"Rob Studdert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Surely it could be that difficult lets face it they've got a fair array of >other manufacturers equipment to reverse engineer and fault so I can't see why >it wouldn't be a pretty good first attempt. If the MZ-S is any indication the >original 6MP camera that was presented would have been well up there WRT it >peers. Oly did it with the E-10 too, the subsequent release of the E-20 didn't >send a hoard of E-10 users scurrying off to sell their E-10s. In fact most >review sites suggested the gains presented by the E-20 were not significant >enough to warrant upgrade for existing E-10 owners.
Rob, I think you misunderstood: It's not the *engineering* I think would be difficult, it's the balance of capability vs. affordability and, in particular, the balance between introducing it too soon to make a profit (the chipsets, etc. are going to continue getting cheaper) and too late (when too many people have moved to Canon, Nikon, etc.) to be a success. Digital SLRs are still in their formative years but, as indicated in the Luminous Landscape article, the market is starting to stabilize. When things settle down, chipsets will me more standardized and produced in greater quantity and prices will come down (like for CD player chipsets in the 1980s). Due to die size, the sensor itself won't come down in price as drastically, but I expect improvements in CMOS fabrication to come and make sensors somewhat less expensive than they are now. -- Mark Roberts www.robertstech.com Photography and writing
