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OCD: Olympus AF A few years back, when autofocus cameras were just starting to hit the market, Olympus introduced a few cameras such as the OM-77 to try to grab a piece of the new market. Unfortunately, the cameras didn't fare very well, and were dropped from the line. Part of the problem was the lack of additional lenses and accessories for the cameras. To my knowledge, they only produced two lenses for the AF system - a 35-70 f3.5-4.5 and a 70-210 f3.5-4.5. By all accounts, these are decent consumer lenses, but nothing special. If there are other any AF lenses, they are extremely rare. Olympus has done relatively well with a few "hybrid" point and shoot/SLR cameras, such as the IS-3 DLX. These SLR's are essentially full featured AF cameras, but without interchangeable lenses. The current IS-3 offers a 35-180mm lens with reasonable image quality (but again, nothing spectacular), but despite being an SLR design, stores like B&H classify it as a point and shoot camera. While the manual focus OM camemras have remained among the very best in the world, Olympus AF offerings don't hold to this same high caliber. The OM-77 was a deccent camera for its time, but by modern standards the AF system is slow, inaccurate, and the lack of available lenses is a major problem. The hybrid cameras are good for what they are, but don't qualify as true SLR camera systems with interchangeable lenses. Thus the old OM-77 is best skipped entirely, and the hybrid cameras should be considered only if you want a point and shoot camera with SLR features. Don't see your camera listed? Submit camera information! Looking for information on a camera not listed on the OCD? Submit site feedback! All content Copyright 1995-2000 by Peter Williams. Please read the Disclaimer for complete copyright and legal information. |