lucis

I have always been a little skeptical of the four-thirds system mainly because if the lack of cheap and high quality Olympus lenses. Inspite of everyone and their dog predicting the death of the system soon, Olympus and Panasonic seem to be the only companies that are even trying to innovate with digital SLRs these days. And this in times when all the big-shots (Nikon and Canon) are doing is increasing the size of the LCDs on their cameras!. First the radical Olumpus E330, and now the new Panasonic DMC-L1 can both be viewed as trend-setters in the industry. More on the Panasonic here.

With the death of Minolta, and the future uncertain with Sony, it is good to see atleast one camera company has the right idea. The new Panasonic has a dedicated shutter speed knob (when was the last time you saw one on a new camera!?), and even has a functional aperture ring! To top it all off, Leica announced support for the four-thirds system with their new 14-50 mm lens with image stabilization. If the camera+lens is reasonably priced (instead of the snobish Leica price), this is sure to be a killer camera.

Cant wait for Sony’s announcement on their new camera and lens lineup. I only hope they keep the Minolta design, ergonomics and glass and improve it in Minolta spirit, instead of Sony-izing everything…