Aussies - E-P5 again

HaoAndHui wrote:

When Pen F was released I read from somewhere that Olympus said it's not EP6, and it's a test to see how people respond to Pen F,

Yes, in an interview with an Olympus person they admitted that the Pen-F was a marketing experiment, probably to see how far they can push their prices. If they deem it successful there may be future Pen-F variations or upgrades.

based on this I hope there will be an EP6, either in the form of EP6 or PenF II, otherwise there will only be EPLite series for their Pen line.

I suspect the familiar viewfinderless Pen line is rather doomed and only the Pen Lite models may survive, but even that is doubtful in the shrinking camera market. The BCN ranking used to always show the E-PLx line as selling well in Japan but BCN doesn't seem to have the same monthly rankings any more.

The Pen Lite could go like Casio and drop from world sales and shrink it back to japan only. Just my wild guess.

Ah! Found that Oly interview at http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2016/03/05/olympus-interview-cpplus-2016-recovery-is-techology-pen-f-experiment

Quote from it.......

TT: And because it is important, we are supplying new cameras for the PEN line. From that point of view, the PEN-F is different to other PEN-series cameras. At this time, we have no plan to have a series like the PEN-F.

DE: Ah, so this is really a one-off camera...

TT: Just a one-off at this moment. But we are seeing the market reaction, and seeing the situation. If we can create new customers with the PEN-F, then it may become a series, or there may be the next model or something. But this is just a trial.

DE: Mmm. It's a bit of an experiment to see how the market responds.

[Ed. Note: This was extremely interesting, to have a company state so candidly that a particular product is a bit of a trial balloon. I was also somewhat surprised that Olympus views the PEN-F as a means by which to bring users of other platforms into the Olympus family. I can certainly see that, as it has a very distinct visual and user-experience appeal, but to the extent I'd thought about it, I assumed it was aimed at the high-end, or at least high-aesthetic end, of Olympus' existing users.]

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They also talked about the Pen-F aimed at males whereas the Pens were aimed at females in Japan. But smartphones have killed that market.

Interesting reading.

Regards.... Guy