Olympus Air: the new wireless camera lens for your smartphone
The Japanese-based manufacturer, Olympus, has just released its first clip-on wireless camera for smartphones, Air A01. Olympus has entered a market where it must compete with Sony’s QX lens cameras, which can connect to your device through a wireless connection, or by physically attaching the camera to your phone.
Combining a smartphone with camera lens that offers you the benefits of a digital camera, it’s something we maybe all have dreamed of. This is not only a step forward for developing more sophisticated smartphone cameras, but it can also be a useful accessory for those interested in Photography.
The Olympus Air A01 works pretty much the same way as the Sony QX cameras. You control the lens with your smartphone via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, but it also has a physical shutter release button. The Olympus Air A01 features a 16-Megapixel Live MOS image sensor and a TruePicVII image processor, with a Micro Four Thirds lens mount, a tripod mount, a microSD card slot and a Lithium-ion battery that resists up to 320 shots. The Air A01 comes with eight dedicated smartphone applications for different shooting methods that connect to the camera once they are launched. The applications will work on Android smartphones and on iOS as well.
Olympus also stated that the Air camera has interchangeable lens, supporting adapters for other lens mounts. The Air has an 81-point AF system, which allows as much as 10 frames per second and has shutter speeds of up to 1/16,000s, and is capable of 3x digital zoom and digital tele-converter. The camera will be released with an open-source API, so developers can exploit the potential the camera has and come up with ideas for new applications.
Olympus has stated on its website that the Olympus Air camera was developed in order to meet the needs of smartphone’s users who aspire to a different experience and who think that photos are an “intimate part of their lives.” The device lets the user manipulate images in many creative ways, gives more control over the photos he takes, gives him more freedom and it also simplifies his experience with the social networking services.
For now, Olympus Air will go on sale on March 6, 2015 and it will be available for online shopping only, in Japan. The Air A01 camera will come in two colors, black and white, with a pricetag of 33.800 YEN ($289) for the simple edition and a pricetag of 49.800 YEN ($425) for the Olympus Air A01 Kit, which will contain 42mm EZ Lens plus the M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 EZ. Prices will include taxes.
Source: Olympus Global
