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Photography Culture

Olympus Made One of the Best Digicams; It Should Be Revived

Chris Gampat
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Last updated on 06/27/2025
08/06/2025
3 Mins read
Person in a luchador mask smiles in a crowd; someone holds a pillow behind them in an urban setting.
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In 2011, I completed my review of the Olympus XZ-1 digital camera. This camera is a point and shoot with a slightly larger sensor for the time, and a fast f1.8 lens aperture. This meant that it could take in a lot more light at a given shutter speed or ISO setting if the lens was set to f1.8. But more importantly, it was built well, had good autofocus, and worked well enough to be something I call a companion camera of sorts. And truthfully, I think that Olympus, now OM System, should bring it back.

I’m writing this article in June and it’s being published in August. Recently, I had talks with the brands heads and understood that they’re really only focusing on TOUGH cameras when it comes to point and shoots. They don’t seem to be concerned with superzooms at all. But the Olympus XZ-! wasn’t a superzoom.

Instead, it was a compact camera designed to be shot in low light or nearly any lighting situation. What impressed me the most is that even though it’s not billed as being a very durable camera compared to the others that OM System offers, it took a lot of abuse. Every year, NYC has a giant pillow fight; and I remember that camera taking a whole lot of abuse and even getting hit with the lens getting pushed back in. It survived what so many other cameras simply cannot do.

On top of that, it shot RAW images that I made into photographs that I still adore looking back on now. Even better, the autofocus of that camera outperformed even their Micro Four Thirds cameras at the time.

I did a search on eBay and every camera that I saw had some sort of problem if it was under $200. Would I buy this for a few hundred more? Yes. Why? Because at least to me personally, the nostalgia is worth the money.

But why should this camera be revived now? Here are a few reasons why I think so:

  • OM System has indeed tried to target an audience that lives in cities more. Every now and again they dabble in it and I think that if they just embraced it, they’d have a winner
  • They’d be stepping into a camera category that otherwise doesn’t exist anymore, but is sorely needed
  • It wouldn’t cost them a lot of money
  • The brand needs something else besides Micro Four Thirds and working with the outdoor photographers out there. Even Fujifilm realized that they need diversity in their lineup of camera offerings
  • The brand could make this camera all about the art filters in so many different ways. Why even bother shooting RAW when you’ve got all these simulations that look great?
  • There are lots of places where mirrorless and ILC devices aren’t allowed. So why not have this instead?

I could go on and on about why the world needs this camera. And it doesn’t even have to have a 4/3 sensor either.

camera olympus point and shoot xz1
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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