Lack of up to date pancakes in M43?

Osa25 wrote:

cba_melbourne wrote:

Osa25 wrote:

HRC2016 wrote:

The pancakes exist to display and take advantage of the m43 small size.

If you can't get good images with a lenses you have it's not a problem with the lens.

It’s for pocketabity. But the positioning of M43 has changed and pocketability no longer the difference in a phone-centric world.

You surely mean pocketability of the lenses, not the whole camera unit as such?

Because there are precious very few m43 camera combinations that fit in a pant or shirt pocket. The GM1 with the 14mm lens attached does fit a shirt pocket. Only a very few more combinations GM1 and GM5 will fit pant pockets. Cargo pants and jackets have a little more room, and may include just a very few more, but only just.

The 14mm is the smallest "real" lens we have. It was released in 2010. The GM1 is the smallest camera we have, it came out in 2012, the GM5 in 2013. And with them some pancake lenses that were designed on purpose for these cameras. And then ---- nothing! When it comes to small cameras and lenses, there was nothing but stagnation in the m43 world for the past 7 years. That's a long time. Too long.

So they are making bigger m43 bodies and the selling point is image quality vs phone not the size.

I disagree. The selling point is not IQ vs phones, it is now only IQ vs apsc and FF MLC.

If anything in the m43 world can even remotely compete with phones, it's the GM1 with just a handful select lenses. And without a GM1/5 successor in 7 years, that fight is now all but lost.

Quite a tortureous process of avoiding the idea that a cost pocket is likely destination. I mean I don’t even know anyone who puts their phone in shirt pocket, so what’s your point about an m43 in shirt pocket? Really.

It’s irrelevant whether you “disagree” with the clear fact of M43 now moved on to bigger bodies. The GM sett Rey IRS is gone and the others they are no longer bothering with any progress on miniaturisation rather going bigger bodies. That’s just the fact.

If minaturizationnof bodies is no longer the focus then no sugar the “pancake” lens too is less of value. With the push to sell wide aperture “pro” lenses on M43, they aim to maximise the image quality deliverable on the platform, and differentiation on that parameter - no longer size as the primary selling point.

The platform cannot compete against larger formats on IQ alone. Without a size advantage, m43 would be doomed. More users are now leaving m43, than new users are moving to m43. It's market share is shrinking, not growing. What keeps m43 viable is it's inherent size advantage, and only that.

There are less fish in the water today. All are fighting over what little is left. Larger format cameras have become smaller, rivaling the larger m43 cameras. Where m43 has a real genuine fighting chance is at the smaller end - luring phone customers into small ILC cameras with small pancake lenses.

What Olympus is doing now with large cameras and pro lenses, is mainly aimed at stopping existing customers deserting m43 for larger formats. Not so much at attracting new users to m43. You cannot grow or gain market share with this strategy.