New Olympus SLR pictures sneaking out
My Korean isn't even good enough to call appalling, but fortunately for me, some Web site pictures of what sure looks like a new Olympus E-3 SLR speak louder than the surrounding words.
A new Olympus SLR
(Credit: SLRclub)A variety of shots posted at one Web site and another show some interesting new features of an SLR higher up the line than the E-510 and E-410 introduced earlier this year.
The pictures label the camera as the E-3. That's a different name from an anonymously posted document that used the name E-P1, but it's unclear what the naming implications are. Olympus said in March that it will introduce this year a successor to the current top-end model, the E-1, which went on sale in 2003.
Judging from the photos, the camera comes with a fold-out LCD screen, doubtless a handy feature for shooting pictures above one's head or down by the ground. Olympus' live view technology, which now is showing up in cameras from SLR leaders Nikon and Canon, would be necessary for such a screen to be useful.
The camera also sports an add-on battery grip, image stabilization and a pop-up flash. And unsurprisingly, it uses the Four-Thirds lens mount system, which means lens compatibility with Panasonic SLRs as well.
Olympus didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.
According to some rough-and-ready translations, the camera has dual xD and CompactFlash memory card support, sports a 12-60mm lens (the equivalent of 24-120mm in 35mm film camera terms), and will be available in November.
(Via the Online Photographer and Softpedia.)
Stephen Shankland writes about a wide range of technology and products, but has a particular focus on browsers and digital photography. He joined CNET News in 1998 and since then also has covered Google, Yahoo, servers, supercomputing, Linux and open-source software, and science. E-mail Stephen, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/stshank. 
Pentax basically takes a shot and then shows a preview of that.
Fuji (Nikon D200 body) is also pretty limited.
Olympus/Panasonic has a mirror down design. The nice thing about this, is
that the AF and metering system works at the same time. The disadvantage is
that the viewfinder is dimmer because more light needs to be leaked into the
CCD then normal.
Canon's is a mirror up design. The advantage is it's nice and bright. The
disadvantage is that you have no focusing and the system needs to go down
and up before firing.
Nikon sports both mirror down and mirror up designs. Also, it uses contrast
and phase detection AF (depending on the mode). It's probably the best
design and works in compliment to the new Sony CMOS, though we'll have to
see.