man & nature # 104 ~ spring revealed submersibles
Saturday, March 7, 2009 at 11:12AM 
Coming to the surface • click to embiggenYesterday's topic induced a fit (albeit a small fit) of gearheadedness in Mary Dennis. You remember Mary - she's the loopy guilt-ridden liberal - ;-) - who has taken the entire weight of the economic mess on her shoulders because she "likes her stuff". Well, this time around she can, at the very least, rationalize getting some more stuff under the heading of "economic stimulus".
It seems that Olympus' has
definitely got me thinking ... that nice little swivel LCD screen that I am personally very fond of ... it (the upcoming E-620) lets you choose a square (6:6) aspect ratio ...[I]s that a first for a DSLR?
Mary is no stranger to square and to answer her question - I do believe that the Olympus in-camera choice of multiple aspect ratios is not a first for dslrs in that the recently introduced Olympus E-30 has the same feature. I like the idea of in-camera square picturing if no other reason than I can pack considerably more image files on my memory card and on my various hard drives.
I have been pondering the purchase of an E-30 but the new E-620 throws a new consideration into the mix. Both use the same 12mp sensor and processing engine but the E-620 puts it in a smaller package at nearly half the price of the E-30. I also like the fact that there is a battery grip for the E-620 - with it the camera feels better in my hands, especially so with long/tele lenses.
IMO, the E-620 would my a great second / backup camera to my E-3 although ... if I really want to do it right, it may be time to dump the E-3 and replace it with an E-30. That way no matter which camera I bring to my eye, they will both have the same sensor and processing engine thus making the E-620 a truly interchangeable backup.
Ok. Enough with the gear-talk.
If you're looking for some entertaining reading, you might try this piece - “Truth is Beauty”, and Other Fairy Tales from The Landscapist's resident contrarian. It's a real hammer-and-tong broadside and Paul Maxim pulls no punches. Consider this:
This is bullshit! It’s a goddamned fairy tale! This is Rush Limbaugh style, cockamamie nonsense!
FYI, this is exactly the type of commentary/ feedback I look for regarding my entries. Especially so when it comes from someone who considers me to be "someone, whom we all know and love..."
Reader Comments (4)
As another squarehead, let me say: Don't be fooled by the Olympus -- the square "aspect" is a simple in-camera crop, and is not visible in the viewfinder. A con, frankly, compared to the newer Panasonic cameras (GH1, LX3), which do "redistribute" the pixels into different ratio rectangles -- but even those lose a little real estate in the process, though. I was looking for an excuse to return to the Olympus fold, but this isn't it.
You take such great pictures with the cameras you have, I think it would be a mistake to get a new one.
I'm not worried about not being able to see the square aspect ratio in the viewfinder. I wouldn't expect that to be the case. But am I correct in the assumption that it is visible in the LCD screen? I think I would find that a useful compositional tool as there are times when I choose the LCD screen over the viewfinder to take pictures.
Mark, I am just itching to provide the ecomony with a little stimulus and I promise I won't feel guilty when I finally decide do it.
Mary, the manual for the new Olympus is here:
http://olympusamerica.com/filesE-620_Instruction_Manual_EN.pdf
I'm sure it will be visible on the LCD, but you'd still be losing a lot of pixels by using it. Of course, as it's only a crop, you could always cut a square out of a piece of black card and attach it to your LCD...