If there's one thing that I feel is really a problem with m4/3s, is not that they have so few prime lenses, but that all of the zooms are so slow. The latest offerings give one vast zoom ranges, but at the cost of very slow speeds. I would be very happy with low range zooms like are available with 4/3s, but are fast and have constant aperture. I don't necessarily need constant f2 lenses, but I'd be really happy with something better than f4.8-6.7 and f3.5-5.6. What would it take to make even a constant, f2.8 or even f4, 3x zoom?

Cheers

Ray

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Agreed, especially the DoF at any given aperture is twice that of 35mm for the same "frame filling potential".

I think the only thing that is holding Ply/Pana back is size of fast/const aperture zoom lenses -- I am yet to see any such lens that is reasonably portable/compact and m4/3 is mostly about portability/compactness.

Let's assume we want to produce a 75-300mm zoom with f/4.0 at the long end. That is, 300 divided by 4 equals 75. That means, that the physical opening of the aperture would be 75mm. The front glass would be even bigger than that and the body of the lens would be rather huge for a µ4/3 camera. The lens would be heavy and very expensive, because making the lens one stop faster means about eight times the effort to design and construct the lens. This lens would be even more than one stop faster than the lens introduced by Olympus.

Now imagine a constant f/2.8 zoom: 300 divided by 2.8 equals 107. Thus the front lens of such a lens would be more than 10 cm large. Olympus cannot break the laws of physics.

It happens that the introduced lens could not be much faster as it already is.

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“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” (Elliott Erwitt)

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That's very true, but slow zooms are also useless.

Yes, that's true, I have the 4/3s 90-250mm f2.8 (a big hunk of a lens), but what we lack are zooms that are in the order of 3x or less that are reasonably fast. Not everyone wants super-zooms that work at their best in the Kalahari desert at noon, Olympus/Panasonic doesn't seem to understand this.

Cheers

Ray

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The biggest disappointments are really the zooms! Even if they are good, why bother with them? We didn't buy into these small systems just to look like some canikon fan with lenses longer than the subway!

We want to travel light! We want to able to use small bags!

Give us small, fast primes!!!

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Cosina to the rescue

I sit in both camps. I think good, fast, zooms are as valuable as good, fast, primes. Primes need to be very fast (for the respective focal length), zooms need to make a compromise (for size), so they need to be 3x or less and they can be more than f2 (but at least be constant).

Cheers

Ray

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They are not useless. However, if you really need fast zooms, nobody will hinder you to use the adapter and put Olympus' f/2.0 Zooms on your pen. But if you do, you shall ask yourself, why you don't use a DSLR instead.

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“To me, photography is an art of observation. It’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place... I’ve found it has little to do with the things you see and everything to do with the way you see them.” (Elliott Erwitt)

pictor's Flickr photostream & Flickriver

I know it wouldn't be that small like the 20mm pancake but at least it will never extend to nearly double its size!

The irony here is that the major proponents of the system seems to be the one who could not understand their own goals of building a small, lightweight system!

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