Focus Numérique has published an interesting interview with Toshiyuki Terada, who is responsible for the development of Olympus DSLRs and mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras, about the latest OM-D E-M1. It’s in French but a Google translation makes a good read.
Main highlights:
- It took up to 3 years to develop the TruePic VII engine, relying on an image sensor that had not yet been produced and that existed only as technical specifications on paper.
- Olympus will stay for now with its hybrid AF: Contrast AF for micro 4/3 lenses and Phase Detect AF for 4/3 lenses. It believes it can further refine Contrast AF so as to increase its performance.
- It has no plans to build its own image sensor, like Fujifilm did with the X-Trans sensor, but will adopt whichever it believes is the best.
- It removed the low-pass AA filter because its Fine Detail II Processing engine is now powerful enough to remove moiré in software. You may therefore see moiré in your RAW files.
- Olympus cannot use an electronic shutter for now because the image sensor cannot handle it.
- No flash on the E-M1 because it believes that pros prefer to use natural light. But it is interested in the twin led flash of the Apple iPhone 5S.
- There is only one card slot because they lacked space for a second one.
- Olympus will concentrate on making the best still camera for now, leaving the video aspect to Panasonic.
- Sweep panorama? Who wants it?
Read the whole interview at: Focus Numérique [Google translation]
