Olympus

Star of the Olympus stand is of course the Evolt (E-300) digital SLR. Despite its rather inelegant looks, the E-300 seems very well built and handles considerably better than its appearance might suggest. Also on display were the new E system lenses, 14-45mm, 40-150mm and 7-14mm and the new FL-36 system flash. Moving to compact cameras, the AZ-2 is a beautifully constructed 4 megapixel camera with a nice big screen, though it's also surprisingly large - much more so than the original press photos had implied. Also on the Olympus stand are displays of the full range of six colors of the Mju Mini, the compact new 7 megapixel C-7000 Zoom, and two budget cameras, the D-535 and D-590. More interesting was a new concept 'Easy Imaging' system - an ultra compact camera with a unique 'wrap around' LCD screen/lens cover with docking station and direct-connect hard disk, DVD writer and mini photo printer. The whole system is very stylish and compact, and is finished in a very becoming 'iPod' white. We are assured by Olympus that this is not another 'blue sky' project, and that it will make it to production in relatively soon. Finally we got a glimpse of the M:robe - a concept product that combines MP3 player and camera in a slim unit (again, white) - there is also a tiny MP3 player (without camera).