E-PL9 no VF port?

Could someone tell me why after all these years Oly suddenly decided not to offer an accessory port for a viewfinder?

Sounds like a typical Panasonic move to me.

If you sold a thousand cameras and only a tiny handful of customers ever purchased the accessories to use in conjunction with the camera’s ‘accessory port’, would you be inclined to continue producing cameras with the little-used port? Or would you discontinue the port and try to shave a few dollars off the price and/or onto the profit?

jrg wrote:

Could someone tell me why after all these years Oly suddenly decided not to offer an accessory port for a viewfinder?

Sounds like a typical Panasonic move to me.

It’s a marketing decision for which Olympus almost certainly have their reasons.

Oly will have all the data, such as how many ‘finders have been sold recently etc.

Perhaps the target market Olympus have for this camera is not interested in such a thing?

Why this typical & pathetic approach to the thing, its not clear to me if the previous posters like or not the decision of Olympus to cut the accessory port.

jwilliams wrote:

Canon has the M6 which is a small camera with optional VF. Where is the small Oly offering where you can add a VF? They effectively killed that idea off. That's what really sucks.

The OMD EM-10 series.

I think most people who want a viewfinder now buy a body with one built in.

Mark

jwilliams wrote:

As good a guess as anything.

Usually the stupid things Oly does has to do with making a modern camera look like its 50 years old. In this case I'm not sure why they did it as it has no impact on looks really.

Maybe saves $5 per camera?

So cost is my second guess.

It might have been a bit harder to allow the external VF and flash together. I doubt it is anything you couldn't design around. Maybe it was just easier for them to leave off the VF port.

So laziness is my next guess.

My vote is for stupidity, on the part of the marketing department in particular

Yes, I think the market for the separate body and viewfinder has gone. Note that I have the GX1 and LVF2. My next body is likely to be the GX9.

Mark

shinndigg wrote:

My vote is for stupidity, on the part of the marketing department in particular

With virtually no information available, you've decided that the full-time professional decision-makers with ALL the relevant information at their fingertips are just stupid? Seriously?

jrg wrote:

Could someone tell me why after all these years Oly suddenly decided not to offer an accessory port for a viewfinder?

Sounds like a typical Panasonic move to me.

The E-PL9 sounded interesting at first, but as soon as I started reading the specifications and saw that it didn't have an accessory port I stopped reading and totally lost interest.  I have the E-PL2 and upgraded later to the E-PL5 and used the VF-4 viewfinder on both cameras. It's a nice viewfinder with a feature which is very handy.  For me a camera without a viewfinder in unacceptable.

jrg wrote:

Could someone tell me why after all these years Oly suddenly decided not to offer an accessory port for a viewfinder?

I thought oly called it the AUX port, for either the external EVF or no-battery flashes (including macro flashes)? Which might hint at why it's not in the PL-9...

It's a sudden drop, but a slow removal of it from all the bodies. That port was also in the orignal E-M5 and E-M1, but not in the current versions. The E-M10 (and Pen-F) never had it. It's not needed in the OM bodies anymore since a) they added another contact pin to power the no-battery flashes and b) they already have an EVF. This left the AUX port as a one model feature (no new E-P or E-PM models in years). If they had current E-P# and E-PM# bodies, it would make more sense to continue the AUX port.

But if the sales of external EVFs and AUX port flashes weren't high enough for the last few to five years (which I'd guess is an issue since there are no E-P or E-PM cameras, either) for oly to continue supporting it...

At least Oly kept the AUX port in the E-PL line for years after they dropped it from every other body line (as well as after dropping the other Pen lines).

Guy Parsons wrote:

RobbieBear wrote:

Perhaps the target market Olympus have for this camera is not interested in such a thing?

The target market for E-PLx series is Japanese women, and no way do they want to muss up makeup by using a viewfinder.

Absolutely! There may well be posters here who want to have their cake and eat it. By that I mean folks who want the smaller form factor of the humpless camera, but with the ability to add a 'finder when required.

I'm afraid Guy is right. We gear heads are simply not who Olympus have aimed the camera at, whether we agree with that decision or not.

Sorry to say guys, but the "phone crowd" are simply not gear heads and they have a much, much bigger influence on marketing departments for this sort of camera.

Marketing executives are not "stupid" as many assert. They simply are not interested in satisfying the whims of a tiny proportion of the potential users of this camera.

How do you think the focus group (probably Japanese women as Guy correctly suggests) would respond to this question?

WOULD YOU PURCHASE AN OPTIONAL ELECTRONIC VIEWFINDER FOR YOUR E-PL9?

• Definitely
• Maybe
• Not at all.

There lies the answer. Not stupid - merely listening to the focus groups representative of their target market. That's what marketing departments do!

Regards..... Guy

maltmoose wrote:

RobbieBear wrote:

Guy Parsons wrote:

RobbieBear wrote:

Perhaps the target market Olympus have for this camera is not interested in such a thing?

The target market for E-PLx series is Japanese women, and no way do they want to muss up makeup by using a viewfinder.

Absolutely! There may well be posters here who want to have their cake and eat it. By that I mean folks who want the smaller form factor of the humpless camera, but with the ability to add a 'finder when required.

I'm afraid Guy is right. We gear heads are simply not who Olympus have aimed the camera at, whether we agree with that decision or not.

Sorry to say guys, but the "phone crowd" are simply not gear heads and they have a much, much bigger influence on marketing departments for this sort of camera.

Marketing executives are not "stupid" as many assert. They simply are not interested in satisfying the whims of a tiny proportion of the potential users of this camera.

How do you think the focus group (probably Japanese women as Guy correctly suggests) would respond to this question?

WOULD YOU PURCHASE AN OPTIONAL ELECTRONIC VIEWFINDER FOR YOUR E-PL9?

• Definitely
• Maybe
• Not at all.

There lies the answer. Not stupid - merely listening to the focus groups representative of their target market. That's what marketing departments do!

Regards..... Guy

What about the Olympus user base that have bought several generations of small olympus cameras and have also bought a viewfinder?

The loyal users that are looking forward to another small high quality pen?

What now? no upgrade path for them, they have to buy an expensive Pen F right?

Nope they dont, they buy a cheaper, smaller more powerful camera with an evf like and a6300/xt20.

or a cheaper smaller high quality camera without and evf. m100/xa5/gx800

Far too much competition out there for Olympus to be taking features away that its users have gotten used to over the years.

Do olympus think each camera sale has only 1 buyer? ive bought 3 and an evf.

Olympus might want to keep its repeat customers rather than try to market new 1 time buyers..

We are not who Olympus intend to sell huge volumes of E-PL9 cameras to.

It doesn’t matter if we are loyal customers. A new camera has a target market and those potential buyers are “king” as far as Olympus is concerned.

Seriously... Marketing departments screw up ALL the time.