The Megapixel Race

Keith wrote:
> David J Taylor
> <david-taylor.DeleteThis@blueyonder.co.not-this-bit.nor-this-part.uk> wrote:
>
>> Is it fundamental that the larger sensor requires such a bulky
>> arrangement? And the 4/3 sensor seems lumbered with a large lens
>> mount, making miniature, near-SLR quality cameras difficult.....
>
> It's not lumbered with a large lens mount - it was designed that way
> to make it easier to design 'telecentric' lenses where the light hits
> the sensor at right angles right up to the corners. This is why
> lagacy glass on 35mm frame sensors deteriorate towards the edges of
> the frame - especially (or mostly) on wide angles. The Oly 7-14mm
> zoom for example gets rave reviews for performance in this area.

OK, I said "seems lumbered" - that's an impression - thanks for pointing
out that's by design rather than by accident. However, does this prevent
it from offering as compact a camera and lens as the "half sized" sensor
might otherwise allow? With a sensor sized half of that of the 35mm
standard, I had been hoping to see a considerable reduction in size and
weight of systems (OK, perhaps not to half the size, and one eighth the
volume and weight!), but it seems that some APS-C DSLRs offer systems
which are just as compact....

David

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006 08:56:32 GMT, David J Taylor wrote:

> OK, I said "seems lumbered" - that's an impression - thanks for pointing
> out that's by design rather than by accident. However, does this prevent
> it from offering as compact a camera and lens as the "half sized" sensor
> might otherwise allow? With a sensor sized half of that of the 35mm
> standard, I had been hoping to see a considerable reduction in size and
> weight of systems (OK, perhaps not to half the size, and one eighth the
> volume and weight!), but it seems that some APS-C DSLRs offer systems
> which are just as compact....

They're getting progressively smaller. Here are weights and sizes
of some of the Canon and Olympus cameras. All weights include
batteries and dimensions are in mm.

E-300: 624g 147 x 85 x 64
350D: 540g 127 x 94 x 64
E-500: 479g 130 x 95 x 66
E-400: 420g 130 x 91 x 53
G7: 380g 106 x 72 x 43

So you can see that the E-400 (only available in Europe) is
significantly lighter than Canon's 350D, which is known to be a very
light DSLR, and only slightly heavier than the Powershot G7. The
sizes aren't dramatically smaller, but I'm not sure many
photographers would want a DSLR much smaller than the E-400. By way
of comparison, my Fuji, which I've described before as a P&S that
resembles a DSLR in appearance but is far smaller. It easily fits
in the small pockets of my lightweight jackets and checks in at:

S5100: 480g 113 x 81 x 79

This may be a bit misleading, as the Fuji's size includes its
fixed 10x zoom lens, and the weight would be reduced to close to
400g if lithium AA batteries were used instead of alkalines. You're
very right about not expecting 4/3 cameras to be 1/8th the weight,
since 1/8th the weight of the 350D is only 67 grams, much less than
the weight of even ultracompact cameras.