Sleek, compact digital camera brings 3X optical/6X digital zoom, easy operability and excitement to the point-and-shoot market

MELVILLE, New York, May 8th, 2001 — Olympus America Inc., the world leader in film and filmless photography, today introduced the newest member of its expanding Brio family of point-and-shoot digital cameras, the Camedia Brio Zoom D-150. The D-150 Zoom joins the Brio D-100, introduced in February, and brings 3X Optical Zoom/6X Digital Telephoto Zoom capabilities to the photographer seeking added versatility in a point-and-shoot camera. Packaged in a contemporary black and gold finish, the stylish Brio D-150 Zoom features a high quality f2.4 –f4.3 Auto Focus Olympus zoom lens, pop-up flash, fast shutter release times of under one second, and AutoConnect technology for simple data transfer via standard USB connections.

“Olympus’ goal is to bring fun, easy to use and fast digital photography solutions to the average consumer. We’ve named this new point-and-shoot product family after the term ‘Brio,’ which means ‘high energy,’ ‘excitement’ and ‘enthusiasm.’ The Brio Zoom D-150 is designed for the point-and-shoot camera user who wants the best quality in this product category with zoom capabilities,” says John Knaur, Digital Product Manager, Olympus Consumer Products Group. “It’s the perfect companion for a night on the town, parties, vacations and family holidays. The Brio Zoom D-150 is as easy to use as a conventional 35mm camera. It offers a fast start-up time, and takes up to three pictures per second, so users can capture spontaneous moments as they happen—not the moment after the moment. And because images are stored on erasable SmartMedia™ cards, users can see the pictures they take immediately, save only the frames they want, and reuse the digital memory for new images without wasting film or incurring unnecessary developing costs.”

Like the Brio D-100, the Brio Zoom D-150 offers a 1.5-inch, 118k-pixel color LCD monitor that serves as a high-resolution viewfinder, the camera’s playback screen and menu control panel. All mode settings and image viewing functions have been condensed into this single display, contributing to the Brio Zoom D-150’s pocketable design. Standard icons representing multiple flash modes, image resolution settings, exposure adjustments and playback/viewing modes are accessed through one-touch buttons and an easy to use jog dial, with choices displayed on the LCD panel and selected using simple up, down, left and right arrow keys. The versatile LCD monitor allows users to display four or nine images, and offers a 2X Zoom Inspection mode to view and scroll across enlarged single frames during playback.

The Brio D-150 Zoom is equipped with a standard 5.0mm – 15.0mm lens, delivering the equivalent of 38mm – 114mm zoom range on 35mm cameras. Its digital telephoto capabilities expand the camera’s effective zoom range to a maximum of 228mm, allowing users to capture crisp, digital images out of range of traditional 3X zoom film cameras. To ensure the best possible image quality, the Brio Zoom D-150 is equipped with a 1.3-megapixel interlaced RGB CCD. Its maximum resolution of 1280 x 960 pixels produces photo-quality prints up to 4” x 6”. The camera is also capable of capturing images with smaller file sizes at a reduced 640 x 480 resolution factor, perfect for sending pictures via e-mail and posting on the web. “The D-150 Zoom utilizes Olympus’ TruePic™ technology, so it uses all the captured pixel information to create the image no matter the output size or resolution setting,” furthers Knaur. “Because the D-150 Zoom doesn’t discard or ignore image data, it delivers higher quality images with finer details and brilliant color. Even at lower resolution settings the D-150 Zoom provides picture quality that is truly superior to any other camera in its class.”

Once captured, images may be viewed, erased or stored on removable SmartMedia™ cards. The Brio Zoom D-150 ships with one 8MB card standard, providing ample capacity to store up to 82 images in SQ mode. Additional SmartMedia cards, available in 16, 32, 64 and 128MB increments, deliver virtually unlimited, reusable image storage capacity.

To make printing simple, the Brio Zoom D-150 features AutoConnect technology. A standard USB port allows users to plug the camera directly into any USB-configured computer. No drivers or additional software are required for PCs running the latest operating systems including Windows® 2000, Windows Me and Mac OS™ 8.6 and higher—these computers will mount and recognize the Brio Zoom D-150 automatically. This eliminates the need to restart the system, so image viewing, downloading and printing can be performed immediately upon connection. (Adapters are also available for non-USB equipped PCs.) Additionally, users may produce photo-realistic output simply by inserting the SmartMedia card directly into any of the Olympus family of P Series dye sublimation printers.
The Brio Zoom D-150 supports the DCF file naming format as well as the Digital Print Order Format (DPOF) standard for adding data to images and tagging specific photographs to print to DPOF-compatible printers. The Brio Zoom D-150 is bundled with Olympus’ versatile Camedia Master software for downloading and managing pictures taken with Olympus digital cameras.

Other exciting features of the new Camedia Brio Zoom D-150 include:

• Auto, Red-eye Reduction, Off, Fill-in, Slow synchronization, 1st Curtain effect flash modes.
• Auto White Balance plus Daylight, Overcast, Tungsten and Fluorescent light settings.
• Fully automatic ISO settings.
• Macro Mode for close-ups with 8” minimum distance.
• Programmed Auto Exposure, manual compensation possible in +/-2.0 EV in 0.5 EV steps.
• NTSC Video Output terminal for viewing images on a television or recording to a VCR.
• Date/Time/Calendar recording onto image data up to the year 2030.
• Built-in Self Timer.
• Wide power compatibility with, 1x CR-V3 Lithium battery, 2x AA NiMH batteries and optional AC adapter.
• Slim dimensions of 4.4” (W) x 2.4” (H) x 1.4” (D) (excluding projections).