Olympus introduced its first camera in 1936, the Semi-Olympus I, fitted with the first Zuiko-branded lens. The first innovative camera series from Olympus was the Pen, launched in 1959. The half-frame format, allowing 72 pictures of 18 × 24 mm format on a standard 36 exposure roll of film, made Pen cameras compact and portable for their time.
The Pen system design team, led by Yoshihisa Maitani, later created the OM system, a full-frame professional 35mm SLR system designed to compete with Nikon and Canon’s bestsellers. The OM system introduced a new trend towards more compact cameras and lenses, being much smaller than its competitors and presenting innovative design features such as off-the-film (OTF) metering and OTF flash automation. Eventually, the system included 14 different bodies, approximately 60 Zuiko-branded lenses, and numerous camera accessories. This category aims to describe some of those Olympus cameras.
Olympus now manufactures compact digital cameras and is the designer of the Four Thirds system standard for digital single-lens reflex cameras. Olympus is also the largest manufacturer of Four-Thirds lenses, under the Zuiko Digital brand.
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Olympus Posts
Overview The OlympusOlympus introduced its first camera in 1936, the Semi-Olympus I, fitted with the first Zuiko-branded lens. The first innovative camera […]
After buying and using my 1964 OlympusOlympus introduced its first camera in 1936, the Semi-Olympus I, fitted with the first Zuiko-branded lens. The first innovative camera series from Olympus was the Pen, launched in 1959. The half-frame format, allowing 72 pictures of 18 × 24 mm format on a standard 36-exposure roll of film, made Pen cameras compact and portable for their time. Pixel More Pen EE and purchasing two other cameras (yet to be used), I decided to buy […]
The OlympusOlympus introduced its first camera in 1936, the Semi-Olympus I, fitted with the first Zuiko-branded lens. The first innovative camera series from Olympus was the Pen, launched in 1959. The half-frame format, allowing 72 pictures of 18 × 24 mm format on a standard 36-exposure roll of film, made Pen cameras compact and portable for their time. Pixel More mju III is an extremely small, fully automatic and water protected 35mm film camera with a wide zoom lens.
History Older digital cameras are often not a wise buy, but the OlympusOlympus introduced its first camera in 1936, the Semi-Olympus I, […]
Overview The OlympusOlympus introduced its first camera in 1936, the Semi-Olympus I, fitted with the first Zuiko-branded lens. The first innovative camera series from Olympus was the Pen, launched in 1959. The half-frame format, allowing 72 pictures of 18 × 24 mm format on a standard 36-exposure roll of film, made Pen cameras compact and portable for their time. Pixel More mju II is probably the smallest fully automatic and water protected 35mm film camera ever built. It’s designed around […]
Overview The Olympus XA is one of the two smallest 35mm film rangefinderA rangefinderA rangefinder is a focus mechanism that allows the user to calculate the distance of a subject through the convergence of two images. Cameras that use this mechanism are usually referred to as ‘rangefinders’. Rangefinder cameras were very popular in the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Single Lens Reflex (SLRs) and compact cameras largely replaced them in the 70s, 80s and 90s. What is not always appreciated is that rangefinders offer several tangible benefits over SLRs, not least in image quality. Indeed, many photographers would rate the Leica M Digital Rangefinder as one of the best cameras available today. More is a focus mechanism that allows the user […]