Micro Four Thirds: ten years old this week
There were no illustrations when the Micro Four Thirds concept was announced, so we had to draw our own.
Ten years ago this week, Panasonic and Olympus announced the Micro Four Thirds format. And in doing so, prompted us to use the term `mirrorless` for the first time.
The rather corporate press release didn`t necessarily spell out just how important a development it was. The two camera makers thought they were announcing a new mount, while trying not to upset existing Four Thirds customers. What they were actually doing was changing the direction of the industry.
We`d initially written a story stating that `Panasonic and Olympus have said they`ve developed a new mount with a shorter flange-back distance that will ... ` but that wasn`t the story at all. So instead we ran with: `Olympus and Panasonic have announced a new, mirrorless format / lens mount.`
With hindsight we can see that Panasonic and Olympus were heralding the start of the mirrorless era.
A DSLR, but without the mirror
The idea of removing the mirror from a DSLR wasn`t new: Pentax created this design study as far back as 1997. Phil shot this image when it was displayed at Photokina in 2006: still two years before Micro Four Thirds was announced.
For the first few hours there were no illustrations available, so we traced the outline of an existing E-series DSLR and scaled the other elements of the camera to show roughly what a mirrorless version could look like. It would be another six weeks before the public got to see the first Micro Four Thirds camera.
September 2008 [Announcement + 6 weeks]
The Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1 did everything it could to downplay how radical it was. It looked a bit like a Canon Rebel XSi / 450D that had shrunk in the wash but, more significantly, it also operated a lot like an existing DSLR. Critically though, it worked in live view as well as through the viewfinder. Or, more t ...
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