In Praise of the Olympus E-System...

tomcat · 27th May 2005

I came across this interesting article by Dutch photographer Erwins Puts who is a respected commentator on Leica equipment, on the Olympus E-system.

http://imx.nl/photosite/comments/c007.html

He said that Olympus created the OM System with the stated goal to emulate the quality and compactness of the Leica M-system in an SLR guise in 1970. And the E-System is their equivalent for the digital era and is created based on the concept of combining a small format chip with dedicated lens design to achieve excellence in image quality.

His comment that a modern D-SLR with 10 to 12 MP and a lens designed for 35mm photography or a lens adapted to the APS capture circle may not produce better results than the combination of a small sensor and a dedicated lens design like the E-system of Olympus is certainly thought provoking.

Also, his comments on the Zuiko Digital lenses explain what we have already observed about the quality of these lenses :

"The lenses for the E-system are indeed outstandingly good. The published MTF graphs show a contrast transfer of more than 70% for 60 lp/mm. This is much better than what (as example) current Leica lenses in the same class of focal lengths can deliver."

chii · 27th May 2005

nice read

nightpiper · 28th May 2005

nice read but the author didn't mention or he didn't know the biggest quality contribution of ZD lenses comes from the 2x optical rez compared to film lenses. he only mentioned about telecentric & the mount.

since i have tested Nikkors & OM 90mm, i can confidently say that this higher rez is the main contributing factor to the ZD lenses' superiority, not so much about telecentricity.

27th May 2005	#1
tomcat Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2003 Posts: 3,463	In Praise of the Olympus E-System... I came across this interesting article by Dutch photographer Erwins Puts who is a respected commentator on Leica equipment, on the Olympus E-system. http://imx.nl/photosite/comments/c007.html He said that Olympus created the OM System with the stated goal to emulate the quality and compactness of the Leica M-system in an SLR guise in 1970. And the E-System is their equivalent for the digital era and is created based on the concept of combining a small format chip with dedicated lens design to achieve excellence in image quality. His comment that a modern D-SLR with 10 to 12 MP and a lens designed for 35mm photography or a lens adapted to the APS capture circle may not produce better results than the combination of a small sensor and a dedicated lens design like the E-system of Olympus is certainly thought provoking. Also, his comments on the Zuiko Digital lenses explain what we have already observed about the quality of these lenses : "The lenses for the E-system are indeed outstandingly good. The published MTF graphs show a contrast transfer of more than 70% for 60 lp/mm. This is much better than what (as example) current Leica lenses in the same class of focal lengths can deliver." __________________ Fish Pics:http://www.pbase.com/pschia/oddballs IR Pics:http://www.pbase.com/pschia/infra_red Last edited by tomcat; 27th May 2005 at 09:12 AM.

27th May 2005	#2
chii Member Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 747	nice read

28th May 2005	#3
nightpiper Member Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 1,798	nice read but the author didn't mention or he didn't know the biggest quality contribution of ZD lenses comes from the 2x optical rez compared to film lenses. he only mentioned about telecentric & the mount. since i have tested Nikkors & OM 90mm, i can confidently say that this higher rez is the main contributing factor to the ZD lenses' superiority, not so much about telecentricity.