Olympus has a long history in camera and lens design. In 1936, Olympus introduced its first camera, the Semi-Olympus I. The first truly innovative camera series from Olympus was the PEN models, launched in 1959. Half-frame format, allowing 72 pictures of 18 × 24 mm format on a standard 36 exposure roll of film, made PEN cameras compact and portable for their time.
The company is a leading manufacturer of digital cameras, with a large range of compact digital cameras. Olympus is the designer of the Four-Thirds System standard for digital single-lens reflex camera design and development, which uses the same frame size as the PEN cameras. The Four-Thirds system includes the first consumer-grade digital SLRs to feature live preview, a feature now adopted by all major DSLR makers. Olympus' flagship DSLR camera is the E-3 released in 2007.
Olympus is also the largest manufacturer of Four-Thirds lenses under the Zuiko brand; these lenses are known for their good optical quality and compactness. Olympus cameras originally only took the XD-Card proprietary format (which it shares with Fujifilm), which has driven away some consumers. Recent cameras have included compatibility with the MicroSD-Card format with thier compact range and Compact Flash with their dSLR's in hopes of winning back customers.