When purchasing a smartphone, a lot of people take its camera into consideration, like the quality of its images, color reproduction, autofocus speeds, optical image stabilization, and etc. For the most part high-end smartphones these days have no problem producing great images, although Sony tried to take it a step further with their QX-series of lens cameras.
For those unfamiliar, these are essentially camera lenses with the components of a camera inside them that can attach to a smartphone, thus improving your photos tremendously in terms of quality. Now it looks like Olympus wants to try their hand with a similar device called the Olympus Air.
The Olympus Air will work similarly to the Sony QX1 which is more of a mount that will accept lens attachments like a DSLR. Olympus’ solution is a 16MP Micro Four Thirds camera mount that will be able to accept lenses released for the same format, and given that Olympus has been at this for a while, there will be tons of lenses for customers to choose from.
There will be an accompanying app that will present a user interface that simulates a physical camera mode dial, and another that will give the user a number of Art Filters. Unfortunately it seems that the Olympus Air is only available in Japan at this time where it is priced at $289 and will see a release on the 6th of March. For those interested in getting their hands on a bundle with a kit lens, it will be priced at $425 and will come with a 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.
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