Olympus Air A-01

[Bill Watts]

An unusual offering from Olympus, Marketed around 2016 to 2018. The "camera" is a tube about 50mm diameter and 52mm long with a mobile phone mount on one end and a m4/3 lens mount on the other. Only a power button and shutter release on the body. Based on the 16mp sensor used in the OM-D E-M10 and E-M5 mkII. Processing was carried out with the Truepic VII processor. JPEG and RAW files were available and the JPEG files could be saved to the attached mobile phone as well as the internal memory micro SD card. Images could be geotagged automatically using the phones GPS.

Video at up to 1080p at 30fps was possible.


Bare Olympus Air A-01


Air A-01 next to an Olympus OM Zuiko 50mm f1.8 lens for size comparison.


A-01 with mobile phone connected, powered on and mZuiko 14-42mm f3.5-5.6 EZ pancake lens.

The functions of and display for the camera was performed by the mobile phone connected to it by WiFi and Bluetooth. The Bluetooth connection was actually only used for turning the camera on, everything else operated over WiFi.

It didn't have all the features of the fully fledged cameras, however it had a top shutter speed of 1/16,000 second as there was no mechanical shutter.

Olympus made the unusual decision to make the software Open Source and supplied not only a number of programs to use the camera but also an SDK for developers to write their own code for both Android and IOS operating systems. A few apps can still be found online for the camera, however the official Olympus apps have been removed.

Sony had marketed a similar camera a year or so earlier which came in a number of variants but only one had interchangeable lenses

Neither the Sony or Olympus cameras were commercially successful - mobile phone cameras were rapidly improving at the time and some of the perceived benefits were lost.

However the images from the camera are very good, similar to the output of the contemporary OM-D cameras.

Interestingly enough there have been a couple of Kickstarter campaigns revisiting this concept, one is running currently, utilising the m4/3 lens mount too.

A couple of example images:-


f8, 1/500s, ISO 200



f8, 1/500s, ISO 200

They have a somewhat "Velvia" like appearance.

They didn't catch on in 2015, I am inclined to think they still will not catch on today. What is your opinion?

 

[Gary R. Smith]

Odd duck, that's for sure.

> They didn't catch on in 2015, I am inclined to think they still will not catch on today. What is your opinion?

I doubt anyone would be interested - even if they were available for free!

 

[Bill Watts]

Odd duck, that's for sure.

> They didn't catch on in 2015, I am inclined to think they still will not catch on today. What is your opinion?

I doubt anyone would be interested - even if they were available for free!
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I think Olympus was aiming at the hackers market as they are completely programmable with the SDK - I don't think the current version on Kickstarter will come to much either even though they have raised a tidy sum in excess of requirements

 

[Beth Carter]

i think i'll pass on this.

 

[Bill Watts]

i think i'll pass on this.

A lot of people did! they were only on the market for a very short time, possibly not as short a time as the Olympus FTL though!

 

[Paul Taylor]

Snappiness just did a video on the similar Sony product, and his videos are always a good watch if not a bit too short. Like the Olympus, Hassleblad, etc - it was a failure sales wise too. I had a chuckled at the Kickstarters doing something similar, I guess learning the lessons of products past isn't a thing for a lot of people.

I remember when these came out - and I thought "neat, but useless" as it was just easier and faster to pull out a conventional camera and not mess with all the hoopla of combining multiple dissimilar devices into one transformer style compromised device.

 

[Bill Watts]

Snappiness just did a video on the similar Sony product, and his videos are always a good watch if not a bit too short. Like the Olympus, Hassleblad, etc - it was a failure sales wise too. I had a chuckled at the Kickstarters doing something similar, I guess learning the lessons of products past isn't a thing for a lot of people.

I remember when these came out - and I thought "neat, but useless" as it was just easier and faster to pull out a conventional camera and not mess with all the hoopla of combining multiple dissimilar devices into one transformer style compromised device.

It is possible that it might be one of those products whose time had not yet come the first time round, but I don't think so. It is too complex a solution as the mobile phone is quite capable of doing much the same, if act some can refocus and change background focus after the event. Maybe to not the same quality or with all the features but perfectly acceptable to the consumer.

 

[Bill Watts]

Snappiness just did a video on the similar Sony product, and his videos are always a good watch if not a bit too short. Like the Olympus, Hassleblad, etc - it was a failure sales wise too. I had a chuckled at the Kickstarters doing something similar, I guess learning the lessons of products past isn't a thing for a lot of people.

I remember when these came out - and I thought "neat, but useless" as it was just easier and faster to pull out a conventional camera and not mess with all the hoopla of combining multiple dissimilar devices into one transformer style compromised device.

Sorry but i found him condescending and ill informed about the other models he mentioned - poor research and very Sony biased