Olympus XZ1 With OLED Screen

Another day and another rumor from 43rumors: according to their source, there will be a bunch of new cameras from Olympus and Panasonic unveiled at CES. The XZ1 is a high end compact camera featuring the same sensor as the Panasonic LX5 (10 MP, 1:1), a great 28-112mm f/1.8-2.5 Lens and a OLED LCD (610k resolution). OLED is good to lower the power consumption, but it is not ideal for usage in direct sunlight.

Lenses comparison:

Olympus XZ1 : 28-112mm f/1.8-2.5 Lens
Panasonic LX5 : 24-90mm f/2.0-3.3 lens
Canon S95 :  28-105mm f/2.0-4.9 lens (one of the Uber10)
Samsung EX-1 : 24-72mm f/1.8-2.4 lens

Note for the camera novice:  1.8-2.5 Lens refers to the lens speed with 1.8 being the widest aperture (the smaller the number, the wider the aperture) and 2.5 the smallest aperture. It is technically more challenging (and cost more money) to deliver a broad zoom range with a wide aperture, in the comparison above Olympus wins with the broadest zoom range and the widest aperture. Additionally, it is difficult to deliver good image quality with no distortion with a broad range zoom. We have not compared the image quality for these four lenses. More info about lens speed here and zoom lens here.

Panasonic Cameras at CES
According to the same source, Panasonic is rumored to launch a new “S” compact series: DMC-S1, DMC-S3. Additionally, Panasonic DMC-TS3, Panasonic DMC-FH2 and Panasonic FH5 will be announced at CES.

Eliane Fiolet
Categories: Photo-Video
Tags: Camera, CES, CES 2011, compact camera, Olympus, photo, Video, zoom