Mirrorless Camera News

Recent years have seen staggering innovations in cameras, most notably involving ISO speed, sensor size in compacts, and video capabilities. Despite these advances, however, one thing has divided the industry for more than 10 years but has rarely been talked about—that is, until recently—optical low-pass filters. Many cameras include them, but some do not. There are believers in both camps but the only thing that’s clear is that the issue is far from decided.

In this and a continuing series of articles in the coming months we’ll bring you the news and innovations from the recent Consumer Electronics Show (CES) held earlier this year in Las Vegas. While the show floor was dominated by “smart” this and that, from phones to TVs and tablets, we’ll concentrate on those items of most interest to photographers. This report is on the new and recently introduced D-SLRs and interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras.

The half-frame 35mm Olympus Pen F was introduced in 1963 and featured none other than the late W. Eugene Smith, cigarette dangling from his lips, in magazine ads of the time. Its latest digital incarnation, the E-P3, is built using the Micro Four Thirds system that unlike the Pen F is not half-frame and uses the same chip size (17.3x13mm) as the standard Four Thirds system. Like the original Pen F, it’s an extremely sophisticated camera wrapped in a compact, interchangeable lens body that delivers SLR performance and lots more. The E-P3 is the flagship of the Olympus Micro Four Thirds system and part of a family of compact cameras that includes the E-PL3, E-PM1 a.k.a. Mini, new lenses, and a clever little wireless speedlight.

Our show report this year is an amalgam of product news and trend spotting, which pretty much reflects what photokina has stood for in our minds. The sense of a United Nations of photography still prevails at this increasingly European-directed show, but the image and its uses is still the universal tie that binds.

At the recent TIPA (Technical Image Press Association) meeting we had an ongoing debate about how to classify cameras like the new Sony Alpha NEX-3.

The first digital Leica M with a full-frame, 24x36mm sensor (active area 23.9x35.8mm), the M9 offers 18-megapixel capture and unrestricted coverage with nearly the entire range of Leica lenses past and present, including extreme wide angles.

Perhaps even more important, the M9’s exclusive 18-megapixel CCD, developed by Kodak with input from Leica, has addressed the foibles that...

The original Olympus Pen was introduced in 1959 and was the first Japanese half-frame 35mm camera produced. Its name? Designer Maitani’s concept was that the camera would be as convenient to carry as a pen.