Olympus adds retro style to ultra-modern camera body format

Take a look a Olympus's newest design for the Micro 4/3 lineup of digital cameras. Practically a ghost, it begs for a hackneyed Star Wars-ism about elegant tools from a more civilized age.

With a DSLR-sized sensor, quality should be assured, though it's hard to imagine plunking big black plastic lenses onto this stylish m3/4's interchangeable-lens mount system. Its feature set, and its price, will likely be similarly ample, but for now it remains a concept. It's hard not to imagine something with the capabilities of the Canon G10 or Nikon P6000, but with that old-school feel.

Source [Digital Camera Review]

[#1 posted by DCE , September 22, 2008 7:18 AM]

Gorgeous. Though it borrows quite a bit from the old Polaroid SX70.

[#2 posted by Jake0748 , September 22, 2008 7:23 AM]

Sweeeet! :)

[#3 posted by dculberson , September 22, 2008 7:52 AM]

Beautiful.

[#4 posted by Latente , September 22, 2008 8:28 AM]

olympus pen redux

[#5 posted by TJ S , September 22, 2008 10:07 AM]

Leather + brushed aluminum + contrasting shapes = wonderful design.

[#6 posted by Bryan C , September 23, 2008 8:45 AM]

Yep, that is a beauty. Olympus always did have a flair for clean and effective design, even with their cheapest compact cameras. They're one of the few camera manufacturers with a lovingly maintained gallery of high-res photos featuring decades of their past models.

I think this prototype has some echoes of their popular PEN half-frame series and, even more so, the somewhat obscure Quickmatic 600 (which used compact 126 film cartridges).

[#7 posted by Anonymous , September 28, 2008 11:58 AM]

wish it was a digital lomo

[#8 posted by Anonymous , November 28, 2008 2:28 AM]

Great concept, but where is the viewfinder?