I borrowed an Olympus E-1 system for this trip. This is an interesting camera idea in which new lenses have been designed specifically to fit the typically smallish digicam sensor area. Here’s an example photo from this morning: Otavalo Animal Market.
9 thoughts on “Snapshots from Ecuador”
Comments are closed.
Philip, I too hate lugging too much glass around like I do with the (for digital) odd focal lengths in the Canon world. An E-1 with 14-54, 50-200 and 50mm lenses sounds like it would fit the bill perfectly for me. (a 24/1.8 prime would be nice too, but I am sure they will come up with one sooner rather than later)
How do you compare working with it to Canon? Most reviews seems it rate it like good camera, but not when compared to a specific other system. I have no doubt the optics are first-rate, but how do the focussing motors hold up compared to USM?
I’m too lazy to check, but aren’t there a few digital cameras that have standard 35mm sensors? I recall that feature being mentioned as a selling point on one of the cameras I was looking at – maybe the digital Rebel?
The only ones are the Canon EOS 1Ds and Kodak 14 (something). Both are in an entirely different price range from the E-1. The Digital Rebel (I own one) has a 1.6x crop factor.
Many will argue that a 35mm size sensor is better and therefor you should simply wait untill they are more affordable, instead of creating a new system. But why go for best, when smaller is good enough, cheaper, with less weight and will also keep getting better?
So Philip we must ask, what do you think of the note book computer? Is it clunky or functional for travel or what man?
I don’t see how the problem of having too much depth of field can be solved, ever, without using a bigger sensor, at least 35mm size. This is one of the main reasons I still don’t use a digital camera (I can’t afford one woth full frame sensor).
presidentpicker, while I agree to this when it comes to _really_ small sensors, I find this not to be a problem with SLRs. Example: a 50mm lens on a full frame camera @ 2.8 with a subject about 1m away, gives 6cm DOF. A 35mm lens on my Digital Rebel increases that to just 8cm, not a big problem. Ofcourse the E-1 is even smaller and if you really want sharpned from just eye-lashes to pupils, you may have to resort to useing the 300mm, but how often do you really do that?
On a Canon G5 with it’s 4x crop, however, it is much different. As you’d have to stop this down to 5.6 for some sharpnes, you would get a massive 45cm DOF. Even at f3.6 it would be 28cm. Ouch!
Regarding the actual photo, where will we find the pictures of your latest trip? Thanks for having the interesting life upon which we all can vicariously latch ourselves.
if i hace the powershot g3 – is it better than the reg zoom of – 4 pixels?
FYI, there are, in fact, a couple other SLR’s with 135 standard sized sensors; I believe one of them is a Fuji, and one a Sigma. B&H’s big book lists 4 or 5, maybe as many as 6.
But, of course, the real point is for people who have thousands of dollars with of glass *already* — and secondarily for people who can barely afford the body, and need to buy all their glass secondhand, at pawnshops and on eBay, for 1/2 to 1/10 it’s original price…