Neil Harrington wrote:
Rich wrote:
"Neil wrote
Rich wrote:
Didn't think of this, but someone on Dpreview did. Panasonic can't
make lenses as compact as Olympus, if those lenses contain I.S.
electronics and parts. Nikon and Canon, who use this exclusively in
their DSLRs. I wonder if they'll bend their rules (lens I.S. is a
money-maker) and shift to the bodies when they release mirrorless?

Seems very, very unlikely to me. Nikon uses lens-shift VR in most of
their pocket-sized compacts; they're certainly not going to ditch it
in their ILC.

The Panasonic m4/3 O.I.S.14-45 is a very small and lightweight lens,
as compact as one could wish for. Surely Nikon can do as well.

Not that small. Well-designed and better-built than the 18-55mm kit
lenses from the APS people, which has allowed some size reduction,
but it isn't compact. Olympus's 14-42mm is collapsible and as such,
more compact.

It's collapsible, but it doesn't look any smaller to me. Apparently it's
collapsible (in the Micro 4/3 style) primarily so they can use the same
optics as the lens for the 4/3 SLR. With essentially nothing but empty space
behind the actual elements, making it collapsible is easy to do.

Likewise the Olympus m4/3 9-18, which I've mentioned before. It's
collapsible, but take the lens off the camera and extend it into taking
position, and there's about 20 mm of empty space behind the rear element.
There's no reason to make an ultrawide zoom that way

No reason to make a wide prime that way but these are wide to
normal/short tele zooms; 18-36 & 28-84 'equivalent'.


unless you're essentially using the regular 4/3 9-18 optics.

Yeah, this is a good point. Possibly telecentric goals are part of the
reason though I couldn't say, in theory if it's telecentric you wouldn't
need the gap! Perhaps the long end of the zoom contributes though.

Is there fixed glass at the back when extended?


(Actually there is evidently
a slight difference in the optical design, but I'll bet it's just a
refinement of the original 9-18 design.)

Compare the Panasonic m4/3 14-45 with the Olympus 4/3 SLR 14-42 he

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/pana...mcg1/page3.asp

The Panasonic lens is a bit smaller, even with O.I.S.