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The Olympus 4:3 digital camera standard

The attempt by Olympus to create a new digital camera standard, which it calls the 4:3 system, has created a huge controversy in digital camera forums. For some, it's as if Olympus is as evil as Satan himself for daring to create a new standard.

The controversy revolves around the size of the imaging chip. A typical Canon DSLR like the 20D has an imaging sensor with a height of 15mm. The new Olympus 4:3 DSLRs, like the E-1 and Evolt E-300 have a sensor height of 13.5mm.

Now if you compare these sizes to traditional 35mm film which has a height of 24mm, or to a typical small non-DSLR digital camera which sports a miniscule sensor of only 5.32mm height, the Canon 20D and the new Olympus E-300 are practically identical to each other.

So why are people outraged at Olympus for a pretty small difference? Well, for many high end digital guys, the Holy Grail of digital cameras is the ultimate creation of digital camers that have imaging sensors the same size as 35mm film. Canon and Nikon have been slapping somewhat smaller than 35mm film sensors into 35mm sized bodies, giving the impression that the ultimate goal was to move back to full 35mm film sized sensors as soon as the technology becomes affordable.

Well Olympus said "no, that's a bad idea," and they created the 4:3 standard with an imaging sensor that has approximately a quarter the surface area of 35mm film. Olympus' marketing material has a much more sophisticated explanation of why their system is superior, and I actually believe most of it. They claim that by designing a sensor exclusively for digital lenses, and digital lenses especially for the digital sensor, this increases system performance. Furthermore, their sensors incorporate an electronic dust remover, which sounds to me like a tremendous convenience.

The history of photography has seen a steady decrease in film size. As film became better, the film got smaller and so did the cameras. When 35mm first came out, people said the quality was too bad for serious use. And probably they were right at the time, but film improved, and today hardly anyone uses camera formats larger than 35mm, although professional photographers are still using medium format. Smaller imaging areas mean smaller cameras and smaller lenses, which means the lenses cost a lot less money and weigh a lot less.

Digital sensors significantly outperform film on a square millimeter basis. I've carefully compared the output of my Sony F707 with a 6.6mm high sensor to 35mm film, and although the film has slightly more resolution, there's no way that it has thirteen times more resolution, which is what it should have if film performed as well as a digital imaging sensor. Maybe it has twice as much resolution.

May people already think that the sensor in the new Olympus E-300 matches or even surpasses the quality of 35mm film, and it will only get better as future techonological advances enable the same sized sensor to get even better performance.

The way I see it, the Olympus 4:3 standard is the way of the future, especially given that it's an open standard and any camera manufacturer is allowed to manufacture compliant cameras and lenses. This is in contrast to Nikon and Canon who try to lock you into their proprietary formats (which will become obsolete when they inevitably create a new digital format just like Olympus did).

So when I finally buy a digital SLR camera, the Olympus E-300 is going to be my number one choice.

Note: information on digital camera imaging sensor sizes came from this informative web page.

posted Sunday, January 09, 2005