Some companies celebrate their film camera heritage by bringing out digital versions of legacy cameras, or simply by styling modern mirrorless cameras after the best film cameras in their back-catalogs.
Olympus, now OM System, has been one of the best at this. Sure, Nikon has made headlines with bodies like the Nikon Zf (and the Nikon Df before it), but it was Olympus that really pioneered the trend. Its OM-D cameras (and now the OM System OM-5) were styled after the classic OM film cameras, and it even went as far as resurrecting the classic Olympus Pen-F half-frame camera as the iconic Olympus PEN-F mirrorless camera.
Well, there's another camera that OM could bring back – and if it does, it could do absolutely monster business this year in the same way that the Fujifilm X100VI, the Ricoh GR III and the Leica Q3 have done.
And in fact, there's rumors that this could very well happen.
Going back almost ten years, a number of Olympus staff I spoke to were jazzed by the revival of the PEN-F in 2016 – not just because it was an incredible camera, but because they hoped it would open the door for the revival of another one: the similarly beloved Olympus Trip 35.
Sadly, the PEN-F didn't sell enough for the idea of reviving other legacy cameras to go any further. But the market in 2025 is very different to 2016 – and in ways that would make a digital Trip 35 not just a better prospect, but arguably the best prospect for OM System.
In case you don't remember it, the Olympus Trip 35 was one of the best compact cameras of its era, with a slim and stylish body and a fixed 40mm f/2.8 lens.
Sound familiar? Because that is exactly the kind of camera that is in white-hot demand right now – and the reason why compacts like the X100VI, GR III and Q3 are on perpetual backorder.
The head of OM System recently teased that a new camera is on its way this year, and there have been camera rumors for a few months that OM is going to launch a new retro camera – but not a line that already exists (as in, not a PEN-F Mark II).
While the company has rebranded itself as an outdoor and adventure imaging business, that's exactly what the Trip 35 is: a camera for going on adventures, vacations and, well, trips. The clue is literally in the name.
Don't get me wrong, I love old Olympus SLRs – and I've long thought that an OM System OM-10 is overdue. But it has made SLR-styled mirrorless cameras for over a decade. What the market really wants, and what I really want, is an OM System Trip 35. TikTok won't know what hit it.
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