In the past few weeks several new digital cameras with OLED EVFs were announced: the Fujifilm X-E1, the panasonic GH3 and Sony's A99, NEX-6 and the RX-1. In the Sony cameras, the OLED microdisplays are made by Sony themselves. But who makes the other OLEDs used by Fujifilm and Panasonic?
The GH3's EVF has a microdisplay that sports 1,744k pixels - and that's all we know about it. Pocket-Lint claims that it sports an RGBB architecture (a second blue). This probably means that it is made by MicroOLED as we know they used this architecture (RGBB filters over white OLEDs) in their first-get WVGA OLED micodisplay, which fits the GH3 specification. UDC has also developed an RGBB architecture back in 2010, but it was a direct-emission design, so I don't think MicroOLED is using that design.
MicroOLED microdisplay
The Fujifilm X-E1 has a different microdisplay, an XGA one (2.4M pixels). We know that both Sony and eMagin have developed XGA microdisplays, so it may be made by either. But eMagin said that they will start shipping samples in September, while Fujifilm plans to release this camera in November. It seems that they have already picked a supplier, so it's probably not eMagin's first camera customer.
eMagin microdisplays
Comments
That's interesting... Hopefully we'll know soon, perhaps at eMagin's upcoming financial results conference call...
Ron, Thanks for another great article.
The NEX-7 viewfinder has a contrast ratio of 3500:1 (Source: Digitalrev) while the Fuji X-E1 viewfinder has a higher contrast ratio of 5000:1 (Source: Cnet)
It would reason that the Fuji oled evf is not from Sony if this contrast ratio delta is true across all Sony cameras. Perhaps Fuji received some pre-production samples from Emagin to explain the timetable. Any opinion or input appreciated.