Just don't talk to the people who want super wide angle lenses (easier to do with a larger sensor)
Olympus has a well-regarded 7-14mm rectilinear lens. The widest non-fisheye for APS-size sensors (Canon, Nikon...) starts at 10mm, which gives a bit narrower view than the Olympus lens. The widest rectilinear lenses for 35mm film/sensor start at 12mm, a bit wider than the Olympus lens, but there are only two choices, the Sigma 12-24mm (terrible corner sharpness and the usual Sigma quality control), and the 12mm Voigtländer Heliar, which is only available for rangefinders. I think Olympus has their bases well covered (that is, apart from the lack of primes and fast lenses).
What limits wideangle lenses is not sensor size (how many ultrawides do you see for medium format?), but the mirror box. The closer you can place the lens to the sensor, the more symmetrical (and smaller and well-corrected) you can make the lens (compare Biogons and Distagons). Making an excellent retrofocal ultrawide lens is a damn hard job.
(I'm not an Olympus apologist, I use the right tool for the right job.)
Filed under: Networking
Talk about wishful thinking. Ubiquiti -- a maker of wireless broadband gear we last saw breaking world records -- has announced the "world's first" 700MHz WiFi card, clearly hoping to get a head start on the feeding frenzy we all expect. The XR7, as it's called, is a compact radio module, which is built for the mini-PCI Type IIIA standard, has scalable channel bandwidths of 5 / 10 / 20 and 40 MHz, and 256-bit AES security. The company claims that the card can be a viable WiMAX replacement, as it's been tested for ranges of beyond 31 miles at rates of up to 50Mbps. No word on pricing or availability, mostly we suspect due to the fact that the frequency it operates on has yet to be made available. You'll know more when we do.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Old programmers never die, they just hit account block limit.