The silly lensor concept

[Tom Caldwell]

Perhaps with the continuing development of sensors and the inclusion of image cropping zoom in larger format sensors combined with software corrected wide angle Ricoh's decision to make combined sensor-lens modules was not so crazy as it has seemed.

Ricoh are on record as saying that they are matching sensor to lens in their modules and that is only what might be naturally expected.

However with the new Sony RX100 taking software adjusted lens performance to new heights with presumably distortion corrected wide and image cropped "clear zoom" surely there is a statement that sensor must be closely interwoven to lens for the lens to work at all.

Those that say it is silly to throw away a perfectly good lens in order to fit a new sensor must start to be confronted with a new lens that is no use whatsover without a matched sensor to go with it. Ricoh's matched sensor-lens modules now seem to be a revolutionary step forward. Replacing whole cameras to get the next generation of sensor-lens combination now seems increasingly flawed. The more so as the quality of the camera, its sensor and its lens in combination increases.

If we can think of a new generation of lenses being born that are basically an optical-electronic device where the lens performance depends completely on it's relationship to the sensor and the firmware that drives the combination we must change our hats and start thinking quite differently. The more so if these combinations produce better results than individual sensors unmatched to a variety of possible lenses that might be mounted. It seems that in future perhaps the lens is not a stand alone device but will actually have to be necessarily packaged with a sensor.

As long as a single pure optical-only well adjusted lens (at any price) will out-perform a sensor-lens package adjusted in firmware then the outstanding "traditional" lens will persevere, but what if the reverse becomes true?
Therefore are we going to get high-performance individually made cameras with built in lenses where each camera must be limited by the style of lens on board compared to traditional optical-only replaceable lensed cameras? Does the Ricoh solution offer some half-way house where the sensor and lens is packaged together? Do we get future dslr or EVIL-type cameras with traditional optical only lenses that have enough "smarts" to be able to automatically correct the huge variety of lenses that can be fitted? Will these smarts extend far enough to know whether any given optical lens needs correction or does not need it?

Ricoh seems to be already playing with software correction of lenses to the extent that the A12 mount module does allow its owners to individualy correct (or deliberately distort) any lenses they might choose to use. They have the firmware, it is only a short step to matching that firmware to a fixed sensor/lens combination.

The subject requires a good amount of mental revising of traditional attitudes to cameras with replaceable lenses. We have "sort of" already accepted Ricoh's "lensor" approach but perhaps we have not realised the revolutionary ahead of their time significance completely.

Once a suitably large sized: megapixel-magnitude / physical-size (aka 1"?) sensor is available to Ricoh we might see a flowering of lensor modules for the GXR. Or am I just into wishful thinking?

Perhaps a new more powerful GXR back with built in evf is the next cab off the rank but the jaw-dropping curiosity of the lensor system now around for quite a few years might have been a very predictive idea and just possibly something similar might emerge from other manufacturers as they struggle to get high performance out of ever bigger sensors in ever smaller camera bodies. The GXR theory might yet turn out to be "just about right".

Tom

 

[thelps]

Perhaps a new more powerful GXR back with built in evf is the next cab off the rank

Now there is an interesting question. Any rumor about on this?
Second question: whats is the next lensor for release?

 

[Tom Caldwell]

No rumours, just my applied logic which is usually wrong. Applying logic to guesses just gets a slightly more logical guess.

Meantime I seem to have mixed up general firmware based enhancement of a lens into associating it directly to a sensor. An interesting theory but I think off beam, probably no real reason why a software corrected lens could not have its corrections in a chip built into the lens itself.

Maybe I am on better ground on thinking that there might be a nexus between sensor cropping and lens that might need them best packaged together?

Best go and drive the tractor a bit - seems about my current level of capability.

Tom

 

[digi2ap]

Interesting post but I think Panasonic, for example, do build software corrections into the lens firmware. The GXR remains a much admired camera and concept but I've not yet been convinced enough to buy.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Interesting post but I think Panasonic, for example, do build software corrections into the lens firmware. The GXR remains a much admired camera and concept but I've not yet been convinced enough to buy.

The GXR concept is a hard one to sell to others. Any convincing has to be from one's own research, and that is how it should be. I myself could not get enthusiastic for Ricoh's concept of a sensor/lens in a module as I already had a good set of Canon EOS lenses. They effectively replaced my first stumbling efforts with a Ricoh slr camera and manual PK mount lenses.

In other words it was hard to start "yet another collection of lenses with locked-in mounts". The Canon dslr system works very well and only the now semingly-huge camera bodies are the only real reason I would plump for anything else.

Consequently Ricoh's sensor/lens modules have not been on my personal shopping list. However I am very enthusiastic about the GXR with A12 mount. Like many other EVIL-type bodies the A12 mount transforms old manual lenses into highly usable tools. The A12 mount is particularly good as it is deliberately made for the job and highly optimised to do it well. Not only that but my burgeoning collection of old lenses is not limited to the Ricoh gear I really like but if the feeling would ever waver there are other manufacturers options out there for my lens collection. All I need is a suitable adapter. I am not locked in.

So much for arguing my personal "devil's advocate" position.

The real source of my argument was the talk about how much firmware lens correction the latest "pocket rocket" RX100 from Sony has built in. I then went off and clouded my own argument be jumping to the conclusion that this might require lenses to be matched to sensors. I have been corrected on this somewhere else, but the essence of my argment remains sound (or at least i think it is).

The theory is that the lens in the RX100 has been optimised for performance by firmware. If the mechanical elements in the RX100 lens were made into a separate lens then it might not work terribly well in another camera.

Jumping from the proposition that firmware correction is "cheating" to get a result that should have been reached by "proper" mechanico/optical means with due regard to the laws of physics and the application of much skill and money in the process the obvious conclusion is "what if firmware correction actually results in a better lens performance than ever any mechanical device might be able to achieve?"

Therefore are we doomed to increasingly capable firmware corrected lenses packaged in bodies as one unit?

We now seem to have accepted that physical film can be replaced electronically. We are starting to accept that digital images can replace optical viewfinders. Is the next step the replacement of the finely tuned image by way of physical glass medium alone with an image "improved" via firmware to standards beyond current comprehension? Do we get kit lenses with firmware trickery that can capture images that are superior to the highest quality professional lenses of our day?

These things might be built into sensors as I first thought but could also be built into supprt firmware and even into lens bodies themself. But even if they were in the individual lens body only a properly enabled camera body would be able to make use of this facility.

Thereby hangs my argument. To date most of the trick firmware adjustments for lenses have been in more consumenr level cameras to try and make them work better. This results in a single camera package with no removable components.

If the technology advances to enable lenses to defy mechanical physics and advance beyond the capability of exquitely shaped and polished glass elements alone then surely there will be a demand for mutliple types of these lenses. The "old problem" will emerge - does every one of these lenese have to come in a complete camera package? Or do you split each lens with built in electronics and firmware, or do you simply build a lens/sensor/electronics/firmware unit and a common camera controlling back.

Only an idea - others have the proper answers.

For the moment old, completely manual, lenses are uncomplicated and provide a freedom from the future experimental directions of any one camera manufacturer. We should also note that history is littered with the remains of camera/lens manufacturers who could not make the change to "automatic". Stangely the bones of the lenses (at least) previously rejected are now being enthusiastically picked over by more than a few EVIL-type camera owners in a way that no real amount of dslr camera owners ever did.

Ricoh seems to have had a bet each way. We might also recognise that the A12 mount is nothing more that a toolbox containing firmware that can be used to make a vast multitude of lenses quite usable. The RX100 represents a camera body that has successfully combined a larger sensor with a single lens in a package smaller than would have been physically possible without the help of some substantial firmware assistance.

Tom

 

[Tom Caldwell]

To paraphrase a complicated argument that seemingly has no relevance as other manufacturers "have already dealt with it". Perhaps I have to be less ambitious and more specific.

My comment is that is Sony has to resort to a lot of associated firmware trickery to enable high performance from a lens fitted with an impossibly large sensor in an impossibly small body then the way of the future of compact cameras might end in single packaged body/sensor/lens or alternatively in modular form such as Ricoh has introduced.

The technology tipping point might be when firmware enhancement of a lens reaches the point where an electronically assisted lens might actually perform functions impossible with a conventionally built lens (here now?) but also lead to a smaller package that would also out-perform the quality of imaging of even the best possible conventionally made lens at any price.

At this point the all-in-one electronic-lens module starts making more sense. Whether also it needs the sensor on board is a moot point. But including the sensor as part of the electronic engine package may be the choice of delivery.

This might lead to some scoffing, I personally have trouble accepting such a future scenario, but once tiny-packaged firmware-driven techno-wonder-lenses putting images on impossibly large (to be physically possible in this size package) sensors start delivering results then where to then?

Will buttons on the lens become the camera? Hasn't happened yet and the RX100 swallow has yet to show that a tiny perfomance-camera summer has arrived.

Either Ricoh made a "wrong turn" with the GXR concept or were truly visionary. I suspect the former (along with the crowd) and hope for the latter.

Meanwhile the GXR-M mount module is "truly visonary", enough to show that the company does not follow the general herd and that their foresight is unique and valuable.

Tom

 

[thelps]

tom, I'm not sure the Lensor will take off with other manufactures. Once issue is they will likely have to either pay for patent access or do a patent swap. They (the other guys) have a changeable lens system that 99.998% of the population know and love so I think the Lensor system will remain with Ricoh. I think it has its place, I think it makes an excellent system for travel in harsh conditions with the sealing but as the OM-D has proven, you can get a weatherproof system in the old style. I guess the Lensor offers protection while you "change lenses" but this is a small advantage.

 

[spb_ch]

I hope that the GXR survives and prospers. I bought into it and think it is a really wonderful camera. I occasionally swear at it, when the focus has switched to MF and I have not noticed, other than that I love it for street photography, portraits, cars and much else. I love the controls and how easy it is to adjust and play with settings. Almost perfect. A really great camera system. Each lensor has its uses.

 

[Tom Caldwell]

tom, I'm not sure the Lensor will take off with other manufactures. Once issue is they will likely have to either pay for patent access or do a patent swap. They (the other guys) have a changeable lens system that 99.998% of the population know and love so I think the Lensor system will remain with Ricoh. I think it has its place, I think it makes an excellent system for travel in harsh conditions with the sealing but as the OM-D has proven, you can get a weatherproof system in the old style. I guess the Lensor offers protection while you "change lenses" but this is a small advantage.

Tim

I agree that it is very unlikely that any other manufacturer will licence Ricoh's Lensor mount system. It can be done in other ways and my very point is that to make a similar system the sensor/lens would have to be tightly integerated into the camera back - as Ricoh's is.

Manufacturers just love to tie their customers to their own proprietory mount system - here is the opportunity to even more exclusively lock in a lens via electronics. It has taken some very clever reverse coders a very long time to re-engineer a Canon EF lens mount in order that it will allow their lenses apertures to be adjusted on other mounts via an adapter.

It was talk of how the new Sony RX100 used software correction extensively in order to get a large sensor and zoom lens in a very compact body that started me thinking of how camera manufacturers have been doing this in one form or another for a while. Currently this seems to be by firmware adjustments to the image captured in a single camera body-lens-sensor device. Ricoh has done something very similar in order to keep the GXR units compact. I don't know whether they are adjusting the image by firmware but they are very obviously using different sized sensors in order to keep zoom modules as small as possible. Users of the A12 mount can adjust the performance of individual lenses via existing Rioch firmware facilities.

Of course adjusting images by firmware is going to fall with a plop with customers who remain only enthusiastic about images modified by glass lenses alone. The better the glass is ground the happier they are. Good "natural" glass lenses have a cult following verging on a religion. Therefore I found that Canon, in my experience, were very loose with the truth in how a bridge camera superzoom managed to defy physics to get an impossible amount of zoom for the overall size of the camera. Not one word in the manual about image cropping. I nearly was caught similarly by an Olympus super-zoom but the images were so poor that I took it back the same day and exchanged it for another camera. But I did read the Olympus manual before I did and again there was no reference to image cropping being used.

Others are better informed on the forums but it now seems increasingly common for lenses to be firmware-corrected at wide, but it is hardly something that the manufacturers advertise. The purity of the image that comes directly through glass is sacrosanct.

Most are funny about cameras. They at once talk in hushed tones about Leica and Zeiss "glass" and yet seem quite "cool" on the subject that bridge cameras can advertise zoom performance that is impossible in physics alone. They pass off firmware correction of wide angle distortion as "clever engineering". It can be done on the A12 but few talk about it - I presume that manual lenses are generally so well made that further elecronic "correction" is unecessary. The RX100 seems to become some sort of darling simply because it can pack so much into a small body.

The camera buying market now seems mentally adjusted and conditioned to accept "miracle cameras" that can somehow do whatever they want - large sensor, big zoom, tiny body. The chat on any forum on any site will soon convince anyone reading them that the distortion of the laws of physics are sure as heck possible if only the camera manufacturers would pull their fingers out and build them.

Therefore maybe it is not necessary to include the sensor in the lens package. But it will need some sort of chip, directly tuned to the lens it inhabits, to make the lens work correctly. In the case of replaceable lenses the sensor may still reside on the camera body but there will have to be lens contacts to enable the chip on the lens to interact with the camera body.

There will be more than one way to do this but to my way of thinking Ricoh's lensor system is probably the most robust type. The dangers of part electronics in-lens and part in-camera-body are easy enough to perceive. Ricoh already deals with a complex inter-action between their lensors and bodies. They must lead the field in this technology.

So while we wonder on the future of the GXR other manufacturers are either knocking on Ricoh's door or figuratively speaking "pulling apart" a GXR or two in their workshops to try and work out just how they do it.

My imagination has gone a step further. Beyond merely correcting the deficiencies of a lens design straining to put an acceptable image in various forms on to the largest sensor possible in the smallest body. The next stage is the use of firmware to produce the highest possible image capability. In this way high performance lenses can be produced for the price of kit lenses. Lenses already have auto-aperture, auto focus, image stabilisation. Add electronic distortion correction, fringe enhancement, etc.

Sensor cropping zoom becomes more acceptable the larger the sensor size and the more pixels that can be cropped. I doubt if this can be built into a removeable lens that does not contain a sensor. It might. However if a manufacturer makes just one lens that requires an attached sensor so that it can be image cropped to give higher zoom capability then all their removeable lenses need to be built that way. Ho ho ho - we have the silly Ricoh lensor concept ....

Tom

 

[wok64]

Interesting thread. Indeed it's noteworthy how the ability to correct certain flaws of a lens in postprocessing has consequences on lens design. Manufacturers now sell us lenses with such bad barrel distortions that we never even thought about buying in the old film times. Now it's not a problem because it's simply corrected in-camera. The only drawback I see is the topic of protection of investment. If the performance of the lens I buy depends on the software in the camera, I depend on the vendor supporting this lens in future firmware. What if the manufacturer releases a new model of this lens and stops supporting the old one? The lensor concept will somehow protect you from such a situation, although of course you still depend on the vendor maintaining the lensor-to-body interface. Still, I'm not a fan of the lensor. The perfect concept in my opinion is a body + exchangable sensor unit + exchangable lens. Body and lens are long-term investments, the sensor is subject to Moore's law and you may want to exchange it due to significant improvements every 5 years or so. At least I'd like to have the option to do so. Currently you find this concept in place only in the digital medium format world at incredible prices and in the form of the A12 M-mount module. I doubt other companies will adopt it, because they can make more money by selling the "same" body over and over again with new sensors.

Best regards,
wok

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Interesting thread. Indeed it's noteworthy how the ability to correct certain flaws of a lens in postprocessing has consequences on lens design. Manufacturers now sell us lenses with such bad barrel distortions that we never even thought about buying in the old film times. Now it's not a problem because it's simply corrected in-camera. The only drawback I see is the topic of protection of investment. If the performance of the lens I buy depends on the software in the camera, I depend on the vendor supporting this lens in future firmware. What if the manufacturer releases a new model of this lens and stops supporting the old one? The lensor concept will somehow protect you from such a situation, although of course you still depend on the vendor maintaining the lensor-to-body interface. Still, I'm not a fan of the lensor. The perfect concept in my opinion is a body + exchangable sensor unit + exchangable lens. Body and lens are long-term investments, the sensor is subject to Moore's law and you may want to exchange it due to significant improvements every 5 years or so. At least I'd like to have the option to do so. Currently you find this concept in place only in the digital medium format world at incredible prices and in the form of the A12 M-mount module. I doubt other companies will adopt it, because they can make more money by selling the "same" body over and over again with new sensors.

Best regards,
wok

Wok

I think this was the sort of debate I was implying. I think we will agree that we would wish to have proper lenses made to high standards with optical glass and mechanical only operation.

When I think of it the move away from this ideal started with auto-aperture and auto-focus. Therefore we might think of only the manual-only lenses as "pure". There is no doubt that these days "automatic" lenses can be very good or they can be "kit standard". But if good lenses are to be made they still have to be built to exacting standards and are therefore expensive.

You note clearly that there is an increasing amount of "imprecision" corrected by software routine. This is not necessarily carelessness but more the use of a cheaper solution or the manufacture of a smaller lens than could otherwise be made that relies on mechanical construction alone. Therefore where manufacturing cost and build size intrude and become a problem then they can be simply "fixed" to work properly by the use of a software correction routine.

Obviously true devotees will still pay the extra money and wear the necessary larger bulk to get the best lens.

Where my mind rushes ahead is to the point where a good lens might be made relatively cheaply and more compactly with distortion accepted but made to work better than the finest carefully crafted wonder. When this is teamed up with image cropping room the manufacturer might not only produce a distortion-free super-wide but also one that is capable of remarkable zoom performance as well. All in a package that is a fraction of the cost of of an exquiste hand crafted prime lens. To add to the "misery" this cheap super lens will not only be winning prizes but also taking the place of a whole handful of those exquisite primes.

Such a cheap wonder might be bundled with a sensor and lens controlling chip. Which gets back to my theme that it would be best packaged in a single camera body (shades of a future super-RX100) or in the lensor concept that Ricoh has already pioneered to the amazement of the camera owning community.

Along this line of thought we already have reached this point in the A12 mount which allows the user to optimise individual lenses that are mounted. The only real difference is that the lenses we might mount on our A12 mount are lenses that were the best mechanical lens the manufacturer could do for the money at the time. The concept of software corrected lenses is that an "impossible" lens design can be made to work perfectly by suitable correction software.

Therefore do we want cheap, light software corrected lenses - possibly "no". Do we want cheap, light, high-performing, software corrected lenses - probably "yes'.

Grumbles are made about throwing away the lens when the sensor is upgraded. With lenses that perform very well that are also very cheap to make the relevance disappears.

However we have not reached that point yet - the signs are though that we are heading in that direction.

Next step: a "technically-impossible" lens, software corrected, in a GXR lens module? It will be interesting to see.

Tom

 

[autochrome]

For me the lensor system, as is said above,this is logical,it's intelligent,it's powerful,it's practice,it's on,it's fast,it's secure,but the men are as well done as when the stool is far from the piano,the majority of people are trying to move the piano!
Why,i don't no...
good pics,and thanks for sharing that you feel

 

[wok64]

... Next step: a "technically-impossible" lens, software corrected, in a GXR lens module? It will be interesting to see...

Well, in some sense it already has been achieved. If you consider in-camera compensation of light fall-off - common practice these days - due to physical laws no money in the world will buy you a wide angle lens achieving the same flat illumination.

I understand what you're saying. In the end - like always - it's all about from what perspective you look at it. When you're aiming at the best possible image (i.e raw file) with the cheapest possible (i.e. "optimum") combination of lens, sensor and software then the lensor concept is certainly the way to go. Without doubt you can achieve at least the same if not better results than the current "fine-art approach" of combining the best sensors with the best lenses.

There are other ways to look at it, though. One aspect is that of protection of investment I already talked about in my last posting, another is the topic of sustainability. Looking at my - way too large - lens collection, I wouldn't like to have it in the form of lensors that I then need to exchange completely when I need (or just lust for) only a better performing sensor.

Moving a chair is certainly easier than moving a piano, but when you have 1000 chairs, you may prefer to move the piano

To make a long story short, I think we are in perfect agreement but just look at this topic from different angles or with diffenent priorities.

Best regards,
Wolfgang

 

[Tom Caldwell]

Wolfgang,

Without thrashing this subject to death with a feather, I also think that we agree precisely. I am also not advocating a change to lensors, more pointing that this in more the inevitable progress to get cheaper lenses that still perform very well. I seem to think that perhaps "compact" cameras at least will have to be either the lensor concept or all-in-one bodies that are discarded as thing progress. Ay least Ricoh has given us a "third way" via their A12 mount and pre-existing stocks of manual lenses.

To me it is making more and more sense and not jus a random poke in the dark but a well thought out plan of long-term evolution on Ricoh's part.

Just one point that now occurs to me - lots of chat about microlenses in senors to make wide angle work properly. With the combination of lens,chip and sensor in one unit then perhaps software correction can do much the same as dedicated micro lenses?

Therefore if you want "proper sensors" with proper lenses then the manual lens mounted in something like the A12 mount is the way to go. But compact the compact high performing lenses of the furture in digital cameras will either be in replaceable cameras (as all compact cameras presently are) or in lens/sensor modules that are replaced but never lose their original capabilities.

My guess is that sensors will become so cheap that they will hardly add much cost to any lens that they are incorporated in. Ah - hah! People will want to keep their "expensive" lenses, but we are forgetting that by incorporating a very high degree of software correction in every lens/sensor module the lenses will not only become significantly smaller and cheaper to make and sell but will be useless in practice away from their built in smart electronic help.

So I think I should keep my manual lenses and just hope for a FF mount module for my Ricoh to enjoy them on.

Might take a little while to change consumer psychology. From responses so far most seem to think I am "off with the fairies" (a madman dreaming).

Tom

 

[timepass]

Tom, I think you are spot on with your thinking. I had not really thought about this before but now that you have opened my eyes, it does seems so obvious. If you think in aeronautical terms that fighter aircraft have been designed with some degree of inherent instability that must be controlled by fly-by-wire computers or that the automobile industry now has fly by wire steering that dispenses with the mechanical coupling of the steering wheel and the car wheels, why shouldn't the photographic industry make cheaper, smaller high performing lenses by electronic enhancing techniques. I haven't stopped to think how this marriage gets implemented by the industry, but it does 'fit' conveniently into the GXR concept. Personally the 'Lensor' concept has never bothered me. I just though that compared to quality glass from Zeiss, Nikon Canon etc , The A12 50 mm equivalent lens was OK from a price/performance point of view and came as a smaller package/macro/dust free etc etc. Same for theA12 28mm equivalent. So as long as the coupling of the sensor with the lens did not price it out of the market compared to its peer lenses without a sensor, it really is a fruitless debate. ( Is anyone getting as fussed about the price of Fuji X-! pro lenses?). At least now one has some comfort that the GXR concept might survive. I am glad you posted your thoughts.

 

[timepass]

Just a rider to my last posting Tom and also after seeing the debate you have started in the DP review forum. Take a look at www.faqs.org/patents/app/20090002835#b. This dates back to 2009 so the subject of making cheaper lenses with less optics and enhancing performance electronically has been around for some time and no doubt will develop fast as the market for smaller, high performance camera systems grows

 

[Tom Caldwell]

I am still stumbling with how I express myself on the subject and this is perhaps why I receved much of the "don't be silly, there is nothing new in what you say". Indeed there is nothing new but it appears that Sony has somehow taken electronic correction of an image to a new high by using some unknown "don't be silly - they are magicians" sort of logic.

Not fully understanding how it might be done it still appears clear to me that to get such a small but still powerful package together Sony has had to push the previously used boundaries just a bit further.

Whether or not it is essential that the sensor, controlling chip and lens need to be packaged to be optimised I do not know, but it seems logical. If this is the case these cheap(er) wonderlens packages must be limited to either a single camera package or a modular design such as Rcoh have in the GXR.

I seem to remember something either being said by Ricoh or of Ricoh that the reason for their lensor concept was to better optimise sensor to lens capability. This has been easily accepted as simply making the best fit of various size sensors to lens packages. This is probably correct at the most simple level, however it does lend itself well to packaging something similar to the RX100. Might this be the replacement for the P10 and S10?

I also started wondering out loud if Ricoh had the concept of focus peaking for focus of manual lenses and did a deal with Sony in some sort of technology exchange whereby Sony made the necessary smarts in the sensor to accommodate this and also helped Ricoh with the optimised sensors for it's A12 mount. Flimsy evidence - Sony has a variation of focus peaking, but Ricoh has two versions and possibly why did Sony produce a sensor for Ricoh to use and not use it themself. There are a thousand commercial reasons that could supply a reason, so any thoughts must be conjecture alone. If we then see Ricoh also packaging a very compact 1" lens/sensor (with a twist) then might conclude that at least some collaboration is going on.

Historically the camera industry has involved various areas of collaboration, sourcing of components from other firms and re-branding of lenses. Reading Japanese lens making history it would seem that Tomioka made lenses for just about every well known camera brand (including Ricoh) as rebadged products but their own brand name is not that well known. It is generally acknowledged that Sony make the sensors and lcd screens that Ricoh use (at least). What is unknown is just how much technical knowledge flows in the other direction.

Your reference to patents shows that there is significant activity towards an electronic lens revolution. It also alludes to this technology for zoom lenses as well. Perhaps the Sony RX100 is a practical application of the patent?

Where it might end we cannot know. Initially it has been to correct the periphery of lens capability. Sony seem to have taken it a step further. I doubt if the highest level of lenses is presently under any real threat. But if technology has it's way then there is evey chance that a cheap electronically adjusted lens might in time offer levels of performance that even the most meticulously polished and assembled lens cannot match. At that point cameras as we know them will be changed forever.

If EVIL-type cameras are chipping away at the dslr market then maybe Lensor-type cameras may even be their death knell eventually.

So do we define a new style of camera (class of one only): the "Lensor"? At least there will be few arguments about a suitable acronym (grin).

Interestingly Canon seem to have bet the farm on high performance video cameras as their future - a half-hearted EOS-M shows that hey can make something other than dslr's for their EOS lenses but unless you want to adapter everything you will have to buy new lenses - coming real soon now. But in reality you want to keep your EOS glass for super-performance video ...

Myself: I happily enthused over digital, I liked IS, am not over-worried about the evf replacing the ovf in all it's forms. But replacing a good old manual highly technical optical glass lens with a bit of quality industrial plastic and some electronic wizardry? Well maybe there is a point when you get too old to change. I might well be grunting around with my medium sized bag of GXR kit and the kids next door will be oh-wowing everyone with exquisite results from their high-tech mobile phones using this new technology. In cameras things must move on otherwise we would still be enjoying humping around glass plates, throwing a black cloth over our head, and slowly killing ourselves with the processing chemicals.

Tom