Olympus E330 Announced

New view of the Olympus PT-E02 housing for the new E-330 has an optical viewfinder and flat viewing area for the LCD. No angled back for the LCD. Camera on sale Feb. 24 and housing in April in Japan.

http://i27.photobucket.com/albums/c197/Per...P2115155aw1.jpg

Phil Rudin

Olympus, Panasonic and Leica joint press conference

Leica D 14-50 mm F2.8-F3.5 lens (4/3 System)

Panasonic DMC-L1

Looks like a Panasonic DMC-LC1 / Leica Digilux 2 with interchangeable lenses.

And some sigma lenses for the four thirds system, too.

Now that the 4/3'rds system has 3rd party lens representation, it means that this mount has been accepted by the photography industry as "here to stay."

Cheers

James

What do you think Fujifilm will do? Their S3 Pro was announced more than 2 years ago, and nothing since (in terms of an SLR). Fujifilm has said they support the 4/3 standard.

This is a quote from dpreview's PMA coverage: "As one of the rising stars of the digital camera world Panasonic has a much larger presence than last year’s PMA, and naturally there’s a real buzz around the company’s first digital SLR, the L1. Sure, it’s an Olympus E-330 in a different jacket, but it looks – and feels – like a Leica, and the new lens (Vario-Elmarit 14-50 mm F2.8-F3.5 ASPH) is simply gorgeous, and those of us whose photography goes back more than 5 years are delighted to see an aperture ring back where it belongs… on the lens."

I was very close to getting a Leica Digilux 2 / Panasonic DMC-LC1, and the Olympus E-330 interests me. I wonder what the chances of finding an underwater housing for the L1 is.

Hi all ,

Aquamir presents the aluminium milled Olympus E-330 housing made by UK-GERMANY .( Distribution exclusively trough Aquamir )

Available in about 4 weeks delivered as shown at the CAD pic´s inclouding

2 Grips ( 30 mm ) with M8 mount holes , aditional M8 hole in objective center on top and also 2 M5 holes for a t-stone it provides also a posibility to mount a M5 based T-stone at the left side instead of the gripp.

At the bottom there are 2 M6 holes and a objektiv centered 1/4"20 hole .... so no problems with fitting any parts wanted.

Also incloudet a leek warner ( optical ) and the MH Oly TTL-C3e Konverter conneckted to 2 Nikonos V spring pin sockets .

There is no optical viewfinder but therefor a 30 degrees pulled up display .... all buttons are supported.

Housing is titanium grey ( hard coated aluminium ) the pinns are stainless steel double sealed , the weels are made of POMM resin , the letters are all milled in and filled with yellow colour so no leaving. The standart port for the 14/45 lens is incloudet, zoom gear too ( changings posible )

All ports from UK-GERMANY are matching. All objektives used UW are supported. Planed to have a manual focus drive trough the zoom weel for the 50 and the 35 zuiko makro lenses. In combination with the AF+MF mode of the cam.

And I have several ideas for this setup, I hope to receve first ... ( distance shutter with Video controled pic ) a perfekt solution for pool cam, shy critters and fish.

here are the first CAD pics :

Michael

What do you think Fujifilm will do? Their S3 Pro was announced more than 2 years ago, and nothing since (in terms of an SLR). Fujifilm has said they support the 4/3 standard.

This is a quote from dpreview's PMA coverage: "As one of the rising stars of the digital camera world Panasonic has a much larger presence than last year’s PMA, and naturally there’s a real buzz around the company’s first digital SLR, the L1. Sure, it’s an Olympus E-330 in a different jacket, but it looks – and feels – like a Leica, and the new lens (Vario-Elmarit 14-50 mm F2.8-F3.5 ASPH) is simply gorgeous, and those of us whose photography goes back more than 5 years are delighted to see an aperture ring back where it belongs… on the lens."

I was very close to getting a Leica Digilux 2 / Panasonic DMC-LC1, and the Olympus E-330 interests me. I wonder what the chances of finding an underwater housing for the L1 is.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

The Panasonic L1 was shown under glass at PMA and I would not expect to see one on sale before the end of the year. While at PMA I talked to the Leica people and was told that it would not make much sence for them to make 4/3 "lenses" and not have a body of their own. Which would lead one to think more may be coming from Leica.

Regarding the Sigma lenses, the new 4/3 105 macro lenses has that focus ring that has to be moved in and out to shift from AF to manual. This is great out of the water but I am not sure how well this will work in a housing if you want to be able to ues both during a dive.

I talked at length with Richard Pelkowski (Olympus USA Product Manager for digital/SLR) about my likes and dislikes with the Olympus PT-E01 housing. Updates have been made for the macro port gear, but the same proprietary sync socket (Oly TTL) is being used on the PT-E02 housing.

I use the Mike-Dive Oly TTL-C3e converter for the Nikonos V type cords in my PT-E01 housing and find that to be a much more useful standard.

Regarding the upcoming UK-Germany housing for the E-330 the CAD pics look interesting. I am not sure that I would be willing to give up an optical viewfinder for the 30 degree angle of view to the LCD. I did test the the "B" mode (manual only) on the E-330 and found the enlarged image quite nice for critical focus on a support system. Not sure how well this will work in an underwater setting. Attached is an image using the E-330 with a 50 mm macro lens and ring flash to give an idea of focus control.

P.S. It appears the new Pro Oly body will be announced by Photokina and released for next years PMA. Mr. Peelkowski advised the holdup is in regard to finding a sensor in the 10 plus MP range that will allow the results Olympus feels it will need to be competitive with with the top pro lines.

Look for better focus speed, greater buffer and FPS speed and IS in camera to work with the existing line of lenses.

Phil Rudin

"B" Mode will probably be quite useless underwater. Nice ability to focus, but 1/2 second shutter lag would kill any benefit w/o a tripod. However, "A" mode shutter lag is supposed to be almost non-existant . . .

Also, re: E-x: one more but of evidence that manufacturers are running into the limits of available sensor technology. Canon stuck with 8MP for the 30D, now Olympus wants to wait until a better high MP 4/3 sensor can be developed. I'd pay more for an 8MP sensor with improved dynamic range than I would for a 10MP sensor with similar performance to the current 8MP one . . .

Mike

"B" Mode will probably be quite useless underwater.  Nice ability to focus, but 1/2 second shutter lag would kill any benefit w/o a tripod.  However, "A" mode shutter lag is supposed to be almost non-existant . . .

 

Mike

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hi Mike,

I would agree that "B" mode will have problems in macro underwater, but I think it will work well for wide angle. With the 8 mm fisheye and at 7 mm on the 7-14 mm zoom many times I am not looking through the viewfinder but rather pointing the camera at the subject. With the lenses pre- focused in manual I think having the 100% view on a 2 1/2 inch LCD my offset the shutter lag issues for many situations.

This is also the reason that I would be more interested in a housing with an optical viewfinder and flat back for the LCD rather than an angled back and no optical viewfinder. Perhaps Michael can give us some insight into UK-Germany's thinking regarding this issue with their housing design.

Phil Rudin

Hi,

no problem , I´ll do ...... we thought about both,

using the viewfinder and the display .... the E330 viewfinder is a little darker then the other brand cams caus of the half transparent mirror for the second CCD so we thought about the visability under water in low light conditions and we thought about the users comeing up from their coustomer cams like the C5060,7070,8080 and the other ones using a display to take uw pics they always talk about the very little viewfinder and to have the head behind the housing not seeing what is going up around.

So we decided to go a new way .... as olympus went too .....

a DSLR to use uw only trough a Display ...... and we take the 30° angle to have a change to dive and take pics in a relaxed way not to put the head into the neck and rise your arms up ( as necassary with the consumer cams ).

It is also posible to view horizontaly but you loose a part of the pic low down... ok

we may be able to do the window larger but therefor we have no display sunshade.

The future will show ..... we are able to change things for the next serias after the first is sold and we receve the critics and improofments from the users.

I myself always try to combine use and optics, but the main point is use ...The main design of the Housing follows the design of the cam itself .......and it follows the general design of UK-GERMANY

The housing is exclusively sold under the brand Aquamir this is a brand of multimedia-online.ch

Michael