Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2007/03/08
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> > >The trend for DSLR cameras clearly goes to bigger sensors, not >because of the backward compatibility to older lenses, but because >they deliver better quality than smaller ones - period. Yep, just like the trend in computers is to bigger cases! And bigger memory boards. And bigger cable connectors. Good grief, what is thing with SIZE?! Sensors are cramming more and better pixels into the same size, just as bytes are stuffed into ever smaller memory chips every year. What is so magical about a 35mm digital frame size? Absolutely NOTHING! FourThirds is the revolution, and I joined it almost a year ago. The Olympus E-Volt 330 camera should be called the Re-Volt One, it is that significant in the history of photography. Panasonic is trying (along with Leica?) but their 4/3 body is too chunky and clunky. Plus it does not have the tilt-screen live view LCD. The 330 is smaller and handles more closely to an M. I did not say LIKE an M, just better than the Panasonic body that makes even a Leica M5 seem downright tiny. If you were raised on M's like I was, then the E-330 is like a new friend in a tradition of phototgraphic creativity that has leaped so far over Canon and Nikon that most people don't even seem to realize it yet. I hope Leica can sincerely join FourThirds in their old tradition of excellence. But they need to think WAY outside the M or R box, literally and figuratively. The 25mm 1.4 may be a step in that direction. However, the lens does seem very large for a prime lens, and I was hoping for something for the E-330 more the size of my old chrome M Summilux 50. I hope there will be a way to try the new Leica lens next month. In the meantime, I'll keep shooting my Leica/Olympus kit - two E-330's, Leica 70-180/2.8 Vario-Elmarit, 2x APO extender, 14-54/2.8-3.5 Zuiko and 7-14/4 Zuiko. In 35mm terms, that's an almost continuous lens range of 14mm-720mm, all in one little LowePro 200 bag.( http://www.northcoastphotos.com/Lympa_2006_11_01.htm ) After thousands of miles cross-country and thousands of feet altitude for journalistic, commercial. landscape and aerial photography, that setup has been the most amazing sidekick of any camera kit I've ever used. My photos from the E-330 have been published on covers and calendars; newspaper front pages; numerous websites; Coast Guard public relations; aerial photos for hotels, water treatment plants and engineering studies; and a year long contract to document a multi-million dollar theater interior restoration. Not bad for a little upstart camera. The sad fact to report is that almost two years ago, I showed a Leica rep the little pre-cursor to the E-330, the brilliantly engineered Olympus C-8080 8-megapixel with a lens that would easily do justice to Leica optics. He looked down his nose and said. "That is not an M." Well I should hope not! And the E-330 is not a slide rule or a mechanical adding machine or a black and white TV or a two lane highway or any one of a thousand other things that were current in 1954. The most amazing photographic future is here - right now. My biggest concern is how to stay creatively ahead of so many photographers who will discover the E-330 and see their own boost in artistic creativity. So far I've got the drop on them by a few months time and, obviously, a truck load of passion about a camera that I believe will be as historically significant as the M3 was over 50 years ago. I've said a lot more about the Olympus E-330 at and how I've used it with adapted Leica R lenses at: http://northcoastphotos.com/Lympa.htm Best regards, Gary Todoroff