New Olympus cameras - holy cow style

[horst]

Camera technology has been ambering along I feel
so what Olympus have come up with is pretty hardcore
there are actually 4 cameras I really want to have right now


first up is this one with 18x optical zoom!!!
28mm- 504mm
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012507olympusp550uz.asp
that's really intense I can well imagine that they've comprised too much on optical quality to achieve that range

this one with ISO 10 000!!!
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012504olympusfe250.asp
you could get useful pictures with this in near darkness

waterproof and shock resistant
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012505olympusstylus770sw.asp

and this one because it is freaking tiny 16.5mm thick and 105g but still has a 5x zoom
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012503olympusfe240.asp

[phunkdust]

this one with ISO 10 000!!!
http://www.dpreview.com/news/0701/07012504olympusfe250.asp
you could get useful pictures with this in near darkness


Unless Olympus has somehow redeveloped CCD technology from the ground up, I can safely say that ISO10,000 is going to look like absolute shite.

[rancho]

Unless Olympus has somehow redeveloped CCD technology from the ground up, I can safely say that ISO10,000 is going to look like absolute shite.

this is my prediction for the size of the noise.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y88/ranchomofo/untitled-1.jpg

seriously why bother.... most people who buy compacts wont know what an iso is so its not going to suck anyone in like big megapickles do. mind you 10,000 anything probably sounds impressive to some people. :stroke:

[phunkdust]

:lol:



That and it's only 1.5 stops more than 3200 anyway

[horst]

Unless Olympus has somehow redeveloped CCD technology from the ground up, I can safely say that ISO10,000 is going to look like absolute shite.


I predict a bit of both

we'll just have to wait for the pictures

[phunkdust]

Oh well, at least they're trying.

Other manufacturers are pushing 8 and 10 megapixel compacts with no new features b'cos more megapickles iz better amirite?

If all you take are happy snaps, your 'outdated' 3 megapixel camera is still just fine for the task.

Resolution does nothing except feed memory card manufacturers

[Warren G]

ok im a complete n00b when it comes to this, but will you get a clearer picuture with a higher ISO when taking a picture in a nightclub for example without flash. i was told that to take good photos in pub/nightclub darker areas you need to have the setting at around 1000.

let me know as i would like to get a new compact so i can take good night pictures when im out an about, and at present when i take them at ISO 400 you can hardly see anything and when i take them at ISO 800 they are a little better. however, there is alot more noise in the shots :/

[phunkdust]

its not all about sensitivity.

your lens has to be up to scratch

if your sensor can do ISO3200 its no good if the lens max aperture is F4

To get shots without flash in a club you need a camera that can work at around 1EV-2EV.

[Scootie]

yeah. and as you ramp up the sensitivity (ISO) you start to see a lot of noise, especially in smaller sensors like in compact cameras.


although, you'll note that olympus only does ISO 10k when it's running the 8MP sensor in 3MP mode, so they're doing some sexy noise reduction stuff using the average from a few pixels. you never know, it might not be absolute shite.

if they can deliver a compact with noise at 3200 comparable to my 5D, i'll buy it.

[Ralph Wiggum]

Mmmm megapickles :blush:

[pmack]

although, you'll note that olympus only does ISO 10k when it's running the 8MP sensor in 3MP mode, so they're doing some sexy noise reduction stuff using the average from a few pixels. you never know, it might not be absolute shite.

haha, what a crock. im sure it would look just the same as shooting it underexposed (say with a shutter speed 1.5 times faster than it was meant to), at 8MP, then just increasing the the exposure in post processing by 1.5 stops, and then resizing down to 3MP.
still would be a handy feature to have for a casual point n shoot though

[arradius]

ha. I'll believe those specs when I see them.

Actually, I clip photo magazines at work and havne't seen much about those yet...

[Scootie]

haha, what a crock. im sure it would look just the same as shooting it underexposed (say with a shutter speed 1.5 times faster than it was meant to), at 8MP, then just increasing the the exposure in post processing by 1.5 stops, and then resizing down to 3MP.
still would be a handy feature to have for a casual point n shoot though

a crock? a CROCK? how on earth could the marketing info in a press release for a product that nobody has seen before be a 'crock'? oh. wait. I see what you mean :)

it's definitely a 'put your money where your mouth is' situation. :)

[tecks]

what i would really find helpful on a compact is more speed. like faster shutter response, faster flash recycle etc. As others have said, bumping up the megapickles is getting a little pointless.

I think Olympus would have been better off concentrating on a less noisy ISO1600/3200 camera than one that goes all the way up to 10,000. Although I guess we'll have to wait and see the results hey.

[Gee Frizz]

I discovered that you really do need a professional camera to do justice to clubbing photos (particularly crowd shots and shots of the DJ from a distance.)

Compact cameras are a lot like mini stereo systems. The qality is usually poo and you don't always get what you pay for. The Olympus FE170 I have takes better pictures than the Pentax Optio 5-something-or-another and for half the price.

[mateusz]

yeh i dont really like olympus


what a the advantages of this brand over others? for the orice??

[ghettro]

The 18x zoom (I hate the terms digital and optical as a prefix to zoom it's such a piece of marketing drivel crap) seems actually kind of useless for most people as it's 35-500mm equiv on 135 format. Mind you, looking through a laggy electronic viewfinder with a relatively laggy shutter at 500mm with 1.2fps would be pretty useless for shooting any action shots. Do any of the people who buy compact cameras actually use the full tele end most of the time? I'd much prefer something like a 24-200equiv. with a half decent wide angle - and I'd guess most consumers would want that too, (landscape shots, group shots of people etc). I guess it's all marketing ?

[Sponsored Links]

haha, what a crock. im sure it would look just the same as shooting it underexposed (say with a shutter speed 1.5 times faster than it was meant to), at 8MP, then just increasing the the exposure in post processing by 1.5 stops, and then resizing down to 3MP.
still would be a handy feature to have for a casual point n shoot though
Not sure about this. Averaging over a longer sampling time will of course reduce random noise, as will averaging over a larger effective pixel area. Not being a photography person, I don't understand what difference underexposing it would make?

When you change the exposure in post-processing is this a proportional or simply additive process? Even in the case that it's proportional, it doesn't make sense that the 'faked' dynamic range would be equivalent to (ie as good as) actually sampling for a longer period of time.

[horst]

The 18x zoom (I hate the terms digital and optical as a prefix to zoom it's such a piece of marketing drivel crap) seems actually kind of useless for most people as it's 35-500mm equiv

look again it's 28-500mm!
this actually sounds like a bigger stunt to me than the 10 000 000 ISO
instinct says this can't have a happy ending, but again the the proof will be in the pictures

[legal-affairs]

I'd much prefer something like a 24-200equiv. with a half decent wide angle - and I'd guess most consumers would want that too, (landscape shots, group shots of people etc). I guess it's all marketing ?
As I understand it you need a larger sensor in a compact camera once the lens starts to get wide and it gets very expensive very quickly. I've got a Canon S70 which I bought primarily because the lens goes out to 28mm (film equivalent).

The optical zoom goes to 100mm and I have no idea where the digital zoom goes to because I use it once in a blue moon. Othere than the fact that ISO 400 is as noisy as all get out, I love my S70.

[phunkdust]

It's not really a factor of sensor size, it's just that making a lens that wide takes more elements and more precision and more jigging around moving elements around on the focus track.

At wide angles a zoom lens has to stack some elements very close together. It makes it hard to do this if the elements are too large or the zoom mechanism can't be designed to go that wide because it also has to facilitate telephoto.

In short it's far easier to make a 35-300 than it is to make a 28-200. From about 30mm and down, lens elements become increasingly extreme in their proportions.

[ghettro]

oops my bad, it is 28-500. Which isn't all too bad. Still I wonder what the optical quality would be like, f4.5 is actually pretty quick for 500mm with that amount of zoom range.