Sergey Borachev
Veteran Member
I can say this for sure. It ain't the fault of the plastic (though it is cheap). It aint the material. It's the design. or rather, poor design. and poor QA. That's all.
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E-M5iii tripod mount/bottom plate failure
- Thread starter Joe Lynch
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Astrotripper
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3. Let me spell that out. Three.
Oh yeah, because Canon or Sony releases a statement immediately when some cameras break. Yeah. Right.
Can you point out such posts?
Who says it is? Can you point to such statements?
Actually, as others have commented, this kind of failures did in fact happen in the past for various cameras.
And other design fails as well. I never heard of an Olympus camera that would detach a lens in the middle of the shoot. Canon had one of those. And they never acknowledged the problem either.
Thinking that no other camera maker messed up in the past, ever, is just plain silly.
Feel free to point out all those masses of people claiming this is normal and business as usual.
cba_melbourne
Veteran Member
That! The decision makers are under immense pressure to improve profitability.
gary0319
Forum Pro
Thanks, Joe
Not to relieve Olympus of any liability here, but if all three failures reported here on DPR involved the same square Peak Design plate, there must be some basic mismatch in either conflicting design elements and/ or perhaps stress put on the base plate during attachment.
Thanks for providing that clarification, I’m sure it will help other PD owners (and me, too)
Gary--The PD plate is very common to use for hikers/bloggers/travelers, maybe the most common. If the plate spans the normal contact area of the body, the plate size doesn't matter. Also note that the tripod socket is not centered, so the leverage applied against the front edge of the body is potentially much greater than when leveraged against the rear edge.
All one has to do to see how flimsy the frame material is at the tripod socket is to mount the lens on a tripod using whatever plate or grip you want, and push the lens up and down a little while looking through the viewfinder. It flexes, no matter what plate is used. I noticed this just while focusing using the 60 macro on a tripod.
I'm not going to pursue any "fix my horn, my brakes don't work" solutions, the only one of which would work anyway is a full cage with a rigid connection to the hot shoe and to the tripod socket, then attach the tripod adapter plate to the cage.
All one has to do to see how flimsy the frame material is at the tripod socket is to mount the lens on a tripod using whatever plate or grip you want, and push the lens up and down a little while looking through the viewfinder. It flexes, no matter what plate is used. I noticed this just while focusing using the 60 macro on a tripod.
I'm not going to pursue any "fix my horn, my brakes don't work" solutions, the only one of which would work anyway is a full cage with a rigid connection to the hot shoe and to the tripod socket, then attach the tripod adapter plate to the cage.
buratino
Leading Member
I am sure we all know cultures even tougher than Japanise with respect to admitting mistakes.
gary0319
Forum Pro
Joe,
I agree that this is a problem that Olympus must address. However, I do think it is worth getting the word out that if one owns an E-M5 III, using larger plates, and Peak Design plates in particular, should be avoided.
Good luck with your dealings with Olympus, I hope it all works out in the end.... for all of us 5.3 owners.
Gary from Seattle
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And fairly quickly as it is just an external part that can easily be replaced - at least on cameras going forward.
Interesting. Until Olympus at least admits a problem, I'll be using my EM5 III "gently" = ie No tripods. I don't dangle cameras on a strap attached to the tripod mount anyway. This will be hand held all the way. Also, just bought a second EM1 II for tripod work. Face it. Flimsy plastic doesn't work - at least not for tripod mounts. ...and such an expensive, well featured camera ....
Peace.
John
BG454
Veteran Member
Yes - must not lose face.
Since there was no history of this type of failure with previous models, surely a simple cure would be to revert to the OM-D 5 MkII design?
I think that particular cure would be less than simple, because the E-M5 Mark II is designed differently in this respect to all the other OM-D models - its tripod socket is mounted very far forward, contained in a winged "island" which is a protruding part of the main magnesium alloy body casting - or rather its front half, as the rear half is polycarbonate. A metal baseplate is mounted onto that combination, which has a large cutout for this protrusion to extend through. This is more complex than the layout of the E-M5 Mark III, and indeed the rest of the OM-D models too, so might be hard to easily replicate for the Mark III as it stands, since it suggests that they are very differently laid out inside.
I wonder if the simplest step (which may be only a partial solution) is for Olympus to in future produce the E-M5 Mark III's baseplate in a rigid, reinforced design (probably metal instead of the current glass fibre-reinforced polycarbonate, and maybe with a bit of an extra central area taking up any space between it and the internal polycarbonate chassis) so that it would reduce flexing and also limit the space the tripod socket's surroundings in the polycarbonate chassis have to be flexed outwards/downwards under heavy torsion. I'm thinking that reducing the flex in the baseplate would be useful since the external screws fasten this part to the internal chassis. I'm no engineer though, so apologies to all more knowledgeable than me if this makes little sense. :-D
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Jan Chelminski
Senior Member
Actually, it may be.
This is another possibility, which I neglected to cover in my post above, but it may indeed be the plastic.
Their design almost certainly specifies (as it should) a certain polymer type, and grade, with specific ('raw' and 'finished') mechanical properties. To assure these specifications, there would be process tracking (or equivalent) paperwork from the supplier, and/or the part moulding facility.
I think it is difficult to absolutely rule out the possibility of an out of specification plastic part, either as a result of flawed raw material, or process error(s), such as temperature or heating/cooling duration/slope, etc. This is just off the top of my head, as I am not a plastic moulding specialist.
But, regardless of the above, yes, if Olympus had tested it's own product (mounting the camera and running a cycle of front loading events, or similar), I am confident this unacceptable weakness would have been discovered.
This is an 'M' series camera, which means there are some basic quality standards which must be upheld. This is a matter of maintaining a reputation. If Olympus wants to sell crap, then take out the 'M', IMO.
(NOTE: This and my above post are not directed at/intended for Olympus (Japan), as it would be quite improper to do so in this manner!)
Regards,
Jan
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I doubt this is a materials project problem. Plastics just don’t vary in strength that much. More likely something is out of dimensional tolerance and tightening the tripod screw over stresses the plastic base plate. No matter the reason the design is poor. At a minimum the cameras ought to be repaired for free if they break and so too any lenses that get damaged in a tumble.
CDC
CDC
pannumon
Senior Member
If the engineers choose plastic that does not do the job, then it is (also) a design problem. It is a design problem for sure, unless someone delivered them bad plastic. This is semantics, unless someone wants to protect the overall reputation of plastic.
cba_melbourne
Veteran Member
That would add considerably to cost. A friend of mine was kind enough to take some pictures of his EM5.2 especially for this thread, with the base plate removed.
EM5.2 with the base plate removed. The front half-cover is magnesium. Whereas the rear half-cover with the speckled paint appears to be plastic, so my friend says. He concludes this because it feels warmer to touch, and the screws into it have a coarser thread than those into the metal front half-cover. Also he notes the liberal amount of thread lock compound added to the screws into the front magnesium half-cover.
The tripod socket is integrated into the front magnesium half-cover. A rigid, heavy duty anchor. And now we also understand why on the EM5.3, the tripod socket is located so much forward - its so because the rear half-cover is plastic and as such not suitable for a heavy duty tripod socket!
The base plate seems to be a metal stamping. It only weighs 6 gram, so it is probably aluminium. Those areas around the screw holes are not washers, but just unpainted areas.
Unlike the EM5.3, the EM5.2 base plate does not contain any weather sealing material. And the battery chamber lid remains captive on the body. One could say, this base plate is more decorative, rather than adding much to the structural rigidity. The volume between this base plate and the camera is not weather sealed at all, the weather sealing is rather done between the front and rear housing and the battery compartment instead.
[ATTACH alt="This is the "battery compartment retainer", a metal stamping that apparently looks like mirror chromed, so it is most likely stainless steel. It is a loose fit sandwitched between the base plate and bottom cover with two screws passing through it. There are also two "studs" in the camera body, on both sides of the hinge and besides the screws, to hold this retainer in position during assembly."]2520910[/ATTACH]
This is the "battery compartment retainer", a metal stamping that apparently looks like mirror chromed, so it is most likely stainless steel. It is a loose fit sandwitched between the base plate and bottom cover with two screws passing through it. There are also two "studs" in the camera body, on both sides of the hinge and besides the screws, to hold this retainer in position during assembly.
[ATTACH alt="Here on the left my EM5.2 with the base plate attached (the right is my Pen-F, disregard it). Notice the four little "feet" at each corner. These do two things. Once, they prevent the paint of the bottom plate being scratched (say by sand grains) when putting the camera on a table. But these are also the four contact points when using an optional L-plate, preventing rocking. The bottom plate is not flat but ribbed and has screws etc that would cause rocking, if these 4 "feet" were not there."]2520912[/ATTACH]
Here on the left my EM5.2 with the base plate attached (the right is my Pen-F, disregard it). Notice the four little "feet" at each corner. These do two things. Once, they prevent the paint of the bottom plate being scratched (say by sand grains) when putting the camera on a table. But these are also the four contact points when using an optional L-plate, preventing rocking. The bottom plate is not flat but ribbed and has screws etc that would cause rocking, if these 4 "feet" were not there.
Here again the EM5.3 plastic base plate for comparison, with the several weather seal strips.
Here again the EM5.3 camera base for comparison. The tripod socket is attached to the plastic front half cover.
As a pictorial analogy, looking at the two cameras as tools, the EM5.3 is built like a precious jewel hammer, the EM5.2 like a heavy duty mallet. Note that I am not insinuating one is any better than the other - it is a matter on how each is used. Nobody will hang the mallet around his neck to go to the opera, just like nobody should use his silver pendant hammer to drive a nail. Also note this is not metal vs plastic, it's about cheaper vs more expensive housing design. It just so happens that one CAN design much cheaper using cheap plastic types. If one WANTED to, one COULD design very solid and very light camera housings with plastic, but it would then definitely cost more than metal, much more! Olympus has been making losses for many many consecutive years - they cannot afford expensive high tech plastic designs, they have no other choice than use cheaper plastics/designs to improve their profitability. Fortunately they still make very well built heavy duty cameras, for those that are prepared to pay what it costs to make them.
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To really understand the root cause one needs to see the exact measured dimensions of the parts in the broken cameras and compare them to the drawings. The loads imposed from the weight of a camera and lens are pretty small. The forces that can be applied by tightening the tripod screw if the tripod plate first touches the plastic away from the tripod plate socket can be very large and could easily fracture or fatigue the bottom plate.
My money is on tripod screw induced overload. Still a design error that could be exacerbated by material properties.
again, Olympus ought to stand behind the product and pay for the repairs. Such a failure should never happen. Period.
CDC
My money is on tripod screw induced overload. Still a design error that could be exacerbated by material properties.
again, Olympus ought to stand behind the product and pay for the repairs. Such a failure should never happen. Period.
CDC
gary0319
Forum Pro
My thought as well, since all three failures involve the same Peak Design plate. I suspect that tightening the plate attachment screw puts a stress on the socket that was not anticipated by Olympus. Still seems to be either an Olympus design or manufacturing defect that is exacerbated by the design of the PD plate.
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cba_melbourne
Veteran Member
Remember the second case of a broken EM5.3 tripod mount? The victim did send it for repair to Olympus, via the dealer he originally bought the camera from (Boulanger in Perpignan). It came back repaired after 4 weeks. They replaced the bottom cover and the front cover. Olympus did not repair this under warranty. Our victim asked his dealer for the original Olympus repair report, and he received it:
page 1
Page 2. Our unfortunate victim was charged 138.24 Euro for parts and labor and return freight. For a 3 month old camera still well under warranty. For a problem that should never have occurred.
And that is what the French Olympus dealer has charged our unfortunate fellow user. They did not add one cent to the original Olympus invoice, so the dealer did the right and honorable thing. Unlike Olympus. Also worth noting, according to this invoice, this repair has only a 6 months warranty. Even though the original camera warranty still lasts longer!
Our victim suspects that the repair was effectuated by the Olympus repair center in Portugal. Which would explain the 4 weeks overall repair time. Below the complete video report if you happen to understand French:
The lingering question is, how many other cases are out there that we are not aware of. Because only a small fraction of EM5.3 owners would read this forum or even know that it exists... not everyone speaks English... not everyone will make his misfortune public... many will think it's their own fault not the manufacturer's.... We are only aware of 3 cases, one for each month this camera model is out since release.
My personal take: do not put this camera on a tripod. You will not be covered by warranty!
PS: they have very big problems in France right now. Let's hope there will not be too many fatalities. In this context, this tripod mount issue is actually totally and completely irrelevant... other than provide us with some welcome distraction from the grim realities outside.
page 1
Page 2. Our unfortunate victim was charged 138.24 Euro for parts and labor and return freight. For a 3 month old camera still well under warranty. For a problem that should never have occurred.
And that is what the French Olympus dealer has charged our unfortunate fellow user. They did not add one cent to the original Olympus invoice, so the dealer did the right and honorable thing. Unlike Olympus. Also worth noting, according to this invoice, this repair has only a 6 months warranty. Even though the original camera warranty still lasts longer!
Our victim suspects that the repair was effectuated by the Olympus repair center in Portugal. Which would explain the 4 weeks overall repair time. Below the complete video report if you happen to understand French:
The lingering question is, how many other cases are out there that we are not aware of. Because only a small fraction of EM5.3 owners would read this forum or even know that it exists... not everyone speaks English... not everyone will make his misfortune public... many will think it's their own fault not the manufacturer's.... We are only aware of 3 cases, one for each month this camera model is out since release.
My personal take: do not put this camera on a tripod. You will not be covered by warranty!
PS: they have very big problems in France right now. Let's hope there will not be too many fatalities. In this context, this tripod mount issue is actually totally and completely irrelevant... other than provide us with some welcome distraction from the grim realities outside.
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whumber
Senior Member
The nubs don't necessarily do much with arca-swiss plates, all of the plates that I have include little clearance divots so that the plate can sit flush against the bottom of the camera.
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