Melville, N.Y. – Olympus has added two new digital cameras to the fold. The Camedia E-20N will serve as a replacement for its high-end flagship E-10 digital camera, and the new Brio D230 serves as an expansion to the mid-range Brio family.
The Camedia E-20N, which carries a suggested retail of $1999, is an SLR digital camera with a dual mode image capture capability. The Interlaced Scan mode allows users to set the 2/3-inch RGB CCD for 5 megapixel (effective) resolution to capture images up to 11 x 14 inches. Selecting the Progressive Scan mode of a 2.5 megapixel (effective) resolution lets users take photographs of fast action scenes or in very bright light with shutter speeds of up to 1/18,000 second.
The E-20N features a 9mm – 36mm Zoom ED and a spherical glass lens and employs Olympus’ TruePic technology, capturing all the pixel information for each picture at every resolution to produce smoother gradations and truer photographic images.
The Camedia E-20N also features a manual focusing ring on the lens barrel; manual zoom ring; traditional-style focusing screen; and dual media card slots for compatibility with SmartMedia and CompactFlash Type I and II memory cards, including the IBM Microdrive.
Rounding out the E-20N’s features is a dual AutoFocus system. It employs Olympus’ patented IR-active focus system for initial focusing, as well as a TTL passive focus for fine, accurate focus. Multiple flash modes include Auto Scene Detecting Flash, Red-Eye Reduction, Slow Shutter Synchronization and Fill-in Flash with the FL-40 or built-in flash.
Like all new Olympus digital cameras, the E-20N offers Auto-Connect USB technology which allows users to instantly transfer images from camera to PC without software drivers. It ships with a 32MB Olympus SmartMedia memory card, lens hood, video cable, USB Auto-connect cable, two LB-01 (CR-3V) Lithium batteries, RM-1 remote control, Olympus Camedia Master 4.0 (Windows/Macintosh), Adobe PhotoShop Elements v. 1.0 (Windows/Macintosh).
Olympus also announced the newest member to its Brio line of point-and-shoot digital cameras, the Brio D-230, for a suggested retail price of $349. The new Brio features a 2.0 megapixel (effective) resolution, an Olympus Auto-Focus 5.5mm f 2.8 lens, (equivalent to 36mm in a 35mm film camera) with a digital telephoto up to 5X and shutter release times of 0.3 seconds.
Designed for first-time digital camera users with an Auto-Focus lens, automatic flash (which includes Olympus’ red-eye reduction technology), exposure system, white balance, and color management.
The Brio D-230 includes many special capture effects such as the new Composite Image Mode for the ability to instantly merge two images into one in the camera without the need of a PC. Other special effects include Sepia and Black & White Image Effect Modes, Rotation, and File Resize mode, which saves a separate smaller copy of the image for e-mail or web use. A QuickTime movie mode is available for up to 60 seconds of movies at 15 frames per second.
Once captured, images may be viewed, erased or stored on removable SmartMedia cards. The Brio D-230 ships with a 16MB SmartMedia card, providing capacity to store up to 90 images in Standard Quality mode.
