Last Updated on 03/03/2014 by Chris Gampat
In today’s fast-paced technology world, six-month spans between the announcement of a product and its successor is nothing out of the ordinary, and a life cycle of a year is common for many products. So when a device is older than a year, people start wondering when the successor will be announced. For the Olympus E-PM2, the digital life span is already way over its due date, as the camera has been on the market for almost 1 1/2 years. Its bigger sibling, the E-P5, hasn’t been around quite that long–it’s only been introduced last May. Still, a new report claims that both cameras have been discontinued by Olympus, with successors to arrive some time this summer.
Both cameras share much of the same technology, first and foremost the Sony-made 16 megapixel CMOS sensor from the OM-D E-M5. Considering that the E-M5, and with it the sensor, is now almost two years old, and that the OM-D E-M1 is right now the only camera sporting the latest 16 megapixel sensor, it seems to be about time that the PEN series receive an upgrade.
Unfortunately, there is no detailed information available at this point. 43rumors, who first reported about the discontinuing of the two PEN models, mentions that the PEN series is much less successful than the OM-D series, so maybe well see some completely updated and rethought models this summer. One possibility would be to include an EVF in the top-level PEN model, in a rangefinder-style similar to the Panasonic GX7 or Fujifilm X-E1, though that would pit the next PEN directly against the mid-level OM-D.
Another possibility would be to reduce the number of PEN cameras from three to two, and drop either the PEN Mini or the PEN Lite. But there could be even more changes to the series in order to make it more attractive to customers once again, and in a sense revive the success of the original PEN E-P1 and E-PL1 models. At this point, this is all speculation, and to be certain we’ll have to wait until more information becomes available.