Olympus's panorama-masking Mju compact — 35mm lens, autofocus, switchable letterbox frame, 1993.
The Olympus Mju Panorama, sold as the Stylus Panorama in North America, appeared in the early 1990s as a panorama-capable version of the original Mju compact. It retained the rounded clamshell body and sliding lens cover of the standard model while adding a switchable panorama mask that let the user shoot letterbox-format frames on standard 35mm film.
The Mju Panorama is a fixed-lens 35mm autofocus compact with a single-focal-length 35mm lens and a switch that masks the frame to a wide panoramic aspect ratio. It has autofocus, automatic exposure, and a built-in flash with several modes, plus motorised film handling and lithium-battery power. The clamshell cover doubles as the power switch and lens guard, following the family design.
In use the Mju Panorama suits a photographer who wants a pocketable everyday compact that can also crop to a wide letterbox format for landscape and scenic shots. The panorama function is a masking system rather than true wide-angle coverage, so it changes the aspect ratio rather than the field of view, but it gives a simple way to compose wide frames on the go.
When buying, confirm the panorama mask switches cleanly and the clamshell powers the camera reliably, and test autofocus, flash and film transport on a fresh lithium cell as the camera is fully battery-dependent. Check the lens for haze and fungus, inspect the film-door seals, and look at the battery compartment for corrosion, a frequent fault on electronic compacts of this generation.