lugged around a tripod with that camera for a while, and did take some very nice pictures with it, but what the experience mainly taught me was that I do not want to lug around a tripod.

But I digress. The point is that five of Sigma's 17 sample DP2 images were shot wide open, enough to make it easy to see that the DP2's faster ƒ/2.8 lens's ƒ/2.8 aperture is plenty sharp enough to make it a fully usable setting (the earring is a tiny detail of the second-to-last sample—sharp enough for me). So, then, good news—so far. Let's hope that that langorous Satie is not a reflection on the new camera's responsiveness in other respects. Now we resume waiting, patiently, still with our fingers crossed and our eyes on the prize, hoping not too many more shows go past before this interesting camera actually appears.

 

Send this post to a friend

UPDATE: The U.K. magazine Amateur Photographer is reporting that the DP2 is due in the U.S. later this month, with U.K. availability still several months away. Thanks to William Wragg for this intelligence.