From NE Asia Online:
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From the Press Release:
Olympus Corporation (Olympus) and Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd. (Panasonic) today announced the signing of a joint development agreement for interchangeable lens type digital SLR cameras based on the Four Thirds System standard. Under the terms of the agreement, the two companies will jointly develop technologies and devices, and promote the development of digital SLR cameras that maximize the extensive user benefits of the Four Thirds System.
The aim of the agreement is to meet the needs of the rapidly growing global market for digital SLR cameras*1 by fusing Olympus's industry-leading SLR camera technology with Panasonic.s advanced digital AV technology, and by developing innovative new design concepts for next-generation digital SLR cameras.
The agreement covers the following three main points:

1. The two firms agree to jointly develop technologies and devices related to SLR camera systems (including camera bodies, interchangeable lenses, and related system peripherals) based on the Four Thirds System standard.
2. The two firms will individually develop digital SLR system cameras and related system products that incorporate the abovementioned technologies and devices.
3. With the aim of promoting widespread adoption of the Four Thirds System standard, the two firms will encourage other firms to participate in, and develop products for, the Four Thirds System standard.

Olympus announced 3 new lenses today at Photokina. Two budget lenses, obviously to go with the new E-300 camera, and one ultra-wide lense.
The lenses are a 14-45mm f3.5-5.6, a 40-150mm f3.5-4.5, and the most interesting lens, a ultra-wide 7-14mm f4 lens. This makes it possible to cover the full range from 7-200mm with only 3 lenses. (That is 14-400mm in 35mm terms). I don't think any other DSLR maker can claim the same.
Together with the Sigmas, the budget-conscious buyer will have a very good choice in the FourThirds system.

Olympus has finally announced their long-awaited consumer digital SLR. This unorthodox camera, known as the EVOLT E-300, sounds pretty darn impressive from reading the specs, and I wish I could try it out. Here are some of the features of this new camera:

• 8 MP (3264 x 2448) sensor, designed by Kodak.
• Pen-like Porro-prism saves weight and size
• Includes the "Supersonic wave filter"
• Full manual controls plus plenty of scene modes; shutter speed range of 60 - 1/4000 sec plus 8 min bulb mode; ISO range of 100 - 1600
• Take up to 4 RAW or TIFF photos or an unknown number of JPEGS at 2.5 frames/second
• RAW + JPEG support
• Adobe RGB and sRGB color spaces available (yay!)
• Custom white balance
• CompactFlash Type II slot
• Uses the same battery as the E-1
• USB 1.1 port (What were the Olympus engineers thinking?!)
• Ships in December; price to be determined

Olympus has put an interesting story on their Japan website. There they follow the development on the E-1 and 4/3 system. According to the article, Olympus didn't want to release interchangeable lens SLR until they had solved the dust problem.

Naturally it contains fair amount of marketing blurb, but it is quite interesting for those who want to know more about how the 4/3 system was designed and manufactured.


The article also debunks some myths, the Digital Zuiko's are designed and manufactured by Olympus, and not third party lens manufacturer. The designers are also quite optimistic that a 4/3-sized sensor will surpass medium format film in image quality. (Miles Hecker states in article on luminous-landscape.com that 11MP Canon 1Ds is very close to 35mm frame of Fuji Provia 100+. Can we expect 16 or more MP 4/3 camera soon?)

Another interesting bit is that the E-1 is completely led-free, using alloy of tin, zinc, and bismuth for soldering.

Two Olympus E-1 owners have set up a website for 4/3 users to share experiences and photos. Myfourthirds.com already has photo categories, forums and other method to exchange information between members.
We're both really excited to get this community running so try it out and start participating so we can all improve our photographic skills with the E-1. Tell us what you think about it!
Check it out.

What will this mean? Matsushita owns Panasonic which uses Leica lenses for their cameras. Will we see Panasoic bodies and maybe Leica lenses for the 4/3 system?

And when will the Sigma lenses come out? Remember, we are still waiting for Fuji and Kodak to bring their products to 4/3. And what about Sanyo? What could they bring to the 4/3?

The full press release is here.

Our friend in Croatia, Danijel Turina, has gotten his hands on a E-330 for review. He makes some interesting observation, the E-330 definetly has potential, especially as a macro or street camera.
The ability to "aim from the hip" makes this camera much more useful in street photography, people around the photographer are less aware and more natural. Henri Cartier-Bresson would have loved a camera like that.
The focus is faster than on the E-1 and the camera feels much snappier than the E-300.
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With PMA over, I thought it would be good to collect all the news from the show into one article. We have new Four Thirds related products from, Olympus, Panasonic, Sigma and Leica. So I guess, it was a pretty good show for Four Thirds.
And it probably helped that nobody else was doing any major announcements, it looks like the DSLR business is finally growing up. We are going to see a slow-down in new models, and more refining of existing models.
Updated 2006-03-03: Links