New Micro Four thirds camera.

Gerry, I think to answer your wife's concerns about buttons, just show her any regular 3"x2" digital camera. They typically only have a few buttons and most of them are about the same size as the buttons on a full-frame dSLR. Olympus has a reputation for putting large controls onto small cameras, if they follow that design philosophy, there should be no problems. Think about the number of buttons on the e-420, this will probably have fewer.

Touch screens may be the next step, Patrick a la my HP IPAQ 4705 with its high res 4" display . Catch comes with that approach- " Stylus, -shoot,-anyone see my bleeping stylus?"

The dpreview equipment forums are going bonkers over this news as you may have noticed. (The second coming of 4/3.....or......the doom of 4/3. Take your pick.) August is usually a slow news month,what?

Yeah I tried to follow a few of the dpreview threads and they are about 50 or so comments deep already, mostly negative speculation. I'm surprised so many people are having a negative reaction to the design that finally promises to deliver on the goals of the original 4/3's without making the current 4/3's dSLR's obsolete. I would imagine a creative adapter with a teleconverter and deep elements would even make Micro 4/3's lenses work with 4/3's dSLR's. As someone who has been holding out against digital, this is the first idea in digital that actually makes sense to me. I have never understood why digital cameras should be larger than the mechanical cameras they are supposed to replace.... and we may finally have an answer to that issue.

On the optical viewfinder front, the graphics that Olympus are using to demonstrate the size of the micro lenses and bodies next to the

standard four thirds system show a silhouette of a camera body with an optical viewfinder in place, here's hoping..

Patrick,

 

I'm a Canon shooter, and was also stunned by the negative comments related to the announcement of m4/3. This is a

great idea! A smaller, lighter 4/3 cam with interchangeable lenses? Why not?

George, one graphic shows an optical VF, and another doesnt.

What I would personally like to see would be a tilt/shift adapter for my 7-14 and 11-22. There will be 20mm of space to work in the tilt/shift mechanism.

 

The next dream would be to automate the tilt mechanism. What this would enable with contrast detection AF is automatic tilt control. You would set the three points that you want in focus on the screen (3 points define a plane if you recall your geometry). The camera would find the appropriate amount to tilt the lens to make it focus on the three chosen points (this would just be a mathematical calculation at this point).

I am baffled by the negative responses that some folks have had to this camera. People have complained about the size of 4/3 cameras not living up to the promise of "smaller / lighter". Now the micro-4/3 comes out as a perfect response to the criticism, and people are upset again.

I discussed this with my local camera shop staff and some of the guys there - they were all pretty excited about it. They've started to take reservations for the new oly 4/3 when it's released, so I put my name on the list. I can't wait !

Jeeze what a terrible idea. I'll retract that statement if the camera comes with a viewfinder that I won't have to attach to the hotshoe. Okay, cool it's smaller, but for the rest of us that don't like to hold the camera arm's length in front of our face, this just feels like another one of those teasers like the R-D1 and such. Oh well... let's just wait and see.