Olympus Stop Motion E-P1 Ad Concept Is Clever (Also, Stolen)

via Gizmodo by John Herrman on 7/10/09

TheOlympus Pen E-P1 is a beautiful Micro Four Thirds tribute the famous Pen half-frame SLR of the 1960s, so it's only appropriate that the most distinctive part of their advertising campaign is, well, inspired by a previous work.

Above, you see Olympus' "The PEN Story," a charming collection of some 9600 prints strung together in stop motion animation. From the video's YouTube description:

This is the PEN Story in stop motion. We shot 60.000 pictures, developed 9.600 prints and shot over 1.800 pictures again. No post production! Thanks to all the stop motion artists who inspired us. We hope you enjoy :-) Song & Lyrics by Johannes Stankowski
Produced and Arranged by Michael Kadelbach.

Thanks all around! Thanks for everyone! Now watch this, posted months before the E-P1 was even announced:

That's "Stop motion with wolf and pig," a video made by this Japanese fellow. The aesthetic similarities are obvious, but forgivable. The conceptual similarities? Not so much. Our tipster:

From the beginning with opening envelope, to the stairs, trains, swimming, the whole thing is a complete rip off. Kind of crosses the line between inspiration and theft. Unless they hired him to do it, which seems unlikely.

That Olympus didn't directly thank Mr. Wolf 'n Pig doesn't take away from the fact that their video is equally�if not more�technically impressive than the one that inspired it, but it couldn't hurt to at least acknowledge the poor kid's work a little more directly.

HD-Shooting Panasonic DMC-GH1 Looks Hot in Red, Availabile April 24 in Japan

via�Gizmodo�by John Mahoney on 3/27/09

We usually don't dish on Asia-only release dates to preserve your Occidental sanity, but since price and date for the U.S. drop of the new�Micro Four Thirds, 1080p-capturing GH1 is still mysterious, let's look.

According to Impress, the GH1 will be available April 24 at an estimated cost of �150,000. That's a dissapointing price, since�ConvertBot-ed�over to dollars, that's an ugly $1,500. Regardless, that doesn't mean we won't get it cheaper over here, but it's not the most comforting detail.

The other thing to keep in mind, though, is that the GH1's video capture mode (which is basically the only differentiation from its�$800 predecessor, the G1) does things the others from�Nikon�and�Canon�can't: that is, the cinema-friendly 24fps framerate at 1080p (60fps at 720p), as well as continuous contrast-based autofocus with an especially silent-focusing lens. [Impress]