AW: E-330 Userreport und Video
und ein Interview habe ich auch anzubieten.
Quelle
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/co...roduct-Manager-DSLRs-at-Olympus-/Part-One.htm
Find ich sehr interessant, ich hab mal die aus meiner Sicht interessanten Dinge markiert
Olympus Interview, Part One:
Part One contains the genesis of the technology, why the E-330’s approach is unique, the target market for this camera, and how it will impact the industry.
DCI: To begin, if you wouldn’t mind Richard, would you give us a bit of background on your career and how you’ve come to this point?
Richard Pelkowski: Oh sure, I’d be happy to. I’ve been with Olympus for 12 years this spring. I started with them in service actually, before digital cameras actually hit the scene back in the early 90s. When I saw them coming I knew that was where I wanted to really be, working with the products. I worked in technical support for Olympus and then got into marketing about 5 years ago and now work with John Knaur, one of our senior product managers here, and I co-manage the E system products.
DCI: And how long has this actual technology on the E-330 been in development?
Pelkowski: I would say roughly about 2 years. You’re probably thinking, “My God, it took them a long time.”
DCI: I was just curious if the idea [for a live view] was already in its inception when the E-300 was originally announced.
Pelkowski: Exactly. At that time people asked us why we were coming out with a flat top camera. We did state at the time that this design would give us a little room in the future for new and innovative designs, live view being one of them. We actually did allude to that.
DCI: Would you mind giving us a little background on how the technology works? And what were the major obstacles that had to be overcome to implement that?
Pelkowski: Sure. But before telling you the nuts and bolts of how it works: you can easily get a live view camera with an interchangeable lens without having a reflex mirror, but what we’ve done on this product [the E-330] is different. We still retained the mirror box, the reflex mirror and the optical viewfinder path and still have enabled a true live view camera. So you still retain the SLR type phase detection autofocus system, which is very fast and very accurate. You still have an optical viewfinder. And you have a true live view. And when I say true live view, I mean true; the camera can be in that mode, not for just a couple of minutes or 30 seconds and not just in monochrome--but it’s a true live view as you’d have with an ultra zoom camera with a EVF viewfinder, but you still have all the benefits of the optical viewfinder.
DCI: Going with what you just said… in 2000-2001, Olympus put out the E-10 and the E-20. They used beam splitter technology…
Pelkowski: They did use beam splitter technology. The drawback with that design was actually the type of focus system that was used, which was contrast detection as opposed to phase detection [because of insufficient amounts of light]. So, while that camera did offer live view… well, it wasn’t an interchangeable lens product; it didn’t have a reflex mirror, it didn’t use a phase detection auto focus system. It was a bit of a slow camera, too. And the viewfinder could be a bit dimmer, because you are sending some of the light in one direction and some in the other.
DCI: Looking at the diagram for the E-330, I see that the light hits the autofocus mechanism prior to being split.
Pelkowski: That’s correct. The main mirror, the reflex mirror and the autofocus system are really the same as [the system in] anyone else’s SLR, except that it’s turned sideways… The main mirror, the reflex mirror, has a semi-transmissive portion, like a one-way part.
Smith Clemens: Like a one-way mirror, right?
Richard Pelkowski: Exactly, like a one-way security mirror. Now, behind that there is actually what you call a sub mirror. And if you lift up the mirror on any of these cameras very slowly you’ll actually see the sub mirror before it pops up tight to the main mirror. Anyway, before exposure that sub mirror picks up what’s being focused on the mirror from the lens and actually shoots it down at a little AF sensor. This is the phase detection auto focus sensor that’s in the bottom of the mirror box. On other SLRs it’ll be sitting on the bottom, but on this camera it’ll be sitting on the side.
DCI: Would this technology be possible without a porro mirror?
Pelkowski: It would be, but I don’t think we would have been able to do it at this price point. We could in fact do it with a pentamirror or a pentaprism product in the future.
DCI: So the design will not affect the autofocus because the light beam doesn’t split until after it gets directed there?
Pelkowski: Exactly. In the live view A mode, we don’t have any split or divergence of the light path until we get right up near the viewfinder diopter.
DCI: Do you expect the optical viewfinder to offer the same illumination as the E-500 [viewfinder]?
Pelkowski: I think it’s going to be a little bit off. It is in fact an 80/20 split. 80 percent [of the light] to the viewfinder diopter, about 20 percent of the light focused on that secondary small CCD. Having said that though, for most of your photographic situations I really don’t see that as something that’s very noticeable. Comparing different manufacturers, you get diminishes in the viewfinder brightness that can be due to your mirror design, whether its pentamirror, whether its pentaprism; your focus screen, the lens that’s on the camera and so on and so forth--a smaller lens is going to make it darker. But I don’t think it significantly detracts from the optical viewfinder in this product.
DCI: That actually brings us to an interesting point… Do you think this camera is different from the rest in terms of its target audience? Because of the live LCD, it seems that it’s not trying to interest people who are comfortable with film SLRs, but people who have grown up or evolved from compact digital cameras and are now moving up to a DSLR.
Pelkowski: With target markets it’s never 100 percent one way or the other, but I would absolutely agree with you. That’s a very good analysis that you make. That is definitely part of the customer that we see for this camera. Our earlier products, the E-10 and the E-20 you mentioned, were very popular with certain types of photographers because of the optical viewfinder and live view LCD. So we also think many people that bought into that product are going to be interested in this new E-330.
DCI: How do you see it impacting the entry level DSLR ranks?
Pelkowski: I think that’s going be a smaller customer segment with this product. But the reason I say that is really because of price point. We’re not so sure because it’s really new territory for us. We know it’s not going to be a product with mass units for us, as the E-500 might be for instance.
DCI: Where do you see the largest impact? What would you guess the eventual user base is shooting with now?
Pelkowski: E-10s and E-20s and more advanced digital SLRs right now. I think the E-330 will mostly impact those who have the need for extremely fine focusing capability at macro distances.
Smith Clemens: Can I interject? We’ve learned that 32% of the people that are currently buying a DSLR are purchasing their very first camera period. That means they’ve never even had a film camera before and they’re starting with a DSLR; there will always be that segment of user that is interested in the versatility that an SLR offers. Now, when you hand an SLR to somebody that’s on the novice side, or it’s their first camera, they ask, “Well, why can’t I see the picture on the LCD?” and then you have to go into the whole explanation; “Well, it’s a single lens reflex camera etc….” So I think the appeal of the live view is going to be very attractive to the mass consumer, but that’s the first half. The second half is the level of functionality that the E-330 offers in terms of sophisticated features, like a live view A mode and B mode that Richard mentioned for macro work. So you’re also appealing to the much more technically savvy person, such as someone coming from an industrial or medical background. For forensic photography for example, when live view is more practical in a clinical setting for close-up work. For environments that are not conducive to getting too close physically to the subject or looking directly through the optical viewfinder. Probably about 80 percent of the people who purchase this camera are going to be the mass consumer who like the whole live view aspect, and they’ll never take it out of live view A mode--which is going to be the default, out of the box setting.
Olympus Interview, Part Two:
Part Two of our interview with products managers Sally Smith Clemens and Richard Pelkowski of Olympus covers the nuts and bolts of what the E-330 offers and what it can do, including commentary on power consumption and the challenges of a movie mode on a DSLR.
DCI: Could you explain what advantages each mode has and what situations in which you’d see them being most applicable?
Pelkowski: Certainly. A mode, as Sally mentioned, is really going to be for the person who’s just looking to use the LCD panel for composition. This camera facilitates that tremendously because it has the moveable LCD panel for an overhead shot, waist low shot, or even shot captured by kneeling on the ground. The B mode is, again, going to be for people that need to do fine focusing on copy stands or tripods. That mode is really only useable in that type of photo situation with a camera mounted in a stable fashion. There will be manual focusing also available in that mode. Now, the E-330’s live view offers an advantage in focusing. You’re probably thinking that you could focus just fine through an ordinary optical viewfinder, but if you’ve got a split center FC screen, it’s very difficult to tell at very close working distances of very shallow depth of field if your focus is correct and exactly what point it’s on. For instance, if you’ve ever tried to use a macro lens and an extension tube to try to photograph jewelry products or anything like that, you’ll know what I mean. You can go back and forth with trial and error until you get it right, but it’s difficult to determine through a focus screen on an optical TTL viewfinder on an SLR camera. With the E-330, I can actually select the area on the preview screen that I want to magnify, and there’s little rectangle that pops up which I can move around with the jog dial on the camera. If I press the OK button it’ll give me a 10x magnification of that area on the subject.
DCI: And how sharp is the LCD? What’s the resolution?
Pelkowski: It’s sharp. And I’m going to get to that in a second. Anyway, in B mode I can also overlay some different scaling grid patterns on the LCD panel… and get depth of field preview, too, in that live view mode.
DCI: How is the depth of field preview enabled on that camera?
Pelkowski: By the same way on a traditional SLR; it actually stops down the lens diaphragm.
DCI: Is the button near the lens barrel?
Pelkowski: Actually, it’s a button on the back of that camera that we dedicate to that function. It’s the drive button that’s just about at the 11 o’clock position on the jog dial. You asked me what’s the quality of the image on the screen, right?
DCI: Yes.
Pelkowski: You’re going to be pretty impressed with it. And that’s a very good question, because it has to be very high quality.
DCI: Absolutely.
Pelkowski: It has to have low noise for it to really be of use.
DCI: Yeah, it’s a major selling point.
Pelkowski: In the A mode, we’ve achieved that splendidly. That second CCD that we use in the viewfinder is the 8 million pixel capture CCD from our Stylus 800.
Smith Clemens: You guys are familiar with that, Alex.
DCI: Uh-huh.
Pelkowski: Now, you really could have effected this negatively with a $20 little itty bitty 800,000 pixel chip. We didn’t do that. We actually used a very high quality secondary image sensor as the secondary sensor for the viewfinder. That not only gives us the capability that that chip offers for low light situations, but it gives a really high quality signal to send to that LCD panel on the back. Now I’m going to talk about that LCD panel on the back and what it offers for live view technology in this camera. It’s the same 215,000 HyperCrystal technology panel that we use in our EVOLT 500, which has gotten tremendous reviews. It’s just a brilliant component. And it’s just packaged with a different frame now, the tilting LCD frame. We could have been able to do that with cheaper components. I mean, if we had used a lower resolution CCD in the viewfinder, and then maybe just a 150,000 plain-Jane TFT LCD on the back, it would have worked, but nowhere nearly as nicely as it does now.
Smith Clemens: HyperCrystal, by the way, basically means that it’s a wide view high contrast LCD that can be viewed from angles up to 160 degrees.
Pelkowski: Yes. And the difference from a 1.8 or a 2-inch LCD that’s got 150,000 pixels is tremendous. But anyway, if I could go back to the B mode again. The main sensor is a 7.5 megapixel Live-MOS sensor.
DCI: What’s the difference between… that’s a metal oxide conductor, right?
Pelkowski: Exactly. MOS is Metal Oxide Semiconductor. Of course you’ve heard of CMOS that Canon’s using in their products and some other manufacturers use. We’re calling it a Live-MOS sensor, but to answer your question it’s technically an NMOS sensor, which I believe stands for Negative-type Metal Oxide Semiconductor chip. This type of sensor, though, facilitates and complements the live view function. You could use a CCD in this camera for capture and live view in B mode, but those are interlaced chips, and it makes the image kind of jaggy and not that fluid when you’re panning the camera. We’ve always said in the past when people asked us, “Are you going to stay with the Kodak? Are you going to stick with CCDs?” we’ve always said that we’re going to use the type of chip that’s best for the particular application.
Smith Clemens: The predecessors to this camera, Alex, were the E-1 and the E-300 and the E-500, and they all used a single Kodak full-frame transfer CCD to collect image data. The E-330 is using dual sensor technology, an 8 million pixel CCD in the viewfinder with Bright Capture Technology for framing and composing the image on the 2.5” LCD, which is by the way the same type of CCD that is used in the Olympus Stylus 800 digital camera And the capture sensor which is a 7.5 effective pixels metal oxide semiconductor that we’re calling Live-MOS. Richard, isn’t this the only camera so far that’s used that type of sensor?
Pelkowski: That is correct.
DCI: Obviously with the addition of the live preview, they’ll be more of a power drain. Is there a different battery in this than the E-300 and E-500, and if so, how is that designed to cater to all the functionality the camera has to offer?
Pelkowski: Good question. It actually is using the same battery, the BLM1. It’s a lithium-ion battery, and I think its 70 watts. With no live view, just using the optical viewfinder, it would be very similar to the 500 or the 300: [according to the battery life data sheet] they’re stating approximately 400 releases or exposures. In A mode: 250. That’s with the optical viewfinder still enabled and using the little sensor on the top for the live view. In the B mode, where we’re using mirror lockup and the main NMOS sensor to capture the image, we’re down to 200.
Smith Clemens: Which is still pretty reasonable for a 2.5-inch live LCD.
Pelkowski: I’m fine with the numbers they’re giving us on this, actually. Think about it. That’s with that [LCD] turned on constantly. So that’s pretty good.
DCI: Well…
Pelkowski: By the way, while we’re talking about that… one of the reasons for choosing this chip was the power consumption, and also noise. If you leave a CCD turned on for a long period of time, it actually develops a lot more heat because it’s using a lot more voltage and current, and its going get noisy as well. But with this chip, the spec we have for this is1.5 hours continuously turned on at ISO 100 until there is any increase in noise. And I believe at ISO 1600, it’s 8 minutes before any noise would be encountered. I think these are very impressive specs.
DCI: Um, yeah. Absolutely. Do any of those figures include flash usage?
Pelkowski: The figures that would have pertained to flash usage would have been with the battery life figures. And frankly, I don’t know. That’s a very good question. I’m sorry I don’t have the answer for you.
DCI: No problem. I was also curious… the camera is or is not capable of recording video?
Pelkowski: It is not. That’s a really good question, too, because you’d probably….you know, you could have done that with this camera, because obviously in the B mode we’ve got the shutter out of the way and the mirror locked up.
DCI: Exactly.
Pelkowski: But it would have added additional cost to the camera to do that. We were really conscious of where we were going to hit the market, at what price point. To do it with contrast detection autofocus throughout the movie duration [instead of with manual focus] would have added more expense to it. You have to understand, too, it’s not just another position on the mode dial. There would be additional circuitry and additional memory buffer to do that, and so on and so forth, so it would have been popped the cost up at retail maybe $50 or $100 dollars. You can be sure that’s certainly something that we’re considering for the future. The other thing we have to bear in mind is whether this type of customer is looking for that, as well. I think some of them would. I mean, why not.
DCI: Absolutely. One of the reasons the ultra zoom market is flourishing right now is because you get the live view and video recording. And I think a lot of manufacturers are consciously targeting that multifunction, hybrid type user. And, as far as I’m aware, there is only one consumer camcorder under $5,000 that has interchangeable lenses.
Pelkowski: That’s the Canon?
DCI: Yeah, the XL 2.
Pelkowski: It’s a good point, because in more and more cameras as the memory gets faster and the buffer is more robust, they’re going to the VGA movie mode, too, which is some pretty cool stuff.
DCI: Can you tell me what ISO settings are on the camera?
Pelkowski: This camera actually starts at 100 and I think it will go around to 3200. I thought it was just 1600 at first.
Smith Clemens: You can check, the specs changed.
Pelkowski: I’m sorry, I was wrong. It’s 100 to 1600. Which with a digital camera, 1600 is pretty darn high, actually.
DCI: Are the noise reduction mechanisms similar to those in the E-500?
Pelkowski: That’s a good question. They probably work similarly, but since they’re using much different chips, I honestly…
Smith Clemens: I don’t think we know yet, Alex.
Olympus Interview, Part Three:
Part Three of DigitalcameraInfo.com’s exclusive interview with Olympus product managers Richard Pelkowski and Sally Smith Clemens offers more market impact analysis, including speculation on how other manufacturers may respond. Smith Clemens and Pelkowski also discuss the future of live view on Olympus DSLRs and provide more detail on the mechanisms of the live view itself.
DCI: I know this is pretty general, but: How do you foresee this release impacting that higher-priced ultra zoom fixed lens segment of the camera market?
Pelkowski: I think that it could have a very significant effect on it. You may or may not be aware, but we’ve announced a lens last fall that’ll we’ll begin shipping by the end of this month. It’s a 10x optical zoom lens at a very affordable price. To cut to the chase: You could have this camera and that lens for a price point at something like the new Sonys, and you have a much more capable product than just a 10x ultra zoom fixed lens camera.
DCI: No question.
Smith Clemens: 18-180 mm, Alex.
Pelkowski: 18-180, so that’s a 36-360mm ultra zoom lens for this type of customer at a price point under $500.
DCI: Wow.
Smith Clemens: Its only about 3 inches tall, too. It’s real small, the size of a coffee cup.
DCI: So, to come back to where we started. We covered some of this, but could you again give more of an overview of the [live view] technology and how the major obstacles that other manufacturers are facing were overcome?
Pelkowski: Sure. I think presently, they’re limited very much by the viewfinder design they’re using, which is a pentaprism and pentamirror with it. With a pentamirror SLR, Let’s just say an D-50, D-70 or even our E-500, you really wouldn’t be able to do this without having an asymmetrical bump off to one side of the prism, because the optical path is coming up from the bottom. You probably have to take the CCD somewhere; you can’t have it inside there, so it would have to be bulging out somewhere on the side. I don’t think anyone has been ready to do that. There could also be a lot of other engineering limitations that I may not even be aware of right now.
DCI: Okay. And do you expect this technology to filter into other [Olympus] cameras, or do you see the E-500 and E-330 as beginning separate lines, one with a live view, one without? How do you foresee this technology making its way to other Olympus DSLRS?
Pelkowski: I can only speak for the E system products, but when we develop a feature for the E system product that becomes a standard. For instance, the dust reduction system, which we didn’t even talk about--this camera does contain a dust reduction system, and every E-System camera that we will ever produce will have the dust reduction system. So this is a new standard for E system products. You can very much expect to see live view in future E system digital SLR bodies from us. And those could be at any price point.
Smith Clemens: And it’s likely that we will still keep the traditional look, Richard, as well? Like the E-500?
Pelkowski: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Smith Clemens: So. You really answered it yourself, Alex. It’s a separate category within the E line of the traditional-looking bodies, that look and feel more like traditional SLRs.
DCI: So conceivably, the next version of the E-500 could possibly NOT have the live preview?
Pelkowski: Um. I’d say more likely it will.
Smith Clemens: Richard, stop me if I’m incorrect, but is it possible that you can still see cameras with only optical viewfinders in the line?
Pelkowski: I can’t sit here and say that for certain, but there is a very good probability that all future SLRs may have live preview.
DCI: How much impact do you expect this release to have with other manufacturers? What do you expect the curve to be before people start attempting to replicate this? Obviously, people are already working on this now…
Pelkowski: I think the manufactures will try to replicate it very quickly. The product has not been announced [at the time of this interview], and the only reaction we have to it to so far are from press meetings. We’ve talked to a couple of very large dealers about the camera. They’re giving us feedback that’s in line with what we’re thinking--what we’re feeling about the camera, who’s going to use it, what the acceptance is going to be. So I don’t think this is going to be a 100,000 unit product for us, but I think it’s really going to shake up the industry, this segment of the still camera market.
DCI: That’s interesting. Because I could see it going the other way, possibly.
Smith Clemens: What do you mean?
DCI: Obviously, the E-300 and the E-500 have had some success. But I could see this being a real breakthrough for the line.
Pelkowski: It could be. And I really appreciate that positive point of view. It could be. It’s just that…
Smith Clemens: We’ve been talking to, as Richard said, some of our other dealers and to you guys (the press) because when it’s something like this that’s never existed before, you have to get your initial batch out there to see what kind of response you have. I’m not the one who talks to the dealers directly, but my guess is they’re responding the same way… as Rich mentioned, this is probably going to shake the industry up. It will probably send other manufacturers scrambling to the drawing board to try and duplicate the same type of functionality.
DCI: Absolutely. And I mean, we have to acknowledge that over at least the last four or five years, you guys have made a pretty bold attempt to integrate technologies that aren’t in existence, such as move forms with the E-300 body. Is that something that’s a conscious attempt at Olympus, or is that something that’s evolved in certain stages of development? Does that make sense?
Smith Clemens: It does to me, and I’ve got to jump in. You totally put into words, Alex, the whole kind of philosophy of the company in terms of development in the consumer products category. It’s really not any accident at all that Olympus has over the years stepped out of the norm. Its one thing that I have to say just as a photographer and not just as an Olympus employee: Olympus has never been afraid to put themselves out there and bring products to market that a lot of people have never seen before. Sometimesthey’re received really well and sometimes people are like “What the heck is that?” One thing you have to say about Olympus is that they’re not afraid to really put themselves out there and really push the envelope in the introduction/applications of new technologies. And the good thing about that, regardless of how the product is initially received in terms of sales and units and this and that, in general it has a positive impact on the entire industry. It forces all of us: it forces the manufacturers, the retailers, and it forces you and I, the end user, photographers, whoever we are, to rethink about the applications of technology and how to utilize these tools in ways that we may never have thought of before-- isn’t it cool that somebody (Olympus) is showing different ways we canrealize the benefit of the new technology.
DCI: I completely agree. The success of the product is obviously yet to be determined. But the influence it will have will extend far beyond this particular model.
Smith Clemens: Oh yeah. This is just my Sally Smith Clemens prediction, but I think we will probably see other manufacturers introduce products this year that offer live view. Just because, like you, Alex, I think it’s going to have a huge impact. Particularly for the mass consumers that are used to already using a consumer digital camera that has live view--those guys just expect it. They just expect an SLR, once they’re ready to jump into that category, to have a live view. It’s amazing that we haven’t had it up until now. And leave it to Olympus to be the first ones to bring it out. We’ve never been afraid to be the first ones to do anything before. We were really the first ones to introduce from the 100% from the ground up digital SLR, the E-1, with dedicated digital specific interchangeable lenses. We offer the largest line of dedicated digital optics, all of the accessories, even the dedicated flash units offer upgradeable firmware in so that end users can take advantage of the latest technologies in an integrated system. Other manufacturers are still entrenched with one foot on the film side, trying to bring the customer base over gradually, so that they don’t lose any customers. We (Olympus) just jumped in feet first. We thought, “You know what, let’s use the technology, let’s not be held to the past, let’s produce a product all designed around digital technology,” and that’s really what we’ve done.
DCI: We were interested in the evolution of the LCD through the Olympus camera digital lineage, if you will--when the first LCD was introduced into an Olympus camera and how that particular technology has evolved into this.
Pelkowski: Our very first digital cameras that we introduced, which were the D200, the DL 200 and the DL 300, were way back in ’98 I think.
Smith Clemens: I think that was in ’96.
Pelkowski: Those cameras were fixed focal length autofocus cameras. They did have regular optical viewfinders, and they did also have TTL LCD viewfinders that were probably 1.5-inch diagonal. Probably about 800,000 pixel LCDs.
DCI: So all Olympus cameras have had LCDs?
Pelkowski: We’ve always used that. Yes.
Smith Clemens: We were I think, weren’t we Richard, the first camera manufacturer/optical company to introduce the digital SLR that had a fixed lens? It was the D600 and D500 in 1997, correct?
Pelkowski: Well, those were the first ones at any affordable price point. I mean, at that time, Kodak had those 2 bodies out.
Smith Clemens: They did? At this exact same time?
Pelkowski: Yeah. They did. They were really expensive at that time. I think they were $20,000 for the bodies, the one that used the Canon mount and the Nikon mount. Anyway, those were breakthrough products at the time, the D500 L and the D600 L. They had an optical TTL viewfinder using an optical beam splitter. They also had live view on the back, and we sold the heck out of those cameras. Those first ones were only 1.3 megapixel cameras, but there was just absolutely nothing like it out there at the time. And I mean, when the camera first got introduced, I think it was $2,000. You couldn’t make them fast enough.
DCI: Sorry to regress a little, but the elements of Bright Capture that are included in this camera… are those exclusive to the LCD?
Pelkowski: No. Actually, it has to do with the CCD in the viewfinder. It’s what we call Bright Capture CCD Technology, which first showed up in our Stylus line of point-and-shoot cameras. This technology basically samples 9 pixels into 1 to get a brighter capture, and a brighter viewfinder preview. But it works better than just increasing the gain on the chip.
DCI: Was it difficult to integrate this system into a camera that has dust reduction, or did that not factor in at all?
Pelkowski: Actually, it was not an issue at all. The dust reduction system is working just as it did on the 500, the 30 and the E-1. It might be a different way it’s packaged with the main board and everything, but it still resides in the same place which is just behind the low pass filter. And it still works the same.
DCI: Are there any other notable differences between the E-300 and the E-330?
Pelkowski: Let’s see: sensor type; obviously one has live view.
DCI: Have you gauged performance of the various sensors? Do you feel that in addition to increased functionality, that performance will be improved as well?
Pelkowski: Good question. We’d expected it to be better at high ISO in terms of noise, but I’m not even at that point where I have anything worthwhile that I could use to compare all of them, the 500 and 300 to the 330. But I do expect it to be a bit better. There is one other small point of differentiation between the bodies and that is: the 330 actually has an eyepiece viewfinder shutter built right into the body, instead of giving you a little plastic cap like we did with the 300 and the 500.
DCI: Excellent. Many other manufacturers did the same thing.
Pelkowski: It’s a live view product and that’s very important to have that built into it. That’s a pretty premium feature to have in a camera at this price point.
DCI: I agree. Is this going to be a worldwide release next Thursday?
Pelkowski: Yes it is. Worldwide. Oh, gee. You know, there’s something I was just remembering while talking about the eyepiece shutter, too. We are introducing a high quality underwater housing for this camera. We expect to ship it around the same time as the time the camera starts to ship, which will be late winter/early spring this year. It’s a 60 meter case, very high quality and compatible with all the existing lens ports, strobe housings and brackets. This is the first true digital SLR that can give you live view that also has underwater capability. Which is really big, because everything else out there, every single thing out there right now that has a high quality case for an interchangeable lens involves an optical viewfinder--which is not a nice thing to be using underwater.
DCI: No.
Pelkowski. And we have lens ports for our fish-eye lens and our 7-14 zoom, and also our 11-22, the wide angles that really lend themselves to that type of photography.
DCI: Great. Do you think that the live preview would be possible with a full-frame sensor or anything that requires that much power?
Pelkowski: That’s a darn good question. I didn’t think of that yet. It’s going be an issue. You can imagine the power consumption has got to be close to 100 percent greater, right?
DCI: Yeah.
Pelkowski: Boy, that’s a great question. I’ll see if I can get more information on that. I like that.
DCI: Great. Well. Richard Pelkowski and Sally Smith Clemens, thank you. Again, I can’t stress enough how appreciative we are for both your time and the exclusive.
Smith Clemens: Thank you, Alex. It’s a learning experience for us, too. You asked a lot of really great questions.
DCI: Well great. We’re certainly excited to be able to put this interview out there, and we’re also excited over the product. And, again, we appreciate your time.
und ein Interview habe ich auch anzubieten.
Quelle
http://www.digitalcamerainfo.com/co...roduct-Manager-DSLRs-at-Olympus-/Part-One.htm
Find ich sehr interessant, ich hab mal die aus meiner Sicht interessanten Dinge markiert
Olympus Interview, Part One:
Part One contains the genesis of the technology, why the E-330’s approach is unique, the target market for this camera, and how it will impact the industry.
DCI: To begin, if you wouldn’t mind Richard, would you give us a bit of background on your career and how you’ve come to this point?
Richard Pelkowski: Oh sure, I’d be happy to. I’ve been with Olympus for 12 years this spring. I started with them in service actually, before digital cameras actually hit the scene back in the early 90s. When I saw them coming I knew that was where I wanted to really be, working with the products. I worked in technical support for Olympus and then got into marketing about 5 years ago and now work with John Knaur, one of our senior product managers here, and I co-manage the E system products.
DCI: And how long has this actual technology on the E-330 been in development?
Pelkowski: I would say roughly about 2 years. You’re probably thinking, “My God, it took them a long time.”
DCI: I was just curious if the idea [for a live view] was already in its inception when the E-300 was originally announced.
Pelkowski: Exactly. At that time people asked us why we were coming out with a flat top camera. We did state at the time that this design would give us a little room in the future for new and innovative designs, live view being one of them. We actually did allude to that.
DCI: Would you mind giving us a little background on how the technology works? And what were the major obstacles that had to be overcome to implement that?
Pelkowski: Sure. But before telling you the nuts and bolts of how it works: you can easily get a live view camera with an interchangeable lens without having a reflex mirror, but what we’ve done on this product [the E-330] is different. We still retained the mirror box, the reflex mirror and the optical viewfinder path and still have enabled a true live view camera. So you still retain the SLR type phase detection autofocus system, which is very fast and very accurate. You still have an optical viewfinder. And you have a true live view. And when I say true live view, I mean true; the camera can be in that mode, not for just a couple of minutes or 30 seconds and not just in monochrome--but it’s a true live view as you’d have with an ultra zoom camera with a EVF viewfinder, but you still have all the benefits of the optical viewfinder.
DCI: Going with what you just said… in 2000-2001, Olympus put out the E-10 and the E-20. They used beam splitter technology…
Pelkowski: They did use beam splitter technology. The drawback with that design was actually the type of focus system that was used, which was contrast detection as opposed to phase detection [because of insufficient amounts of light]. So, while that camera did offer live view… well, it wasn’t an interchangeable lens product; it didn’t have a reflex mirror, it didn’t use a phase detection auto focus system. It was a bit of a slow camera, too. And the viewfinder could be a bit dimmer, because you are sending some of the light in one direction and some in the other.
DCI: Looking at the diagram for the E-330, I see that the light hits the autofocus mechanism prior to being split.
Pelkowski: That’s correct. The main mirror, the reflex mirror and the autofocus system are really the same as [the system in] anyone else’s SLR, except that it’s turned sideways… The main mirror, the reflex mirror, has a semi-transmissive portion, like a one-way part.
Smith Clemens: Like a one-way mirror, right?
Richard Pelkowski: Exactly, like a one-way security mirror. Now, behind that there is actually what you call a sub mirror. And if you lift up the mirror on any of these cameras very slowly you’ll actually see the sub mirror before it pops up tight to the main mirror. Anyway, before exposure that sub mirror picks up what’s being focused on the mirror from the lens and actually shoots it down at a little AF sensor. This is the phase detection auto focus sensor that’s in the bottom of the mirror box. On other SLRs it’ll be sitting on the bottom, but on this camera it’ll be sitting on the side.
DCI: Would this technology be possible without a porro mirror?
Pelkowski: It would be, but I don’t think we would have been able to do it at this price point. We could in fact do it with a pentamirror or a pentaprism product in the future.
DCI: So the design will not affect the autofocus because the light beam doesn’t split until after it gets directed there?
Pelkowski: Exactly. In the live view A mode, we don’t have any split or divergence of the light path until we get right up near the viewfinder diopter.
DCI: Do you expect the optical viewfinder to offer the same illumination as the E-500 [viewfinder]?
Pelkowski: I think it’s going to be a little bit off. It is in fact an 80/20 split. 80 percent [of the light] to the viewfinder diopter, about 20 percent of the light focused on that secondary small CCD. Having said that though, for most of your photographic situations I really don’t see that as something that’s very noticeable. Comparing different manufacturers, you get diminishes in the viewfinder brightness that can be due to your mirror design, whether its pentamirror, whether its pentaprism; your focus screen, the lens that’s on the camera and so on and so forth--a smaller lens is going to make it darker. But I don’t think it significantly detracts from the optical viewfinder in this product.
DCI: That actually brings us to an interesting point… Do you think this camera is different from the rest in terms of its target audience? Because of the live LCD, it seems that it’s not trying to interest people who are comfortable with film SLRs, but people who have grown up or evolved from compact digital cameras and are now moving up to a DSLR.
Pelkowski: With target markets it’s never 100 percent one way or the other, but I would absolutely agree with you. That’s a very good analysis that you make. That is definitely part of the customer that we see for this camera. Our earlier products, the E-10 and the E-20 you mentioned, were very popular with certain types of photographers because of the optical viewfinder and live view LCD. So we also think many people that bought into that product are going to be interested in this new E-330.
DCI: How do you see it impacting the entry level DSLR ranks?
Pelkowski: I think that’s going be a smaller customer segment with this product. But the reason I say that is really because of price point. We’re not so sure because it’s really new territory for us. We know it’s not going to be a product with mass units for us, as the E-500 might be for instance.
DCI: Where do you see the largest impact? What would you guess the eventual user base is shooting with now?
Pelkowski: E-10s and E-20s and more advanced digital SLRs right now. I think the E-330 will mostly impact those who have the need for extremely fine focusing capability at macro distances.
Smith Clemens: Can I interject? We’ve learned that 32% of the people that are currently buying a DSLR are purchasing their very first camera period. That means they’ve never even had a film camera before and they’re starting with a DSLR; there will always be that segment of user that is interested in the versatility that an SLR offers. Now, when you hand an SLR to somebody that’s on the novice side, or it’s their first camera, they ask, “Well, why can’t I see the picture on the LCD?” and then you have to go into the whole explanation; “Well, it’s a single lens reflex camera etc….” So I think the appeal of the live view is going to be very attractive to the mass consumer, but that’s the first half. The second half is the level of functionality that the E-330 offers in terms of sophisticated features, like a live view A mode and B mode that Richard mentioned for macro work. So you’re also appealing to the much more technically savvy person, such as someone coming from an industrial or medical background. For forensic photography for example, when live view is more practical in a clinical setting for close-up work. For environments that are not conducive to getting too close physically to the subject or looking directly through the optical viewfinder. Probably about 80 percent of the people who purchase this camera are going to be the mass consumer who like the whole live view aspect, and they’ll never take it out of live view A mode--which is going to be the default, out of the box setting.
Olympus Interview, Part Two:
Part Two of our interview with products managers Sally Smith Clemens and Richard Pelkowski of Olympus covers the nuts and bolts of what the E-330 offers and what it can do, including commentary on power consumption and the challenges of a movie mode on a DSLR.
DCI: Could you explain what advantages each mode has and what situations in which you’d see them being most applicable?
Pelkowski: Certainly. A mode, as Sally mentioned, is really going to be for the person who’s just looking to use the LCD panel for composition. This camera facilitates that tremendously because it has the moveable LCD panel for an overhead shot, waist low shot, or even shot captured by kneeling on the ground. The B mode is, again, going to be for people that need to do fine focusing on copy stands or tripods. That mode is really only useable in that type of photo situation with a camera mounted in a stable fashion. There will be manual focusing also available in that mode. Now, the E-330’s live view offers an advantage in focusing. You’re probably thinking that you could focus just fine through an ordinary optical viewfinder, but if you’ve got a split center FC screen, it’s very difficult to tell at very close working distances of very shallow depth of field if your focus is correct and exactly what point it’s on. For instance, if you’ve ever tried to use a macro lens and an extension tube to try to photograph jewelry products or anything like that, you’ll know what I mean. You can go back and forth with trial and error until you get it right, but it’s difficult to determine through a focus screen on an optical TTL viewfinder on an SLR camera. With the E-330, I can actually select the area on the preview screen that I want to magnify, and there’s little rectangle that pops up which I can move around with the jog dial on the camera. If I press the OK button it’ll give me a 10x magnification of that area on the subject.
DCI: And how sharp is the LCD? What’s the resolution?
Pelkowski: It’s sharp. And I’m going to get to that in a second. Anyway, in B mode I can also overlay some different scaling grid patterns on the LCD panel… and get depth of field preview, too, in that live view mode.
DCI: How is the depth of field preview enabled on that camera?
Pelkowski: By the same way on a traditional SLR; it actually stops down the lens diaphragm.
DCI: Is the button near the lens barrel?
Pelkowski: Actually, it’s a button on the back of that camera that we dedicate to that function. It’s the drive button that’s just about at the 11 o’clock position on the jog dial. You asked me what’s the quality of the image on the screen, right?
DCI: Yes.
Pelkowski: You’re going to be pretty impressed with it. And that’s a very good question, because it has to be very high quality.
DCI: Absolutely.
Pelkowski: It has to have low noise for it to really be of use.
DCI: Yeah, it’s a major selling point.
Pelkowski: In the A mode, we’ve achieved that splendidly. That second CCD that we use in the viewfinder is the 8 million pixel capture CCD from our Stylus 800.
Smith Clemens: You guys are familiar with that, Alex.
DCI: Uh-huh.
Pelkowski: Now, you really could have effected this negatively with a $20 little itty bitty 800,000 pixel chip. We didn’t do that. We actually used a very high quality secondary image sensor as the secondary sensor for the viewfinder. That not only gives us the capability that that chip offers for low light situations, but it gives a really high quality signal to send to that LCD panel on the back. Now I’m going to talk about that LCD panel on the back and what it offers for live view technology in this camera. It’s the same 215,000 HyperCrystal technology panel that we use in our EVOLT 500, which has gotten tremendous reviews. It’s just a brilliant component. And it’s just packaged with a different frame now, the tilting LCD frame. We could have been able to do that with cheaper components. I mean, if we had used a lower resolution CCD in the viewfinder, and then maybe just a 150,000 plain-Jane TFT LCD on the back, it would have worked, but nowhere nearly as nicely as it does now.
Smith Clemens: HyperCrystal, by the way, basically means that it’s a wide view high contrast LCD that can be viewed from angles up to 160 degrees.
Pelkowski: Yes. And the difference from a 1.8 or a 2-inch LCD that’s got 150,000 pixels is tremendous. But anyway, if I could go back to the B mode again. The main sensor is a 7.5 megapixel Live-MOS sensor.
DCI: What’s the difference between… that’s a metal oxide conductor, right?
Pelkowski: Exactly. MOS is Metal Oxide Semiconductor. Of course you’ve heard of CMOS that Canon’s using in their products and some other manufacturers use. We’re calling it a Live-MOS sensor, but to answer your question it’s technically an NMOS sensor, which I believe stands for Negative-type Metal Oxide Semiconductor chip. This type of sensor, though, facilitates and complements the live view function. You could use a CCD in this camera for capture and live view in B mode, but those are interlaced chips, and it makes the image kind of jaggy and not that fluid when you’re panning the camera. We’ve always said in the past when people asked us, “Are you going to stay with the Kodak? Are you going to stick with CCDs?” we’ve always said that we’re going to use the type of chip that’s best for the particular application.
Smith Clemens: The predecessors to this camera, Alex, were the E-1 and the E-300 and the E-500, and they all used a single Kodak full-frame transfer CCD to collect image data. The E-330 is using dual sensor technology, an 8 million pixel CCD in the viewfinder with Bright Capture Technology for framing and composing the image on the 2.5” LCD, which is by the way the same type of CCD that is used in the Olympus Stylus 800 digital camera And the capture sensor which is a 7.5 effective pixels metal oxide semiconductor that we’re calling Live-MOS. Richard, isn’t this the only camera so far that’s used that type of sensor?
Pelkowski: That is correct.
DCI: Obviously with the addition of the live preview, they’ll be more of a power drain. Is there a different battery in this than the E-300 and E-500, and if so, how is that designed to cater to all the functionality the camera has to offer?
Pelkowski: Good question. It actually is using the same battery, the BLM1. It’s a lithium-ion battery, and I think its 70 watts. With no live view, just using the optical viewfinder, it would be very similar to the 500 or the 300: [according to the battery life data sheet] they’re stating approximately 400 releases or exposures. In A mode: 250. That’s with the optical viewfinder still enabled and using the little sensor on the top for the live view. In the B mode, where we’re using mirror lockup and the main NMOS sensor to capture the image, we’re down to 200.
Smith Clemens: Which is still pretty reasonable for a 2.5-inch live LCD.
Pelkowski: I’m fine with the numbers they’re giving us on this, actually. Think about it. That’s with that [LCD] turned on constantly. So that’s pretty good.
DCI: Well…
Pelkowski: By the way, while we’re talking about that… one of the reasons for choosing this chip was the power consumption, and also noise. If you leave a CCD turned on for a long period of time, it actually develops a lot more heat because it’s using a lot more voltage and current, and its going get noisy as well. But with this chip, the spec we have for this is1.5 hours continuously turned on at ISO 100 until there is any increase in noise. And I believe at ISO 1600, it’s 8 minutes before any noise would be encountered. I think these are very impressive specs.
DCI: Um, yeah. Absolutely. Do any of those figures include flash usage?
Pelkowski: The figures that would have pertained to flash usage would have been with the battery life figures. And frankly, I don’t know. That’s a very good question. I’m sorry I don’t have the answer for you.
DCI: No problem. I was also curious… the camera is or is not capable of recording video?
Pelkowski: It is not. That’s a really good question, too, because you’d probably….you know, you could have done that with this camera, because obviously in the B mode we’ve got the shutter out of the way and the mirror locked up.
DCI: Exactly.
Pelkowski: But it would have added additional cost to the camera to do that. We were really conscious of where we were going to hit the market, at what price point. To do it with contrast detection autofocus throughout the movie duration [instead of with manual focus] would have added more expense to it. You have to understand, too, it’s not just another position on the mode dial. There would be additional circuitry and additional memory buffer to do that, and so on and so forth, so it would have been popped the cost up at retail maybe $50 or $100 dollars. You can be sure that’s certainly something that we’re considering for the future. The other thing we have to bear in mind is whether this type of customer is looking for that, as well. I think some of them would. I mean, why not.
DCI: Absolutely. One of the reasons the ultra zoom market is flourishing right now is because you get the live view and video recording. And I think a lot of manufacturers are consciously targeting that multifunction, hybrid type user. And, as far as I’m aware, there is only one consumer camcorder under $5,000 that has interchangeable lenses.
Pelkowski: That’s the Canon?
DCI: Yeah, the XL 2.
Pelkowski: It’s a good point, because in more and more cameras as the memory gets faster and the buffer is more robust, they’re going to the VGA movie mode, too, which is some pretty cool stuff.
DCI: Can you tell me what ISO settings are on the camera?
Pelkowski: This camera actually starts at 100 and I think it will go around to 3200. I thought it was just 1600 at first.
Smith Clemens: You can check, the specs changed.
Pelkowski: I’m sorry, I was wrong. It’s 100 to 1600. Which with a digital camera, 1600 is pretty darn high, actually.
DCI: Are the noise reduction mechanisms similar to those in the E-500?
Pelkowski: That’s a good question. They probably work similarly, but since they’re using much different chips, I honestly…
Smith Clemens: I don’t think we know yet, Alex.
Olympus Interview, Part Three:
Part Three of DigitalcameraInfo.com’s exclusive interview with Olympus product managers Richard Pelkowski and Sally Smith Clemens offers more market impact analysis, including speculation on how other manufacturers may respond. Smith Clemens and Pelkowski also discuss the future of live view on Olympus DSLRs and provide more detail on the mechanisms of the live view itself.
DCI: I know this is pretty general, but: How do you foresee this release impacting that higher-priced ultra zoom fixed lens segment of the camera market?
Pelkowski: I think that it could have a very significant effect on it. You may or may not be aware, but we’ve announced a lens last fall that’ll we’ll begin shipping by the end of this month. It’s a 10x optical zoom lens at a very affordable price. To cut to the chase: You could have this camera and that lens for a price point at something like the new Sonys, and you have a much more capable product than just a 10x ultra zoom fixed lens camera.
DCI: No question.
Smith Clemens: 18-180 mm, Alex.
Pelkowski: 18-180, so that’s a 36-360mm ultra zoom lens for this type of customer at a price point under $500.
DCI: Wow.
Smith Clemens: Its only about 3 inches tall, too. It’s real small, the size of a coffee cup.
DCI: So, to come back to where we started. We covered some of this, but could you again give more of an overview of the [live view] technology and how the major obstacles that other manufacturers are facing were overcome?
Pelkowski: Sure. I think presently, they’re limited very much by the viewfinder design they’re using, which is a pentaprism and pentamirror with it. With a pentamirror SLR, Let’s just say an D-50, D-70 or even our E-500, you really wouldn’t be able to do this without having an asymmetrical bump off to one side of the prism, because the optical path is coming up from the bottom. You probably have to take the CCD somewhere; you can’t have it inside there, so it would have to be bulging out somewhere on the side. I don’t think anyone has been ready to do that. There could also be a lot of other engineering limitations that I may not even be aware of right now.
DCI: Okay. And do you expect this technology to filter into other [Olympus] cameras, or do you see the E-500 and E-330 as beginning separate lines, one with a live view, one without? How do you foresee this technology making its way to other Olympus DSLRS?
Pelkowski: I can only speak for the E system products, but when we develop a feature for the E system product that becomes a standard. For instance, the dust reduction system, which we didn’t even talk about--this camera does contain a dust reduction system, and every E-System camera that we will ever produce will have the dust reduction system. So this is a new standard for E system products. You can very much expect to see live view in future E system digital SLR bodies from us. And those could be at any price point.
Smith Clemens: And it’s likely that we will still keep the traditional look, Richard, as well? Like the E-500?
Pelkowski: Oh yeah. Absolutely.
Smith Clemens: So. You really answered it yourself, Alex. It’s a separate category within the E line of the traditional-looking bodies, that look and feel more like traditional SLRs.
DCI: So conceivably, the next version of the E-500 could possibly NOT have the live preview?
Pelkowski: Um. I’d say more likely it will.
Smith Clemens: Richard, stop me if I’m incorrect, but is it possible that you can still see cameras with only optical viewfinders in the line?
Pelkowski: I can’t sit here and say that for certain, but there is a very good probability that all future SLRs may have live preview.
DCI: How much impact do you expect this release to have with other manufacturers? What do you expect the curve to be before people start attempting to replicate this? Obviously, people are already working on this now…
Pelkowski: I think the manufactures will try to replicate it very quickly. The product has not been announced [at the time of this interview], and the only reaction we have to it to so far are from press meetings. We’ve talked to a couple of very large dealers about the camera. They’re giving us feedback that’s in line with what we’re thinking--what we’re feeling about the camera, who’s going to use it, what the acceptance is going to be. So I don’t think this is going to be a 100,000 unit product for us, but I think it’s really going to shake up the industry, this segment of the still camera market.
DCI: That’s interesting. Because I could see it going the other way, possibly.
Smith Clemens: What do you mean?
DCI: Obviously, the E-300 and the E-500 have had some success. But I could see this being a real breakthrough for the line.
Pelkowski: It could be. And I really appreciate that positive point of view. It could be. It’s just that…
Smith Clemens: We’ve been talking to, as Richard said, some of our other dealers and to you guys (the press) because when it’s something like this that’s never existed before, you have to get your initial batch out there to see what kind of response you have. I’m not the one who talks to the dealers directly, but my guess is they’re responding the same way… as Rich mentioned, this is probably going to shake the industry up. It will probably send other manufacturers scrambling to the drawing board to try and duplicate the same type of functionality.
DCI: Absolutely. And I mean, we have to acknowledge that over at least the last four or five years, you guys have made a pretty bold attempt to integrate technologies that aren’t in existence, such as move forms with the E-300 body. Is that something that’s a conscious attempt at Olympus, or is that something that’s evolved in certain stages of development? Does that make sense?
Smith Clemens: It does to me, and I’ve got to jump in. You totally put into words, Alex, the whole kind of philosophy of the company in terms of development in the consumer products category. It’s really not any accident at all that Olympus has over the years stepped out of the norm. Its one thing that I have to say just as a photographer and not just as an Olympus employee: Olympus has never been afraid to put themselves out there and bring products to market that a lot of people have never seen before. Sometimesthey’re received really well and sometimes people are like “What the heck is that?” One thing you have to say about Olympus is that they’re not afraid to really put themselves out there and really push the envelope in the introduction/applications of new technologies. And the good thing about that, regardless of how the product is initially received in terms of sales and units and this and that, in general it has a positive impact on the entire industry. It forces all of us: it forces the manufacturers, the retailers, and it forces you and I, the end user, photographers, whoever we are, to rethink about the applications of technology and how to utilize these tools in ways that we may never have thought of before-- isn’t it cool that somebody (Olympus) is showing different ways we canrealize the benefit of the new technology.
DCI: I completely agree. The success of the product is obviously yet to be determined. But the influence it will have will extend far beyond this particular model.
Smith Clemens: Oh yeah. This is just my Sally Smith Clemens prediction, but I think we will probably see other manufacturers introduce products this year that offer live view. Just because, like you, Alex, I think it’s going to have a huge impact. Particularly for the mass consumers that are used to already using a consumer digital camera that has live view--those guys just expect it. They just expect an SLR, once they’re ready to jump into that category, to have a live view. It’s amazing that we haven’t had it up until now. And leave it to Olympus to be the first ones to bring it out. We’ve never been afraid to be the first ones to do anything before. We were really the first ones to introduce from the 100% from the ground up digital SLR, the E-1, with dedicated digital specific interchangeable lenses. We offer the largest line of dedicated digital optics, all of the accessories, even the dedicated flash units offer upgradeable firmware in so that end users can take advantage of the latest technologies in an integrated system. Other manufacturers are still entrenched with one foot on the film side, trying to bring the customer base over gradually, so that they don’t lose any customers. We (Olympus) just jumped in feet first. We thought, “You know what, let’s use the technology, let’s not be held to the past, let’s produce a product all designed around digital technology,” and that’s really what we’ve done.
DCI: We were interested in the evolution of the LCD through the Olympus camera digital lineage, if you will--when the first LCD was introduced into an Olympus camera and how that particular technology has evolved into this.
Pelkowski: Our very first digital cameras that we introduced, which were the D200, the DL 200 and the DL 300, were way back in ’98 I think.
Smith Clemens: I think that was in ’96.
Pelkowski: Those cameras were fixed focal length autofocus cameras. They did have regular optical viewfinders, and they did also have TTL LCD viewfinders that were probably 1.5-inch diagonal. Probably about 800,000 pixel LCDs.
DCI: So all Olympus cameras have had LCDs?
Pelkowski: We’ve always used that. Yes.
Smith Clemens: We were I think, weren’t we Richard, the first camera manufacturer/optical company to introduce the digital SLR that had a fixed lens? It was the D600 and D500 in 1997, correct?
Pelkowski: Well, those were the first ones at any affordable price point. I mean, at that time, Kodak had those 2 bodies out.
Smith Clemens: They did? At this exact same time?
Pelkowski: Yeah. They did. They were really expensive at that time. I think they were $20,000 for the bodies, the one that used the Canon mount and the Nikon mount. Anyway, those were breakthrough products at the time, the D500 L and the D600 L. They had an optical TTL viewfinder using an optical beam splitter. They also had live view on the back, and we sold the heck out of those cameras. Those first ones were only 1.3 megapixel cameras, but there was just absolutely nothing like it out there at the time. And I mean, when the camera first got introduced, I think it was $2,000. You couldn’t make them fast enough.
DCI: Sorry to regress a little, but the elements of Bright Capture that are included in this camera… are those exclusive to the LCD?
Pelkowski: No. Actually, it has to do with the CCD in the viewfinder. It’s what we call Bright Capture CCD Technology, which first showed up in our Stylus line of point-and-shoot cameras. This technology basically samples 9 pixels into 1 to get a brighter capture, and a brighter viewfinder preview. But it works better than just increasing the gain on the chip.
DCI: Was it difficult to integrate this system into a camera that has dust reduction, or did that not factor in at all?
Pelkowski: Actually, it was not an issue at all. The dust reduction system is working just as it did on the 500, the 30 and the E-1. It might be a different way it’s packaged with the main board and everything, but it still resides in the same place which is just behind the low pass filter. And it still works the same.
DCI: Are there any other notable differences between the E-300 and the E-330?
Pelkowski: Let’s see: sensor type; obviously one has live view.
DCI: Have you gauged performance of the various sensors? Do you feel that in addition to increased functionality, that performance will be improved as well?
Pelkowski: Good question. We’d expected it to be better at high ISO in terms of noise, but I’m not even at that point where I have anything worthwhile that I could use to compare all of them, the 500 and 300 to the 330. But I do expect it to be a bit better. There is one other small point of differentiation between the bodies and that is: the 330 actually has an eyepiece viewfinder shutter built right into the body, instead of giving you a little plastic cap like we did with the 300 and the 500.
DCI: Excellent. Many other manufacturers did the same thing.
Pelkowski: It’s a live view product and that’s very important to have that built into it. That’s a pretty premium feature to have in a camera at this price point.
DCI: I agree. Is this going to be a worldwide release next Thursday?
Pelkowski: Yes it is. Worldwide. Oh, gee. You know, there’s something I was just remembering while talking about the eyepiece shutter, too. We are introducing a high quality underwater housing for this camera. We expect to ship it around the same time as the time the camera starts to ship, which will be late winter/early spring this year. It’s a 60 meter case, very high quality and compatible with all the existing lens ports, strobe housings and brackets. This is the first true digital SLR that can give you live view that also has underwater capability. Which is really big, because everything else out there, every single thing out there right now that has a high quality case for an interchangeable lens involves an optical viewfinder--which is not a nice thing to be using underwater.
DCI: No.
Pelkowski. And we have lens ports for our fish-eye lens and our 7-14 zoom, and also our 11-22, the wide angles that really lend themselves to that type of photography.
DCI: Great. Do you think that the live preview would be possible with a full-frame sensor or anything that requires that much power?
Pelkowski: That’s a darn good question. I didn’t think of that yet. It’s going be an issue. You can imagine the power consumption has got to be close to 100 percent greater, right?
DCI: Yeah.
Pelkowski: Boy, that’s a great question. I’ll see if I can get more information on that. I like that.
DCI: Great. Well. Richard Pelkowski and Sally Smith Clemens, thank you. Again, I can’t stress enough how appreciative we are for both your time and the exclusive.
Smith Clemens: Thank you, Alex. It’s a learning experience for us, too. You asked a lot of really great questions.
DCI: Well great. We’re certainly excited to be able to put this interview out there, and we’re also excited over the product. And, again, we appreciate your time.
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