Bright Olympus telephoto lenses coming soon, says manager

Olympus manager, Setsuya Kataoka, is claiming that the company will launch super-telephoto lenses with very bright apertures and that users will be able to capture 40-megapixel photos without the need of a tripod at some point in the future.

Setsuya Kataoka, General Manager of product and marketing planning at Olympus, has given two separate interviews in order to talk about the company’s future.

The Olympus manager has revealed a bunch of interesting details, including the company’s plans to launch super-telephoto lenses with bright apertures and a 40-megapixel high-resolution mode which will not require the use of a tripod.

Olympus General Manager Setsuya Kataoka says that the company will release very bright super telephoto lenses soon and that handheld 40MP high-res shot is also on its way. Photo credits: Fotosidan.

Bright Olympus telephoto lenses will be released soon, says the company’s General Manager

Speaking with Swedish website, Fotosidan.se, Mr. Kataoka has revealed that Olympus will release “extraordinary lenses” sometime in the near future.

For the time being, the company is aiming to fill its PRO-series of optics. After the PRO line-up becomes full, then bright Olympus telephoto lenses will become available, said the manager.

The Japan-based company will add the 8mm f/1.8 fisheye, 7-14mm f/2.8, and 300mm f/4 lenses to the PRO-series by the end of 2015.

Setsuya adds that Olympus is currently planning its future. Although bright Olympus telephoto lenses are coming, the company is still in doubt whether the first model should be a very bright telephoto prime model or a telephoto zoom model with a slightly lower brightness than the prime version.

When asked about the possibility of a tilt-shift lens, Setsuya Kataoka said that “not even Canon and Nikon are selling many tilt-shift lenses”. This is a hint that the OM-D maker is not planning to bring a tilt-shift model to the market in the neighboring future.

Handheld 40-megapixel high-resolution shot to become possible in the near future

The second interview has been granted to DPReview and it has been focused on the new OM-D E-M5 Mark II mirrorless camera.

Setsuya Kataoka says that the biggest advancement is not represented by the 40-megapixel capability. Instead, the image stabilization technology is the one which should be praised, as this is the system which makes the 40MP high-resolution shot possible.

Now that the company’s 16-megapixel sensor can capture 40-megapixel photos in one second, Olympus is thinking about making the whole system faster. This way, there will be no need for a tripod.

Mr. Kataoka said that handheld 40-megapixel high-resolution shot will be possible soon. The company’s engineers are aiming to reduce the time from one second to 1/60th of a second. Moreover, the development process is going fast, which means that photographers will be able to use this mode without a tripod very soon.

There is no way to tell “how soon is soon”, so we invite to stay tuned to Camyx to find out!