World’s Smallest Micro 4/3 Camera Will Give GoPro a Run For Its Money
Jul 19, 2015
Allen Mowery
Allen Mowery is a Nationally-published Commercial & Editorial Photographer with over 20 years of experience. He has shot for major brands as well small clients. When not shooting client work or chasing overgrown wildlife from his yard, he loves to capture the stories of the people and culture around him.
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We all love the GoPro for a variety of reasons. But, one major drawback of the well-known action cam is a sacrifice on quality due to it’s sensor size. Oh, and you’re kinda stuck with the stock the fisheye-like lens.
Z Camera is looking to give GoPro a run for their money with the introduction of the E1, the world’s smallest micro 4/3 camera with interchangeable lenses and 4K video. Although it hasn’t yet hit mass production, this feat of photographic engineering is shaping up to be fun!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2081787381/e1-camera-4k-uhd-interchangeable-lens-camera
Yep…with overall dimensions (not including lens) only 8mm larger than the GoPro Hero4, this camera packs a punch. Housed inside it’s tiny body is a 16MP micro 4/3 image sensor, Wifi, and Bluetooth capabilities. And, the advanced 3D filtering technology gives it amazing low-light performance, allowing users to shoot quality video footage at ISO 100,000 and stills at ISO 6400.
Current E1 prototypes work with the Panasonic lineup of micro 4/3 lenses and will eventually be compatible with Leica, Sigma, and Olympus lenses as well.
What’s really cool about this camera is the user’s remote control abilities. The camera can remain in standby mode for up to one month and be activated by a smartphone without ever having to touch the camera directly.
One of the obvious drawbacks is that with the use of quality-yet-fragile lenses, this E1 is not necessarily built to withstand the same rigors as a GoPro. While I’m certain that such accessories as waterproof housings and action mounts won’t be long to follow, the chances of damaging the camera and lens will be significantly higher.
But, you always have to sacrifice somewhere…
Specs
While their Kickstart page says that units will start shipping in November 2015, other sources have placed the release date as early as the end of the month. According to Z Camera’s founder Jason Zhang, the camera will retail at $699 for the body only, or somewhere in the $1,000 to $1,100 range with a 14mm Panasonic lens.
To learn more about the E1, visit Z Camera’s website (if you can read Chinese) or head over to their Kickstarter page.
[via Shutterbug]
Allen Mowery
Allen Mowery is a Nationally-published Commercial & Editorial Photographer with over 20 years of experience. He has shot for major brands as well small clients. When not shooting client work or chasing overgrown wildlife from his yard, he loves to capture the stories of the people and culture around him.
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21 responses to “World’s Smallest Micro 4/3 Camera Will Give GoPro a Run For Its Money”
Waterproof to how many feet ? How big is the camera with Wide angle lens? Pretty sure gopro will be ok.
Sorry wont do much against GoPro, way to strong of a brand.
“sacrifice on quality” !?!?!? :-( did you ever used one ? + I’d love to see this new camera and it’s big lens mounted on a bike during a baja or any REAL tough condition… :-(
Weight with lens? :) Might be interesting in multi-rotors. Also important is the center of balance with the lens in place, as gimbals tend to be picky on that.
This is a total con job. they did not make a camera. its a china
camera that has already been built. the $42K is to put in the pocket of
the phony kick starter campaign. At the price there charging for a gopro
camera with a crappy A9 processor its a joke anyway. automatic contrast
detection focus. what ever. low end at best.
LOOK HERE AT THE CHINA Company. At least this scam corrected the bad
english translation on the kickstarter site from the china site. This
camera retails for $299.
http://www.z-cam.com/index.php?r=index/index/index
http://www.z-cam.com/index.php?r=en/aboutUs/contact
Here is the APK for android for a camera they Las Vegas people are struggling to make a lens mount for. PATHETIC
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Where did you find the retail price and Is it available online?
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what kind of this site is i have seen the same style on this
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Not to put the project down, it sounds pretty incredible, but I personally think that it’s an extremely bad idea to fund something as complex as a camera via crowdfunding. There’s just too much that can go wrong there. I usually keep quiet about lots of projects I would never fund that oftenly appears in photography blogs because well, they are usually not very expensive and it’s just nice to see some innovative ideas getting funded.
But an entire camera system that has hardware and software components, lots of dependency on quality control, among several other things… I’ve seen projects way simpler go down hard.
And then, there’s the other part of the problem. There’s simply no way a new company that don’t have any real products out there would be able to release something like that with as little money and as fast as they are claiming it’s going to happen. They are either not sharing a lot of information – like already having the project finalized and only needing little money to start manufacturing -, or worse, it could just be a scam. I’m not accusing them of anything, but if you are going to spend money on crowdfunding, you have to do it with an investor mindset. There are simply no guarantees that you’ll get it, not on time, not ever, and Kickstarter policies states that they are not responsible for failed projects and scams.
I’m not against publicizing crowdfunding campaigns, but to be honest, I’m very worried with this trend of photography blogs always plastering posts about them as if they are real products out on the market. I have no decision power here, but I’d highly advise putting it straight into the title when products and projects are crowdfunded. I’d plain skip most of them.
Not going into detail to avoid making my comment even longer, but I am speaking from experience. I have funded over 20 projects on Kickstarter and over 30 in overall crowdfunding websites. None of them have failed so far, several of them were delivered very late, but that’s only because I’m extremely selective. There are dozens of exemplary cases that went awry (pure scams, projects that failed due to underfunding, projects that took 4 times longer than initially advertised, etc) so it’s simply not a place to foolishly burn your money.
Lol. Crowdfundfing has become a marketing scam. Get enough mlorons to pony up and your r&d costs are nill. Give the morons buggy 1st editions so they’ll be forced to upgrade.
Cameras are now so simple, Joe blow can design them!
Not a chance against GoPro. The camera will do the same job…for more than twice the price and will be a lot bigger with m4/3 lense on it.
it actually won’t even do the same job, not being ruggerized (or having the whole set of accessories GoPro has).
it definitely has some potential uses but most of them are outside gopro’s field.
Sounds nice ( I say sounds, because who knows how it will be in real test) Not a competitor at all to GoPro .If this camera would cost $200 or okay $300 then GoPro should worry, but for $699.. not sure , is completely different fields. Actually with camera $699+ ( lenses cost) I would affraid to do any extremal activities at all! GoPro should worry of : SJCAM SJ5000 (hundred buks only ) or Polaroid Cube ( also $100) , is cheap , have similar quality ( you can check Top5 GoPro alternatives here http://goo.gl/4wr0Qx )
This is great for the 4/3 owners, but the bulk of the system doesn’t seem any better than just getting a panasonic camera at slightly bigger form factor. Also having a DSLR allows for creative control over focus, but I doubt that’s being controlled by the phone, so there’s little point in this system in that regard as well, unless video monitoring is done with touch to focus is available while shooting with options to control speed of focus change or a slider to control it on the phone. I’d prefer a dedicated remote with nobs that turn to control the focus remotely versus a touch screen device.
This seems more like a Olympus Air competitor than a GoPro.
I’d prefer a dedicated remote with nobs that turn to control the focus remotely versus a touch screen device.
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This cool, I wanted to try to my android. so that it can be used for travel.
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this software http://www.richard204.com/2014/08/camera-zoom-fx-543-apk-full-cracked.html is good too can produce fine quality than stock camera
Having a DSLR allows for creative control over focus, but I doubt that’s being controlled by the phone, so there’s little point in this system in that regard as well, unless video monitoring is done with touch to focus is available while shooting with options to control speed of focus change or a slider to control it on the phone. I’d prefer a dedicated remote with nobs that turn to control the focus remotely versus a touch screen device. http://apkdom.com
i agreed this is worlds veri smallest camera i have seen ever http://amazonapk.in http://uc-news.in
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