[Hypocorism]

...
As for the unique offering (other than the obvious pink & underwater features), a µKK adapter with screw drive motor (or SDM support in its low cost initial version) and aperture lever plus a dedicated EVF port like the LX viewfinder with the EVF OLED as matte screen and replaceable eyepieces would certainly do the job. Hell, the adapter could even incorporate a semitransparent (non stationary) mirror to support an emvedded phase AF module for full AFC performance.

You speak of the great open source like free standards revolution in basic areas of photographic hardware specs and design. Such positive movements could never gain co-operative support to even get off the ground from the masses for their own short to long term benefit.

Quick, time's up, heads back in the sand now.

.R.

[markac]

If Pentax makes an EVIL, it should talk to Samsung about using a SuperAMOLED display.

[eurostar]

...a µKK adapter with screw drive motor (or SDM support in its low cost initial version) and aperture lever plus a dedicated EVF port like the LX viewfinder with the EVF OLED as matte screen and replaceable eyepieces would certainly do the job. ...

Is the aperture level support really necessary on a mirrorless camera? There is not a direct optical path, and the diaphragm can sit at his aperture of choice, bein the sensor's gain to let people see clearly in the EVF. Or am I assuming it wrong?

[dnas]

It still has a shutter, which takes up a fair bit of "free space" vacated by the mirrorbox.

Your idea is great but the drawing is misleading.

The shutter incl. shutter frame and support mechanics sits directly in front of the AA filter and occupies a space in front of it no deeper than 4mm, maybe 4.5mm. Measures taken from a K-5. BTW, this is an optical necessity as otherwise, the travelling slit at very fast speeds risks to cause diffraction blur.

So, the removal of the shutter gains 20% of a µFT registration distance only, not a significant effect.

Unlike DSLRs, if you look at the Panasonic µFT cameras, the shutter is located closer to the lens mount, and not just in front of the sensor/AA. (just as I have shown it in the diagrams) Probably 7-8mm in front of the Sensor/AA filter.... the shutter housing is 9mm from the flange.

Removal of the shutter would gain more like 70% of the space.

[Uluru]

Unlike DSLRs, if you look at the Panasonic µFT cameras, the shutter is located closer to the lens mount, and not just in front of the sensor/AA. (just as I have shown it in the diagrams) Probably 7-8mm in front of the Sensor/AA filter.... the shutter housing is 9mm from the flange.
Removal of the shutter would gain more like 70% of the space.

I love your idea and I think it's doable. Let's think about it further.

Say, shaving off 5-7mm off the GF2 is a fantastic treat and slims it down to the LX5 size.
When Apple designs phones, or the new notebooks, they manage to shave off 2mm or so and they're all over the moon about it.

Not just that; say camera uses APS-C sensor from the K-r. Now the best part: the new lenses for Pentax mirrorless need not cover the entire APS-C sensor area like their competitors do.
Let them work sorta like DX mode on a Nikon FF camera; only part of the sensor gets the image (say 70%); so instead of 12MP we get some 8.4MP (similar thing we get on a LX5 when shooting in 3:2 mode.) If it's to use K-5's sensor, we get some 11MP or so.

But the image of the Pentax mirrorless camera, which is now almost the same size as the LX5, blows the LX5 and similar cameras totally because it uses an APS-C sensor from a DSLR. Because of the economy of scale, using a sensor from the DSLR, it means a better price too for the final product.

If we reduce the active image area on an APS-C sensor, we practically can resurrect the Auto110 format lens, and the Kodak 110 format film size image (11 x 17 mm) inside the APS-C (16 x 24mm). No need for designing the all new sensors. Lenses should be tiny compared even to m4/3 (especially with modern optical designs), but image quality should be nothing short of outstanding. We can even have a tiny 2x zoom (like 20-40 mm f/2.8 for Auto110). Etc.

What others think about this?

[falconeye]

Unlike DSLRs, if you look at the Panasonic µFT cameras, the shutter is located closer to the lens mount

If Pentax can make the shutter slim for the K-5, I'm sure there is no problem to make it slim for a mirrorless too. So, there is no need for a global shutter which has it's own advantages and disadvantages. Your idea is great but independent from the camera having a shutter or not.

[climit]

It should be compatible to our lenses and use the K-5 16MP sensor, even if it's gonna be $200 more expensive.

[Supernaut]

I like the concept with retractable lens and adapter.
I expect something like this from Pentax if they enter the EVIL market. Maybe not the adapter solution but that effort is made to keep size down.

It's not often that companies have the chance to invent a mount from scratch so I hope they try to build in something that makes them unique, i.e. not just reducing the registration distance!

[climit]

They should NOT reduce the registration distance. The body can remain thick but short. A cube!
Like a small medium format SLR. It's better to hold the camera from beneath body and lens.

[Art Vandelay II]

They should NOT reduce the registration distance. The body can remain thick but short. A cube!

What exactly is the point of making a mirrorless camera then? DSLR's are already thick if that's the size you prefer. Besides, a short registration distance doesn't mean the camera has to be small, it just means they can be small. There's no reason a m4/3's camera couldn't be the same size as an Olympus E-5 if Olympus chose to go that route for some reason.

[johnmflores]

[I've posted some of these photos before, but I think they are relevant (again) to this discussion...]

Here's a photo from Falk of the new K-5:




Look at all the stuff behind the film plane.

That's the rear LCD, and camera circuitry, and the primary reason why new dSLRs are much thicker than film cameras:




And this photo shows how thin the classic MX is compared to the new M43 alternatives:




My point? Creating an EVIL is easy:




You might even be able to make the camera nearly M43 thin and maintain the traditional K-mount (with it's registration distance) if you open your mind to the idea of moving the stuff behind the film plane to other parts of the camera:



If you closely at this image, you'll see that Sony actually marked the film plane on this camera:



If you compare the thickness behind the film plane to Falk's image above, you start to see how much space Sony saved by moving the LCD to the top. And as you can see, small size didn't seem to be a high priority on Sony's design brief for this camera - imagine if it was...

[Art Vandelay II]

You might even be able to make the camera nearly M43 thin and maintain the traditional K-mount

Maybe I'm in the minority on this one since I only have 3 Pentax lenses, but I would simply rather them start from scratch. I really don't care about maintaining a mount that was designed to have clearance for a flappy mirror that is no longer there. The only Pentax SLR lenses I'd want to use on EVIL are in-fact the old manual lenses; and adapters are fine for that. It's pretty simple really, those that want to keep on using their screw driven AF lenses simply use Pentax DSLR's. SDM lenses should work via an adapter (albeit it a bit slow if Olympus is any indication). EVIL's are all about being designed from digital from the ground up, so I say make it as thin as possible.

Nearly as thin as m4/3's isn't good enough, it has to be as thin when sitting on a shelf next to them. Besides, as good as K-Mount glass is, a Leica 28mm Summicron it is not. I'd rather have the option to use Leica/Zeiss/Voigtlander/Contax glass if it meant I have to use the Pentax 15mm Limited via an adapter instead of natively.

[climit]

"You might even be able to make the camera nearly M43 thin and maintain the traditional K-mount (with it's registration distance) if you open your mind to the idea of moving the stuff behind the film plane to other parts of the camera"

I like the LCD on top of the body. It doesn't even have to be articulating. You can shoot from above, from bottom, you can rotate the body and shoot to the left and the right.

[climit]

Well, you need the screen to be articulating if on top of the body, to capture vertical frames.

[nosnoop]

However, suppose Pentax produce a shutterless camera

This will come, eventually.
Everyone is racing to push out the first global shutter large CMOS sensor; but we are not quite there yet. Maybe in one or two years' time. M43/Panasonic probably would come out first; but there is still technical and price barrier to deal with.