Godfrey
Well-known member
Generally speaking on point, but remember that Olympus built lens corrections into their cameras and into their raw conversion software too, even before Micro-FourThirds, all the way back to the E-1! This is quite apparent when you use something like the ZD 35 Macro, which has substantial native barrel distortion that is completely eliminated with corrections turned on for in-camera JPEGs or in Olympus Viewer software.Add to that the fact that most m4/3 lenses are designed with software corrections in mind. The 7-14mm is in principle somewhere between a rectilinear WA lens and a fisheye lens, corrected for distortion in-camera, making it easier to design a smaller lens. In addition, most of the original 4/3 lenses are telecentric or close to telecentric, meaning that the light hits the sensor at a right angle. This was, as far as I remember, one of the reasons for choosing a relatively small sensor, since telecentric lenses for larger sensors will become rather large and heavy.
I believe the telecentric design has become less important with modern sensors, but the extremely even sharpness across the frame of the best 4/3 lenses can be attributed to this principle.
mFT's innovation was to standardize the lens correction, build it into the lens, and inject it into the raw data so that a properly implemented third party raw converter could also do the lens correction as needed.
There were several factors for the sensor size: cost of manufacture, some assumptions about the maximum necessary pixel density for the target audience, getting the sensor size and lens mount into the right relationship, etc etc. I remember reading the original papers on the design way back when and having my head spin a bit... ;-)
Just for the amusement value:
E-M1 + ZD 11-22 plus grip plus VF-2
I like the VF-2 on top, you have both eye level and lower angle viewing with the benefits of the eye piece, etc. I might actually buy the grip for this one.
Of course, it's also going to be fun fitted with a zone plate or the body cap lens... ;-)
G