tiny 4/3 lenses ? Pentax pancake zoom ?

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x@x.com - 06 Oct 2006 18:24 GMT

I'm still looking for my next digicam (meanwhile still shooting my very old
one... depressing !).

I went to a store and compared the Oly E-500 with the Pentax K100D. Not really
any difference in size ; so since I think the K100D is a better camera, it
would win. Now where it really opened my eyes, is that I think the size of
the bodies is about right, the problem is the size of the lenses....

Pentax has a few pancake lenses that are very promissing, unfortunately
not really any small zoom. Is there any such thin lens in the 4/3 world ?

Will there be ?

Is it physically possible to make a, say, 18-55mm zoom (or 14-50mm in the 4/3
world) zoom that would be no thicker than 2 or 3 cm ?

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Clemens Dorda - 09 Oct 2006 08:56 GMT

x@x.com schrieb:

> Pentax has a few pancake lenses that are very promissing, unfortunately
> not really any small zoom. Is there any such thin lens in the 4/3 world ?

No - not as small as the Pentax lenses.

> Will there be ?

No, I don't think so. The smallest 4/3 zoom lens I know is the new
14-42mm (f/3.5-f/5.6) with 65,5mm diameter and 61mm length.

> Is it physically possible to make a, say, 18-55mm zoom (or 14-50mm in the 4/3
> world) zoom that would be no thicker than 2 or 3 cm ?

I don't know if this is physically possible in general, but regarding
the construction of the actual 4/3 lenses I think it is impossible to
make the lenses as small as you wish to have them. The big difference
between the Pentax 'pancakes' and lenses like the 4/3 ones is that the
AF motor für the pancakes is inside of the camera body. The 4/3 AF
motor, as well as the AF motor of Canon, Nikon, Sony, ..., is always
inside of the lens.

Clemens

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Ron - 09 Oct 2006 13:38 GMT

I've heard rumors that Olympus will begin releasing smaller and lighter
lenses within the next year. It has come out with the very small E-400,
only available in Europe, as harbinger of a new set of cameras and it
sounds like they will be releasing lenses to match. As an E system
owner I would welcome ligher and less expensive lenses from Oly,
particularly any that provide more wide angle options or are single
focal length. Right now most of the good lenses cost far more than the
cameras themselves. If they don't offer more lenses I will be tempted
to switch over to Pentax.

> x@x.com schrieb:
> > Pentax has a few pancake lenses that are very promissing, unfortunately
[quoted text clipped - 19 lines]
>
> Clemens

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frederick - 09 Oct 2006 21:50 GMT

> the AF motor of Canon, Nikon, Sony, ..., is always
> inside of the lens.

Not.
Af motor for newer USM/AF-s (canon/nikon) is in the lens, but not older
lenses, and no reason why they couldn't make a new lens with body motor
screw-driven focus. But I don't expect that they will - ring motor
driven AF-s is just so much better than body driven focus - faster
speed, near silent, and instant manual override of AF without switching
between AF and MF.

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Ståle Sannerud - 10 Oct 2006 09:23 GMT

Current Canon lenses (the EF series, for the EOS series of cameras) ALWAYS
have a focus motor of some sort in the lens itself, excepting a couple of
rather exotic manual-focus lenses that they make. Canon cameras don't have a
motor in the camera body at all. Unlike the other manufacturers, Canon
pretty much just dumped their old manual-focus system (FD series) altogether
when autofocus arrived, and started from scratch with a clean sheet of paper
for both bodies and lenses. One of the design choices they made was to put a
motor in each and every lens. Nikon and the others just modified their
existing systems, and put a motor in the body with an option to put a motor
in the lens.

>> the AF motor of Canon, Nikon, Sony, ..., is always
>> inside of the lens.
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> silent, and instant manual override of AF without switching between AF and
> MF.

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Alan Browne - 10 Oct 2006 20:16 GMT

> between the Pentax 'pancakes' and lenses like the 4/3 ones is that the
> AF motor für the pancakes is inside of the camera body. The 4/3 AF
> motor, as well as the AF motor of Canon, Nikon, Sony, ..., is always

The AF motor of Minolta (now Sony) (D)SLR's is in the body, not the lens.

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Clemens Dorda - 11 Oct 2006 08:54 GMT

Alan Browne schrieb:

> The AF motor of Minolta (now Sony) (D)SLR's is in the body, not the lens.

Are you sure? All information I can find tells that the motor is in the
lens, not in the body.

Clemens

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