OM System says speed and compact footprint are more important than MP for compact M43 cameras

Micro Four Thirds has always been a hot-bed for innovation, often delivering high-end photography and videography features for less than its full-frame and APS-C equivalents and before them, too. OM System seemingly wants to revive this trend, touting computational photography as a next step. 

According to a recent PetaPixel interview with OM System heads, the brand is willing to prioritise computational photography, even if it means sticking with lower resolution sensors. 

Computational photography features are not intended to compensate for pixel count, but together they serve complementary roles, empowering users to truly realize their creative vision using the camera.

The recently released OM System OM-1 II and OM-3 (curr. $1.999.99 on Amazon) have several nifty computational photography tricks, including a handheld high-resolution mode and a software ND filter, which uses more or less the same bracketing techniques that the best smartphone cameras use to blend multiple exposures into one image. 

According to OM System, these features are not meant to compensate for the relatively lower resolution of most Micro Four Thirds sensors. Instead, OM System says that the combination of the computational photography features and the lower resolution sensors allow the cameras to achieve improved speed and that they "serve complementary roles, empowering users to truly realize their creative vision using the camera.” This is in spite of what appears to be a never-ending camera marketing war that leads customers to believe that more megapixels are always better. This is the same direction things have taken in the smartphone world, where sensors now commonly exceed 50 or even 100 MP. 

In the current situation, if we increase the megapixels, we need our engine to be much stronger and much quicker to keep up with the computational photography functions. If our speed of processing is too slow, it won’t satisfy users expectations. So we would have to develop a new engine along with a new sensor."

Most importantly, these computational photography features may just help camera brands like OM System to both stand out in a sea of new retro-styled cameras and compete with the convenience and ease-of-use of the smartphone. 

This "experience-first" messaging is consistent with recent OM System statements regarding the potential revival of the Pen camera line-up, a series of compact cameras that made use of Micro Four Thirds system to reduce their footprint without sacrificing features. This suggests that OM System would likely include any computational photography features in any future Pen cameras when it eventually decides to launch one.