Will Olympus come up with a small E-PM2 update?

aliasfox wrote:

I don't think so - I'm pretty sure Oly ceded that part of the market to Panny's GM series, and Panny's in the process of ceding it to 1" compacts. The issues are multi-fold:

- Oly prides itself on its IBIS system, but it is generally believed that it can't fit the modern 5-axis (or even 3-axis) system into a body that's much smaller than a PL7. Stripping off the hotshoe, tilt screen, and already small grip aren't going to make a meaningfully smaller camera.

- To make a meaningfully smaller camera than the PL7, Olympus will have to be creative. Even Panasonic, who doesn't generally use IBIS, had to resort to relatively exotic techniques to get a focal plane shutter working on a smaller body. And we all know that the shutter is relatively limited in terms of sync speed, maximum speed, and the like. A global or fully electronic shutter would have to be implemented to get a shutter with similar performance characteristics as Oly's current EFCS.

- Even if Oly were to manage to create a new PM3 that's meaningfully smaller than the PL7, the issue of market comes into play. Panny's GM1 and GM5 were novelties, but given the large discounts on the GM5 and current lack of successor, it seems like they didn't sell so well - I would imagine this is due in large part to the success of cameras such as the RX100

- An RX100/G7x is the size of a tiny m4/3 body, but without the lens. The only way a PM3 or a GM7 would be able to compete, sizewise, is using a pancake lens. A prime would give up flexibility, and a zoom would give up the low-light gathering that would otherwise be m4/3's trump card. For example, the RX100 III has a lens, that even accounting for equivalence, is faster than either the 12-32 or the 14-42 EZ, comparable to the 14/2.5, and only a stop slower than the 20/1.7

In conclusion, I don't think we'll see a PM3 of any sort anytime soon. The PL7 and the GM5 are very close in spirit, and are still available, but have both been relegated to niches. I own two PM2s, so it's not like I'm rooting for the PM line's death, just being practical here.

Well reasoned discussion. I think you are right about competition from the new high end point and shoot camera, which thanks to marketers and reviewers has been re-desigated the "enthusiast compact". Brilliant word manipulation there. One thing I wonder, though, do we actually have statistics on GM series sales? Has that been a blowout for Panasonic? I see a lot of people posting here who seem to own one, which of course is not good evidence of anything, but it makes one wonder.