Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

[yoshi]

the final design would be different from the mockup already exhibited at Fotokina or currently at PMA.

It does have a in-body anti-shake - a similar one now used on the newly announced E-620.

It is not a DSLR, as already announced.

************

so said Mr. Watanabe, Oly's manager in charge of developing "lens interchangeable system" (Head of Dept. of Marchandise Strategy )
in a interview. not a rumour.


yoshi

[Bob Ross]

Re: Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

the final design would be different from the mockup already exhibited at Fotokina or currently at PMA.

It does have a in-body anti-shake - a similar one now used on the newly announced E-620.

It is not a DSLR, as already announced.

************

so said Mr. Watanabe, Oly's manager in charge of developing "lens interchangeable system" (Head of Dept. of Marchandise Strategy )
in a interview. not a rumour.


yoshi

Hi Yoshi,
I read a translation of what may be the same thing that you are reporting on and I thought one interesting point was that Oly was working on a high speen EVF. Apparently the design is changing so much, they didn't want to do another mock up and have it turn out different at release.
The funny item was that the interviewer asked if Oly was planning on making something that looked like the OM series and was answered, no, that wasn't in the plans. Maybe they should have asked about a Pen F look alike instead.
Bob

[yoshi]

Re: Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

Hi Yoshi,
I read a translation of what may be the same thing that you are reporting on and I thought one interesting point was that Oly was working on a high speen EVF. Apparently the design is changing so much, they didn't want to do another mock up and have it turn out different at release.
The funny item was that the interviewer asked if Oly was planning on making something that looked like the OM series and was answered, no, that wasn't in the plans. Maybe they should have asked about a Pen F look alike instead.
Bob

Hi Bob,
yes, he did talk about high speed EVF in the interview.

The interviewer did ask about the design with a sort of joke - could it look like a good old OM then? -
and Watanabe-san clearly denied it.

So the one you read seems to be the same one I talked about. (mine is from dc.watch as is often the cases.)

BTW you made me recall Pen F. When I was a junior high student/pupil, my classmate had it, and I really dreamed of having it someday myself - but an unrealized dream.
I used a Canonette then. Canonette had incidentally a similar design to the mockup.(just square)

***********

In the interview, Mr. Watanabe also said;

- E-4*0, E-5*0 and E-6*0 are different model series each other. The successor to each will be introduced separately.

so, although E-420 was discontinued in Japanese market, it does not mean that the coming micro 4/3rds is the successor to E-420.

(The interviewer estimates therefore that the successor to E-420 will have in-body anti-shake then.)

So unlike Pany, Oly showed its strong commitments to the 4/3 system DSLR, in my understanding.
Pany said in a different article that they wanted to concentrate on the micro 4/3rds for the time being
(although they did not deny the possibility of introducing new 4/3rds models.)


- About the world economy. The Oly manager admits that the world economy situations have badly affected Oly's business
but he emphasized soon that R&D's at Oly have not been affected at all because of the economy.
He said " What we planned before will be continuously developed AND lauched in the markets. No R&D project has been discontinued."

- He expects that the new feature of "art filters" that was first introduced on E-30 could be the 4th pillar of Oly's digital cameras.

(So it must be a feature all coming Oly new models will have.)

The other three are telecentric lenses, anti-dust and liveview.

Maybe you have already read it.

yoshi

[Bob Ross]

Re: Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

Hi Yoshi,
Thanks for the extended translation. It sounds like the same interview and you added some interesting items to the brief translation that I saw.
I always liked the Pen F concept and Just maybe the mFT frame work will bring it back again.
Here is an article from Oly about how they were trying with the E-300 & E-330. The size of the Pen F would fit into the recent comments about the Oly mFT entry. I bet it would be popular and not only with those of us who remember

http://www.olympus.co.jp/en/magazine/pursuit/feature_article/july2005/index.cfm

Bob

[Ian]

Re: Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

Hi all, I was able to spend the best part of an evening chatting to Mr.Watanabe over dinner last Tuesday evening, at PMA.

From what he was saying, unlike Panasonic, who have produced a Micro Four Thirds camera that looks like a small DSLR, Olympus want to produce a really compact design that looks more like a compact camera - so no pentaprism/flash hump on the top,and possibly only a limited size hand grip.

I don't think I am at liberty to reveal the actual press launch date, but the Olympus PMA booth notice said summer 2009 and all I will add is that it will be early summer, rather than late summer.

Ian

[Bob Ross]

Re: Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

Hi Ian,
That is a good description of what Oly is aiming to do and, of course, leaves us guessing.... Putting that together with the work on a high speed EVF and thier history with the Pen F, whose form factor showed up in their P&S and FT lines, is good food for thought.
Did he say anything publishable on the lens designs for mFT? The compact body will be best matched with smaller lenses, smaller than even the G1's. A compact body on the back of a chubby like the 11-22mm would be a strange package...
Bob

[yoshi]

Re: Oly's micro 4/3rds- middle of the summer!

I don't think I am at liberty to reveal the actual press launch date, but the Olympus PMA booth notice said summer 2009 and all I will add is that it will be early summer, rather than late summer.

Ian

Hi Ian, welcome back. I just wanted to add that

your early summer = our middle summer.

Or people in the southern hemisphere might couter argue it's not summer at all.

yoshi