GADGET REVIEWS Just another GADGET NEWS

Olympus has revealed two new lenses today, both for the Micro Four Thirds format. One is a 40-150mm 4.0-5.6 which will sell for just 330 when it is launched in October. This has a silent AF-motor for movie-shooting but is otherwise rather pedestrian thanks to those mediocre maximum apertures.

The other lens is way more interesting. It too has rather poor light-gathering abilities when wide-open (4.8-6.7), but that is excusable as it runs from 75-300mm. In 35mm terms, that’s a 150-600mm monster. Still not impressed? The lens weighs just 430-grams (15-ounces) and is only 116mm (4.6-inches) long.

For comparison, look at some SLR lenses. Nikon’s longest reaching zoom is the 200-400mm 4, which weighs 3360-grams or a wrist-breaking 7.4-pounds and measures 365mm or 14.4-inches. That, though, is still short of the Olympus’ 600mm far-end. To get to that number, you need to choose a prime lens from Nikon.

The Nikkor 600mm 4 weighs five kilos (11-pounds) and is a John Holmesian 166mm (17.5-inches) in length. To put that in perspective, the diameter of the Nikon is almost four times the length of the Olympus. Also, the Nikon will cost you $10,300.

This astonishing difference is due only to the lack of a mirror in the Micro Four Thirds cameras, and the smaller sensor (half the size of a 35mm-frame and around two-thirds the size of a typical DSLR). These lenses would have been possible on Leica rangefinders, too, but were impractical as there was no way to see through the lens and frame your shot. Digital live-view has changed that.

The 75-300mm Olympus will cost just 900 ($1,140, but certainly less when sold in the US) and will be in stores in December.

Olympus releases M.Zuiko Digital ED 75-300mm lens [DP Review]

Olympus introduces M.Zuiko Digital ED 40-150mm lens [DP Review]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews

Panasonic is really into 3D. Not only will it sell you a big 3D television with which to watch the latest Hollywood head-spinners, it will soon sell you a lens which can be popped onto a G-series camera and shoot your own stereoscopic pics.

The lens is actually two lenses in a single, compact housing. When you shoot an photo or video, two pictures are captured simultaneously onto your sensor. Obviously this reduces the overall resolution of the resulting images, but with video this shouldn’t matter as the footage is down-sampled from the giant photo-sensor. This double-image (or video) is then turned into a 3D one in software, to be viewed on one of Panny’s TVs.

The lens has not yet been given a launch date or a price (other than a vague “end of the year”), so plenty of questions remain unanswered. Will cameras need a firmware update to use the lens? That seems almost certain. Also, how good will the stereoscopic effect be with the two lenses so close together? And I’m assuming here that the cameras will actually shoot 3D video: the press release only mentions still images, but who wants to view their photos on a TV screen?

Still, we love that Panasonic is making 3D an optional extra for its Micro Four Thirds system. It’s this kind of innovation that is currently leaving the likes of Nikon and Canon behind, and we’re all for it. And it shouldn’t be long before somebody hacks their way around the 3D format and lets us do something useful with the images instead of looking at them on a TV.

Panasonic developing world’s first interchangable 3D lens for Micro Four Thirds (Press release) [DP Review]

Follow us for real-time tech news: Charlie Sorrel and Gadget Lab on Twitter.

Source:wired.com

Posted under Gadget Reviews