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News › Olympus
As product reviewers, we're faced with a bit of a problem. The cameras we most want to tell you about are the ones we find really enjoyable to shoot. Since we're having fun with them, though, it can be difficult to extract these gems from anybody's hands for long enough to put them through our lengthy lab testing process, let alone get some writing done! If you've been hopefully...
Rugged, lifestyle cameras have really taken off over the last few years, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Olympus, an early pioneer in the field of lifeproof digital cameras. Even with camera phones gobbling up compact camera market share, these solidly-built fixed-lens cameras still offer a clear advantage over your smartphone: the ability to shoot in pretty-much any...
Last February, Olympus announced its first OM-D series Micro Four Thirds camera, the Olympus E-M5. Like the PEN-series cameras before it, the retro-styled Olympus M5 draws a parallel with an iconic product line from the company's history: the film-based OM-series cameras. Featuring what Olympus claimed to be the world's fastest autofocus system coupled to the world's first 5-axis...
Olympus has released updated firmware for the M. Zuiko Digital ED 12-50mm f/3.5-6.3 EZ zoom lens. Announced last December, the M.Zuiko 12-50mm is the company's first to include a power zoom feature, and is also weather-sealed.
There are only two change listed in the release notes for firmware version 1.1. The first is improved stabilizer performance for macro shooting with the...
A series of new firmware updates released yesterday by Olympus Corp. all have one thing in common: they aim to resolve issues with high-capacity SDXC memory cards.
The new firmware for the Olympus E-5 SLR and four of the company's Micro Four Thirds cameras is said to improve stability with SDXC cards of 48GB or greater capacity. For the E-5, E-P3, and E-PL2, this is the only...
New firmware and software just issued by Olympus Japan brings new features for the imaging software bundled with some of the company's cameras, as well as an improvement for one of its ZUIKO DIGITAL lenses.
Olympus Viewer 2 has--perhaps rather confusingly--just been updated to version 1.3 on both the Windows and Macintosh platforms. The list of changes is the same for both....
The months-long investigation into financial irregularities at Olympus Corp. has finally resulted in its first arrests today, and they come at the very highest levels of the company's former management. Those arrested include the Olympus' former CEO, president and chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa, ex-executive vice president Hisashi Mori, and Hideo Yamada, the company's former...
When we reviewed Olympus' SZ-30MR digital camera last year, we praised its handsome design aesthetic, and its swift performance. The followup Olympus SZ-31MR retains both features, and adds a touch-screen overlay on the LCD panel that aims to make it more intuitive to use.
The body of the SZ-31MR is just slightly tidier than that of its predecessor, thanks to the removal of one...
Late last year, we took a brief look at Olympus' Tough TG-810, and came away unimpressed by its image quality. Just a few short months later, the company has offered up an interesting alternative that aims to answer the concerns we--and other reviewers--raised.
The key change in the Olympus TG-820 iHS is a switch to a new twelve megapixel, backside illuminated CMOS image...
When Olympus first launched its Micro Four Thirds camera lineup back in 2009, it drew a parallel with its earlier PEN-series cameras. Today, with the debut of the Olympus E-M5, it draws on another icon from the past: its legendary OM-series.
This time around, the connection is even stronger, thanks to retro OM-like styling. Front and center is what looks at first glance like...
Fujifilm Holdings Corp. and Sony Corp. are among the companies considering investing in cash-strapped Olympus Corp., according to reports from the Wall Street Journal and Nikkei (the latter being cited by press agency Reuters).
It's been a difficult few months for Olympus, which admitted to accounting irregularities last November. It's stock price fell more than 80% to as low...
A little over three years ago, Olympus and Panasonic announced their Micro Four Thirds standard, and in the process launched what's since become a compact system camera revolution. Today their standard received another shot in the arm, with the addition of three more companies to the Micro Four Thirds group.
The new arrivals include well-known third-party optics manufacturers...
Although it looks very similar to its previous PEN-series flagships externally, the Olympus E-P3 includes several significant changes.
Key among these is a new brand-new autofocus system, branded 'Frequency Acceleration Sensor Technology', or FAST for short. Olympus showed supreme confidence in choosing the name, and it wasn't misplaced: the E-P3's AF performance actually...
Want to use a motorized zoom lens on Olympus' PEN E-P3, E-PL3 or E-PM1 compact system camera bodies? If so, you'll want to download a new firmware update issued by the company today.
Olympus has one such lens in its own catalog at the moment, the M.Zuiko Digital 12-50mm f3.5-6.3 EZ. Announced last December, this lens is due to start shipping in the US market any day now. Micro...
Olympus announced no less than eleven camera models for this year's Consumer Electronics Show, and we kick off the list with the Olympus SZ-12.
Perhaps the most interesting of the five models that are currently slated to arrive in the US market this spring, the Olympus SZ-12 boasts a more powerful zoom lens than the SP-620UZ in a smaller body, providing 35mm-equivalent focal...
Alongside Olympus Europe's launch of the SP-720UZ, the Olympus SP-620UZ has been launched in both the USA and Europe.
The Olympus SP-620UZ is quite closely related to the SP-720UZ, but it differs from the other camera in several important ways. Its image sensor is a slightly higher-res but much slower 16 megapixel CCD chip, and while we don't know the full-resolution burst...
Continuing Olympus' CES announcements, we have the Olympus TG-320.
Like its predecessor, last year's TG-310, the Olympus Tough TG-320 is both shockproof to five feet and freezeproof to 14°F / -10°C, not to mention waterproof to ten feet. The TG-320 still has a 14 megapixel image sensor, and includes true mechanical image stabilization. Also unchanges are the 28 - 102mm...
Nearing the end of its US announcements for the CES show, Olympus Imaging America Inc. took the wraps off the Olympus VR-340.
The VR-340 is quite similar to the European-market VR-360 alongside which it was announced, although that model has not so far been announced in the USA.The two cameras both share the same 16 megapixel image sensor and three-inch LCD panel, but with...
Rounding out Olympus USA's CES announcements is the Olympus VG-160, a sibling to the European VG-170 and VG-150 models.
The VG-160 falls closer to the specification of the former, but without the huge flash that also gives the VG-170 it's somewhat unusual styling. The VG-160 is a 14 megapixel camera with a 5x optical zoom lens that offers up a 26mm wide angle, in a slim...
Launching a slew of camera models that--while they debuted alongside the Consumer Electronics Show--aren't slated for US availability, Olympus Europe launched the Olympus SP-720UZ.
Closely related to the SP-620UZ, one of the models being alongside which it was announced that will be shipping in the US, the SP-720UZ differs from the other camera in several important ways. Its...
