Well, who knows what's really going on in the mind of Olympus, but this seems like a far fetched plan as outlined.
First - why would any other manufacturer design lenses for such a system? Short of absolutely staggering sales, there just would not be any percentages in designing lenses in a totally new format for another manufacture's body. It's hard to imagine even the third party makers would jump on board, since they leverage their design efforts by being able to market their lenses to users of multiple systems. This would force them to basically design proprietary lenses for OM. I also can't see the whole industry jumping onto this proposed standard. If they did all they would be doing is locking in a standard that is already near obsolete. It would be on par with the colossal blunder of building PC's around MS-DOS with it's 1 meg memory restriction. If anything, the comment about Pentax shows how quickly the digital market is changing. Standards are great - but the technology needs to read a certain point of maturity / stability before something is locked in. I also really cannot see Pentax going for this because backwards compatibility is such an essential aspect of their identity. they chose not to adopt a new lens mount for AF etc, so I doubt that they'd jump onto a new mount for digital. Pentax has also got to be pretty strapped on design resources to support the multiple platforms it already is engaged in - from point and shoots, 35mm, and medium format. It would really stretch them to take on yet another platform. - MCC At 02:03 PM 5/2/2002 +0200, Pal wrote: > From Photo Industry reporter: > >Since it will be virtually impossible for Olympus to field a complete lens >system at once, Olympus hopes other lens makers will jump on the >Olympus-mount bandwagon and produce optics for the new digital Olympus camera. >A whole series of amateur to professional Olympus digital cameras using >the new lens system is planned, but it appears that the first model will >be a high-end amateur camera costing a fraction of present interchangeable >lens digital cameras. Olympus points out that by using a smaller 4/3-inch >imaging format, the cost of the sensor will be less and the cameras far >smaller and lighter than the 35mm camera lens digital SLRs. >Or Getting on the Bandwagon? >The Japanese digital imaging camera industry talks officially about all >systems co-existing. But unofficially, some think that if Olympus is >successful, its daring new system�freed of the need to work with a >pre-existing silver halide capable series of lenses�may sweep the larger, >heavier, more cumbersome present digital interchangeable lens SLRs into >history. >Pentax has shelved present plans to produce a 24x36mm sensor digital SLR >compatible with its silver halide 35mm series of optics, stating that the >forward surge of digital imaging technology has already bypassed the >features of the camera they had on the drawing boards. > > >P�l >- >This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, >go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to >visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org . > - - - - - - - - - - Mark Cassino Kalamazoo, MI [EMAIL PROTECTED] - - - - - - - - - - Photos: http://www.markcassino.com - - - - - - - - - - - This message is from the Pentax-Discuss Mail List. To unsubscribe, go to http://www.pdml.net and follow the directions. Don't forget to visit the Pentax Users' Gallery at http://pug.komkon.org .
