Various sites have reported that the eagerly awaited Olympus Micro 4/3 camera will be announced on June 15. I have been in contact with Olympus America and they neither confirm nor deny this. In discussions with other photographers (especially those who can read/translate japanese) the announcement states that:
- the Olympus micro-4/3rds camera(s) have been designed to carry on the philosophy of the “silver-halide” era PEN half-frame cameras;
- about a third of compact camera users are considering moving up to a DSLR but don’t because those cameras are too big, heavy, expensive, and complex — these users are seen as the target for the micro-4/3rds models;
- this is the strategy by which Olympus can “revive their imaging business”.
[translation provided here]
So Olympus, like Panasonic, is targeting the “soccer mom” looking to move up from P&S cameras to something more sophisticated but still maintain ease of use and small size. If the announcement above is any indicator (along with the prototype Olympus has been showing off since the μ4/3 announcement last year), they might hit that market more accurately than Panny did. The Panasonic Lumix G-Series camera turned out to be a big hit with pros who were in search of a small, pocketable camera that would meet their quality demands. I myself found the image quality of the Panasonic Lumix G-1 to be very impressive, but was left wanting with the overall design of the camera. Olympus’ prototype camera’s retro styling and smaller size are more appealing to me. If the image quality is up to Olympus DSLR levels, they may have the ultimate travel camera on their hands.
The design is such a hit that Panasonic & Leica are rumored to be hard at work designing a μ4/3 system similar to it which will likely be sold as the Lumix LX-5/D-Lux 5 respectively. This after Leica announced last year that they had no plans for a μ4/3 based camera.
I WOULD LOVE TO HAVE BETER INFORMATION ON COMPACT MICRO FOUR THIRDS FOR LEICA AND OLYMPUS PEN.
LOOKS GREAT BU TO NOT FEEL 100 % CERTAIN?
The Panasonic/Leica efforts are still just shavings from the rumor mill, but the Olympus PEN G is happening. Expected release date is June 15, 2009. Olympus has a PEN 50th Anniversary site up which is going to be updated every week. I will be posting updates here as well.
At the present time I own an EOS 5D and a Panasonic LX3. I would be seriously tempted to look at the EP-1 if at some stage Olympus includes a built-in optical viewfinder with either bright lines or auto parallax compensation similar to the old Contax G2 arrangement. The only digital rangefinder camera that suits my needs at the present time is one of the digital Leica M series, and they are stupidly, rather than reassuringly expensive. So come on Olympus, there are hundreds, if not thousands of us who would just love something like this.
Rumor has it that Olympus has the EP-2 in the works which is a more “professional” version of the PEN Digital with a viewfinder (probably EVF), and a built-in flash. This camera is due at month’s end or early December.