I've been highly critical of the E-M1X introduced late last month. It's just not the direction that m4/3 should be going. Today, however, Olympus showed us that they still remember what their advantage is by introducing the 12-200mm f/3.5-6.3 lens.
This lens is a little lighter and smaller (at wide angle setting) than the 12-100mm f/4 PRO, but provides the full frame equivalent of a 24-400mm focal range. This puts a small Olympus body with the new lens more in the realm of what Sony tried to do with the RX10: smaller sensor, big lens, best compromise for an all-in-one approach.
Olympus' press release specifically calls out using this new lens with the E-M5m2 (which works out to a two pound [903g] total weight). The lens would probably be a bit too front heavy on the E-M10 models, and I think the 12-100mm f/4 PRO is the right choice for serious E-M1m2 shooters, so for once I'm actually agreeing with Olympus' marketing team.
Of course, that just makes me ask where the E-M5 Mark III is ;~). It's four years old, after all, which in dog years...uh, I mean digital camera years...is awfully old.
Still, I'm going to give Olympus props for playing in the correct league this time. Given the fairly reasonable maximum magnification (1:4.4, not the 1:2.2 "equivalent" Olympus tries to pawn off on us), it seems that this gets us as close to a one-lens solution on a small body that we've seen from them to date. We could quibble over wanting it to be f/2.8-5.6, I suppose, but m4/3 is about making tradeoffs.
