The 100 year challenge

Image courtesy of Olympus

Today, Olympus announced a new camera to celebrate its 100th anniversary as a company: The OM-D E-M1X. Looking to move its Micro Four-thirds bodies up into true pro level territory, the new OM-D is built for sports, has a massive non-removable grip and costs $3,000, far more than any MFT camera before. Not many companies survive for an entire century, so that’s a huge accomplishment, and congratulations to Olympus!

For its 70th birthday in 1988, Olympus took a very different route - in fact the two cameras couldn’t really be more different. It commissioned a redesign of one of its mass-market 35mm film point and shoots, and launched the limited-edition O-Product. While the new OM-D is hyper serious, dark and expensive, the O-Product was fun, quirky, shiny and (relatively) inexpensive.

We’ve featured O-Product here before, so take a look at the article to enjoy the little camera’s wonderful retro-futurist design, and hear the story about its creation. It was retro long before retro was a thing.