Olympus announces solar powered camera

[MRohlfing]

Olympus has announced world's first solar powered camera on friday. It is based on the renowned OM series. For owners of older OM cameras Olympus will sell the solar modul separately. It will be connected to the camera via the newly developed "Shoe 5" and an advanced "flying wire" connection.

Does anyone know why there has not been anything like this before? Or has it? My watch has been running on solar power for about 10 years already, and that solar module in this picture looks very similar to the module that was built into the solar radio I bought about 15 years ago.... 😉

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

 

[Prest_400]

My dad's trip 35 has Solar powered AE. Quite smart, no light, no photo.
It still needs fingers to choose the zone focus area, though.

 

[MartinP]

Hmmmm, was the OP talking about the special battery-free Olympus solar-powered, night-vision camera by any chance ????

 

[MRohlfing]

My dad's Agfa Optima was sort of solar powered, too. There was a lever that had to be moved a long way, though, so it needed some finger power to get going.

There were lots of cameras with selenium meters, of course. But after that, apparently hardly anything "operated by the sun".

@mabelsound: That Ricoh looks great - Ricoh always had (and has) innovative concepts! "Featuring 5 years performance without changing the storage battery" - sadly the special storage battery for the XR-S does not seem to be available anymore, so the owners of that camera have to use ordinary LR-44 or similar - which cannot be charged.

For today's battery hungry digital cameras the present solar technology might not be of too much use.

@MartinP: Yes, there is another module for night vision. It can be plugged on top of the OM and it contains a sort of xenon tube which will emit very bright light as soon as the shutter opens. Of course it needs a lot of power, so leave the camera in the sun a week or two before you use it!

 

[Spavinaw]

Don't know if it was the worlds first, but in March 1995 Canon marketed the Sure Shot Delsol/Prima Sol/Autoboy SE. It had a large fold down front lid that was a solar panel. It had a battery, but it was claimed that all functions were solar powered.

 

[robklurfield]

Aren't April Fool's pranks supposed to be played out on April 1? Anyway, I still smiled at this one.

My IIIf and M2 are both "solar powered."

 

[Sonnar Brian]

As shown in the preceding image, Ricoh did this in the early 1980s.

http://www.butkus.org/chinon/ricoh/ricoh_slr_systems/ricoh_slr_systems.htm

The Ricoh looks better.

 

[cambolt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY3Il9LwLM4

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

If this is tongue-in-cheek, why is it under "RFF news"?

 

[Paolo Bonello]

Lol, Shoe 5 solar accessory with a little black and red wire popping out the top is a dead giveaway. Would have been much slicker if Olympus really made one.

Funny.
I recently tried to make sense of all the different hotshoe numbers from 1-4 amongst the bajillion accessories for OM and still ended up buying the wrong one so I immediately got the joke but I can see how some might not. The OP probably should have posted in the UN-RF section for the Zuikoholics to have a chuckle at.

 

[freeranger]

This is uncanny! My company are currently working on the world's first solar powered enlarger.

 

[pvdhaar]

I'm all for using renewable energy sources to drive our cameras, but the trouble with solar cells is that they don't work in the dark.. And don't think that there's not much point in shooting when there's no light anyway; I'm thinking star trails here, stuff that's really heavy on the batteries. So, I got to wondering, has anyone already designed a biomass powered camera? Preferably one that doesn't stink like a sewer? 😀