Olympus Ships First ImageLink Products

By Greg Scoblete -- TWICE, 10/3/2005

Melville, N.Y. — Olympus has started shipping its first imaging products to work with Kodak’s ImageLink system for connecting third-party digital cameras with Kodak’s EasyShare printer docks.

Olympus is the first vendor to introduce ImageLink-compliant products in the United States.

Olympus is offering both a new digital camera, the D-555, and an Olympus-branded printer dock that uses Kodak’s thermal media, in Office Max stores. The two are selling together for $379.

The 5-megapixel D-555 features a 2.8x optical zoom, 1.8-inch LCD, seven shooting modes, and a super macro mode for focusing up to 2-cm away from a subject. The camera can dock to Kodak’s ImageLink printer docks in addition to Olympus’ new ILP-100 Printer. The dye sublimation printer can produce a 4-inch by 6-inch photo in less than two minutes and is also PictBridge-enabled.

ImageLink was announced in late 2004 as a means to connect third party digital cameras with Kodak’s printer docks. Konica Minolta, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sanyo have signed on to the initiative in the hopes of tapping into Kodak’s growing install base of printer docks, which according to Phil Scott, Kodak’s general manager, has reached 2 million units.