Olympus filed an interesting patent in Japan for removing water drops from a lens by using a vibrating front element:
Here are another four patents applications for the following Olympus m4/3 lenses (also filed in Japan):
- M.Zuiko 17mm F2.8 (already available)
- M.Zuiko 20mm F2.8
- M.Zuiko 14mm F2.8
- M.Zuiko 12mm F3.5
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20 Comments
Vibrating front element?? That’s crazy talk, haha. What will they think of next?? Oh I know.. how aboutthey build on a windshield-wiper port for a detachable front-element wiper. =P
While the lens are exciting , not sure what water on lens removal will do especially if you don’t have weather resistant camera
best way to protect lens from rain , the lens hood
Harold
Lol that vibrating wont work wel imo… ever dried shaking the glass clean of water…
and whats the actual point of 17mm and 20mm? whats next 18mm, 19mm?
What is is this Pokemon lens?… collect them all!
it’s only patents
Camaman
Actually there is a significant difference between a 34mm and a 40mm.
Forme 40mm is my favorite street photography lens as it replaces effectively a 35mm and a 50mm
Harold
I suppose the adhesion forces between water and glass are strong enough so that vibrating won’t work. But on the link says something about ultrasound. That might work.
Nice gif! hahaha
Even if it’d work – I’m not sure if having a lens shake is a good thing for sharpness of my photos
Hopefully it’ll be like… pressing a button to make it move, or something…
I don’t see how will Vibrating front element work for most case,
A normal user will always have a filter to protect the front element, so except the lens that with out a filter holder in front, the front element won’t have any chance to contact with rain
maybe in a few years will have ultra sound system that will repel water and will be able to shoot under water!
hahaha!:-)
if this all come true, i sink my e-410 and the 14-54 into the ocean!! i wait and wait for a good, small wide angle lens and nothing appears. now they have these children kameras and everything will happens….micro today, micro tomorrow, micro micro micro… and the e-system users are only crab for them…
Well a 3.5/12mm that would be a dream lens if this is not a pancake design and produce great results at full aperture
a 20mm is also fabulous . I wish the 20mm would open at 2.0 versus 2.8 mm
Harold
Seems impractical, but the animation sure is cute.
Maybe the is start on a new serial water pro lens from Olympus.
what happened to nikonrumors? i cant get to that site
nikonrumors? deep deep sleeping
not much I can do until I move to a new host next week
it is amazing to see that while olympus managed to design wonderful bright compact primes back in the film days for it’s 35mm OM system and now it cannot manage to open the little s#!ts-up more than 2.8/3.5. Shame, really! and that is for a system with a recording surface 4 times smaller than 35mm. go figure!
20/2.8: quatch! gimme at least 1.8. 14/2.8: quatch! i want at least 2. 12/3.5: no way: you can do at least 2.8! c’mon olympus, you used to be good at this! what happened?!
Could an auto shake give the multi view points necessary in order to achieve 3D pictures?
These 2.8 and 3.5 lenses are a joke. It used to be a 2.8 prime was the cheap lower quality type, now they are mainstream because so many idiots think you can crank the ISO so no need for big apertures. How far we have come….in the wrong direction. Guess Olympus decided they dont need to actually bother making any real lenses besides crap zooms and a crap pancake.
tell you what, Mano… first one out there that puts out an 35mm EVIL where I can stick my old full-manual lenses on has me sold.
…fear is I’m gonna grow too old to hold a camera straight by the time somebody delivers something people would buy…
anyone want my 2000$ cash? gimme a 35mmEVIL!