Olympus Micro 4/3rds Prototype shown at Photokina!

Olympus has managed to advance the Micro Four Thirds cause today with a development notice of upcoming Micro Four Thirds products, and showed an old-school M43 prototype. This is exciting news, but at the same time, it throws icy cold water on the Micro Four Thirds fire. The markets are moving fast, this is not the time to follow the failed strategies that clogged Four Thirds for years (The last sentence is sponsored by the "Campaign for Real Micro Four Thirds products now").

You can see three different views of the new prototype at Digital Camera Review. This looks nice and it certainly provides an alternative to those who prefer an old-school camera over the more traditionally styled G1. There's probably room for 1-2 more body types to be introduced by a combination of Panasonic and Olympus. It is certainly nice that they apparently co-ordinated so they offer different body types that appeal to different photography styles and situations.

All that is known so far on the new prototype is nicely summarized at the 43-specialty site Four Thirds Photo. There we see the dimensions of the alleged new camera, and they are compared to the already-adorable E420. Oh my! It is smaller in every dimension!

The actual press release from Olympus is boring and contains no new information.

Six more pictures of the prototype at dpreview. This view may remind some of the old Camedia D-series.

And some more pictures at Photography Review, and Focus Numerique.