How bright is the future for Olympus compacts? It could be f/1.0 bright, if we’re talking about lens specs. Olympus was given a patent last month for a 50mm-equivalent, f/1.0 lens, designed to be used with a 1/1.7-inch sensor—the same size used in the Stylus enthusiast-compact line. It’s built from 9 elements in 7 groups, including a number of aspherical elements. According to the blog that found the patent, the lens is a bit thicker than 3.2 centimeters, which is somewhat larger than the glass on most compacts, though not...
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