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The new Olympus E-410
Olympus Imaging Corporation (President Masaharu Okubo)announced today that the company will be releasing the new E-410 digital SLR camera at the end of April 2007. The world's smallest, slimmest and lightest* interchangeable-lens digital SLR camera, the E-410 incorporates all the core features of Olympus E-System cameras, including the "Dedicated Digital Design," "Dust Reduction" and "Live View" functions.
 
Main Features
- Smart design with the world's slimmest, smallest, lightest body
With the E-410, Olympus has succeeded in developing the world's slimmest, smallest, and lightest digital SLR camera body*. This remarkable achievement was made possible by the four technologies listed below. Users will find the camera's slim design especially convenient, enhancing the overall operability, portability and handling in actual use.
*
| Among interchangeable lens type digital SLR cameras as of 5th March 2007 (in-house research) |
(1) Flexible board
To take advantage of the gaps between components in the limited space inside the camera, we designed a new flexible board that allows free wiring in both of the horizontal and vertical directions.
(2) High-rigidity shell-structured frame
A box construction formed using high-strength engineering resin and thick metallic frame achieves high resistance against distortion and damage, while simultaneously achieving compact size and light weight. This enables the camera body to withstand various stresses from inside as well as outside.
(3) Shutter
To optimize the layout, a new design that puts the shutter charge block opposite to its position in ordinary cameras was adopted. The size of the drive motor and gear unit have been reduced. These components are made with a strong metallic material that ensures their strength and endurance while maintaining accuracy of 1/4000 sec.
(4) Compact, divided capacitor and highly efficient xenon tube
To implement a neat design with a small penta-prism section while incorporating a flash unit in the body, the flash is positioned by the “rear tilted installation” of the ‘penta-dach' mirror for the viewfinder. The flash's light emitting section uses a high-efficiency xenon tube to compensate for the reduction in size.
- New, more advanced Live View function
The Live View function allows users to shoot while watching the LCD monitor on the back of the camera just as they can with compact digital camera. Even with high-angle or low-angle subjects that are difficult to view through the viewfinder, users will be able to shoot comfortably without having to stretch or contort themselves to get the shot. The ability to by frame compositions in the LCD monitor without having to look into the viewfinder is also useful in portrait shooting, helping users capture more natural and relaxed pictures. In addition, besides enabling pin-point focusing, Live View lets users check the results exposure correction and white balance adjustment in real time on the LCD monitor.
Accurate, precise focusing supported by 7X/10X zooming
Since AF in previous SLR cameras was possible only in the predetermined metering area, it often caused problems for photographers doing macro shooting or who wanted to compose and image near the periphery. In addition, it used to be necessary to zoom recorded images in order to check focusing and re-shoot the image if it was out of focus. Now, thanks to the E-410's new Live View, you can zoom the monitored image by up 7X at the touch of a button and check the focus before you take the picture. When the shooting point is located in the center, AF is activated, eliminating the need of manual focusing.
Support for sure exposure correction
Until now, it was impossible to check the results of exposure correction before taking the picture, but new Live View has made it possible. As this function allows the user to confirm the correction effect intuitively, even users with no knowledge of exposure can easily exploit the advantages of SLR shooting. Those users who are familiar with exposure correction can also benefit since it will allow them to make adjustments more quickly while viewing the LCD monitor, without having to check the white balance after every shot.
- Newly developed 10-million pixel Live MOS sensor, image processing engine TruePic III
The new 10-million pixel Live MOS sensor reproduces images with rich gradations equivalent to an 8-million pixel CCD. It has achieved about 80% reduction of power consumption so that the Live View function can be activated permanently. By simplifying the sensor structure through radical improvement of the material and processing technology based on Olympus's well-regarded MOS signal amplification technology and by forming the sensor circuits integrally on a flexible board, the contact resistance due to signal exchange and wiring has been minimized. This reduces the power consumption, heat generation and noise generation of the image sensor unit.
Together with the 10-million pixel Live MOS sensor, a new image processing engine has also been developed. "TruePic III" achieves a significant reduction in image processing time, which until now has been the bottleneck preventing substantial pixel increases. Thanks to this high-speed image processing, continuous shooting of 3 frames per second is now possible using the following three technologies.
(1) Advanced Noise Filter III Technology
The advanced noise filter separates the image and noise components accurately and reduces noise while reproducing the image subject with high fidelity.
(2) Advanced Detail Reproduction Technology
This technology detects edges accurately and reproduces them smoothly. It also eliminates pseudo-colors cleanly.
(3) Advanced Proper Gamma III Technology
Advanced proper gamma technology featuring independent control of the luminance and chrominance signals has further evolved for more faithful color reproduction –even pale colors.
Other features
- Fast 3 frames-per-sec. shooting
The newly developed 10-megapixel Live MOS image sensor and TruePic III technology have slashed the time required for image processing, enabling high-speed continuous shooting at 3 frames per second.
- HyperCrystal LCD with wide field angle from all directions
The 2.5-inch LCD monitor on the rear of the body employs 230,000 hyper-pixels with 20% increased surface brightness. Ideal for high-definition images, this monitor enables wide 176° field angle adjustment ranges in the up-down, left-right and diagonal directions. This makes possible picture monitoring from any direction with improved visibility even under strong sunlight and is sure to assist the Live View framing.
- Dust Reduction System using SSWF (Super-Sonic Wave Filter) with increased vibrations
When swapping out a lens on a digital SLR camera there's a good chance that the camera's electro-statically charged image sensor will attract micro dust that can ruin photos. Similarly, friction dust produced inside the body by the close and release of the shutter can get on the low-pass filter or image sensor and spoil your shots. Since the main advantage of using an SLR camera is the ability to change lenses for better imaging effects, Olympus incorporated a ”dust-free‘ SSWF unit in its very first digital SLR camera. The version incorporated in the E-410 is smaller, uses less power, and vibrates at a higher frequency to provide even more effective dust reduction than the original device. The SSWF unit is activated every time you turn the camera on, and whenever the Live View function is in use.
- Newly designed bright, easy-to-view viewfinder
The penta-mirror section of the E-410 is smaller than that of the E-500 but has a larger viewfinder magnification of 0.92x (this is 0.9x with the E-500). The eyepiece lens employs high-refractivity lens components with an advanced aspherical surface treatment that provides a bigger, brighter view. This is another example of how Olympus is able to provided uncompromised operability and performance even when the body size is reduced.
- High-precision 49-segment light metering system
The 49-segment light metering sensor has already proven itself on our previous models. It employs active pixel metering under low light and hybrid metering using an integrating amplifier under bright light. Despite having 49 different segments, it is able to reserve a wide metering range and provide fast, accurate metering. The system is also design to cope with light emitted by the flash and provides accurate metering in any conditions Ewhether under the low light of candles or the bright light of the sun.
- Easy-to-use Super Control Panel
The Super Control Panel now features colors and fonts that are much easier to see and read than before. Larger, clear characters simplify operation, allowing users to make adjustments more quickly and reducing fatigue. A GUI (Graphical User Interface) with quick, intuitive operation helps minimize mistakes and misunderstanding when adjusting settings.
- Four convenient picture modes
In addition to the two standard sRGB and Adobe RGB color modes, the E-410 incorporates four picture modes including Vivid, Natural (default), Flat and Monotone. The Monotone mode allow finer settings of filter effects (red, amber, yellow and green) and color tones (sepia, blue, purple and green).
- Raw data compression without image quality degradation
Picture quality degradation due to compression of raw data has been eliminated and compression speed has been increased. This makes it possible to compress an image of about 17MB down to about 11MB with no loss of quality. This also makes it possible to store more high-quality images than before.
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Olympus E-410 details...
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