Originally posted by falconeye The way Rob is putting it IMHO illustrates one aspect:
Today, making a camera (much) smaller than the lens doesn't make sense.
However, IMHO this will change.
Sooner or later, the camera will become sort of a "digital lens rear cap".
I.e., every lens we carry will have such a rear cap attached and then we may care they are small. Not unlike the GXR system except that today is too early for a GXR-like system and GXR has the fault that it still requires to change something on the camera (the module).
The reason for an exchangeable rear cap then would be to keep the digital end up-to-date while the optical lens part keeps its value.
Even now I think about a Q (with K mount adapter) to become a digital rear cap for a DA*300. Because of the Q's tiny pixel pitch (and SR system), it would deliver the same "reach" as a 900 mm lens would on the K-5 (assuming the DA*300 resolves this many lines in the center -- 330 lp/mm what
some SLR lenses actually
do resolve).
So, while I agree that "smaller than the lens" cameras don't make much sense today, this may change. Therefore, I think that a mirrorless mount should be designed such that "smaller than the lens" cameras are doable. Otherwise, the mount may die before it even establishes. In that respect, Sony's E mount seems more promising than Olympus µFT mount.
One last comment about the digital rear cap prediction:
The current situation (with one camera and interchangeable lenses) reminds me of the "one motor and interchangeable devices" approach of the past: One motor which could become drill, saw or grinder. Or my mother's vacuum cleaner which served as a blender and hood dryer too
Electric motors used to be so valuable that the need to reuse them appears to be ridiculous a few decades later: now everything comes with embedded motor and soon everything will come with embedded computers replacing the multi-purpose PCs more and more (as anticipated by Apple).
So, my prediction is (and it is a 99% safe prediction): Future lenses will come with their embedded sensors (most likely complete with camera). The more expensive lenses will have the embedded sensor to be replaceable, primarily as a service option.
This goes back to an earlier series of posts that I think you and I were involved in, Falk.
If we take this road, we should be looking at a
completely different camera design for holding and aiming the camera,
I've no problem with the idea of a very small "thing" at the back end of a lens. Great idea. But I think we have to find a new way to mount those lenses into a grip design that accommodates a variety of lenses and caps and VF arrangements. Two or three dumb grips could cover a range of sizes of lenses, hands, weights, etc. Perhaps the image processor is a separate CPU module that snaps into the grip and handles processing and I/O tasks, taking input from the rear lens cap and delivering to .... whatever.
That breaks the system down to lens, sensor, smarts, VF, and grip. Big lenses need big grip, small lenses something smaller and/or different. One arrangement could look like a Q, perhaps with a foldout handgrip. Another provides good balance with long FF or APS-C glass.
Whatever the answer, we seem to be constrained by the idea that cameras of the future should look like cameras of the past. Traditional cameras look that way because the film and optics requirements led to the design, "form follows function".
Time to take another look at that form given that we have new ways of performing the function.
I'll get an IPA from the fridge (shudder) and see what develops from here.