S E E A L S O
Olympus Unveils OM-D E-M1X Micro Four Thirds Camera
Olympus Unveils Wireless Flash, Commander, Receiver
Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Olympus Announces MX1, Flash System, New Zoom, Teleconverter
24 January 2019
Olympus made a slew of announcements today, reaffirming its commitment to the Micro Four Third mirrorless system. The following list links to our coverage of each individual announcement:
- Olympus Unveils OM-D E-M1X Micro Four Thirds Camera with integrated vertical grip
- Olympus Announces Wireless Flash, Commander, Receiver with a guide number of 42 with wireless radioslave control
- Olympus Developing 15-400mm Zoom, 2x Teleconverter with the teleconverter expected in the summer and the zoom next year
- Olympus Announces Limited Edition OM-D E-M1 Mark II Silver celebrates Olympus's 100th anniversary on Oct. 12.
BRIEFING
We recently attended a briefing covering the announcements with Olympus representative Eric Gensel and Nathan Lloyd, director of marking communications.
Principles
Lloyd made a point of emphasizing the core competencies of Olympus: high speed, compact and lightweight Micro Four Thirds solutions. The company has no intention of getting into the mirrorless full frame game, he said, because it's not how Olympus can provide value to the customer.
Yoshihisa Maitani. With documented research and development principles.
Instead, he called our attention to the work of Olympus designer Yoshihisa Maitani, who documented his work on the OM-1 48 years ago with the principles that still guide Olympus today. In short, he advocated lightweight and reliable camera systems.
Development Products
Lloyd introduced the two new products under development:
The 150-400mm zoom with integrated 1.25x teleconverter is equivalent to a 300-1000mm 35mm zoom.
And its range can be doubled by the next optic under development, the MC-20 2x teleconverter.
Details on both products are in our Development Products coverage.
NEW PRODUCTS
Gensel then talked about the new products: the E-M1X with integrated vertical grip, the wireless flash system and the silver EM-1 Mark II.
E- M1X
The first striking thing about the W-M1X is its body. The vertical grip isn't an optional accessory but built into the frame. With deep finger rests, both horizontal and vertical orientations feel identical and the reach to the M1X's controls are exactly the same. That greatly aids hand-holded shooting, which Olympus pointed out can be done with a 600mm f4 lens.
Buttons have useful labels now, Gensel pointed out, but they can still be reassigned.
And even better, with the My Menu feature you can build your own menu system with five tabs that can hold seven items each.
There is a heat sink to move heat away from the sensor and the shutter has been designed for (and tested to) 400,000 actuations, a good bit more than most. The dust reduction system puts a super-sonic wave filter of its own over the sensor assembly that sports a new coating making it difficult for dirt to adhere.
The system ships with two batteries that use the USB Power Delivery protocol to charge in as little as two hours. The menu system can display charge status, number of shots and battery health.
Autofocus target modes now include Single, Group 5-Point, Group 9-Point, a new Group 25-Point, 121-Point and Small AF options. And a Custom AF target mode lets you select any odd number of points from 11 vertical and 11 horizontal points.
Even better, perhaps, the Intelligent Subject Detection in autofocus pinpoints on a driver's helmet in a race car, the cockpit on aircraft and the engineer's perch on a train.
The M1X's image stabilization has been enhanced with a new gyro sensor which is five times more accurate than conventional IS, Olympus said. With the 12-100mm f4.0 IS Pro lens, combined image stabilization provides up to 7.5 shutter speed steps of compensation.
Gensel also introduced Olympus Workspace, new software to mine the most out of the M1X captures.
For more details see our Olympus OM-D E-M1X coverage.
Wireless Flash System
The wireless flash system is composed of three units: a new strobe, a commander unit and a receiver.
All three are dustproof, splashproof and freezeproof and can communicate as far away as 98.4 feet using radio signals.
For more details see our Wireless System coverage.
Silver EM-1 Mark II
To celebrate its 100th anniversary, Olympus has produced the OM-D E-M1 Mark II Silver. Limited to 2,000 units, the special edition Mark II will be available worldwide at the end of February.
The OM-D E-M1 Mark II features a TruePic VIII image processor and a 20.4-megapixel Live MOS sensor with 121 autofocus points of cross-type on-chip phase detection to provide up to 18 fps high-speed sequential shooting performance in AF/AE tracking.
For more details see our Mark II Silver coverage.