Olympus should make better midrange options..

jwilliams wrote:

Belgarchi wrote:

Well, the mid-range options are plenty: E-M10-III, E-M5-II, Pen-F, many Panasonic...

What I miss the most are very light / small bodies. There was the GM5 at ~200g. There are many options in the 400-500g range. What I really want is a GM5++ around 300g.

2 of those 3 are 16Mp and the 3rd isn't exactly a midrange camera.

Where O&P find the people to buy cameras with 6 yr old tech at the same price or more as other larger format cameras is beyond me. All APSC camera have been at 24 MP for years now. When they switched they did it for ALL the camera models. They didn't screw their existing user base by putting the newer tech in only a few select higher priced models. It is pathetic that the 20Mp chip has been out for about 3 years now and it still is in only a handful of expensive cameras.

Well, I know, psychologically it is hard to buy a 16MP camera in 2018...

But I have / had both, and I am not sure I can see any difference in my photos.

The 16MP Four-Thirds sensor is really excellent.

I have no problem with using 16 mp sensor. I have developed technique to minimize noise for subjects of interest to me. However, it is hard to convince average consumer that this "old" sensor is still competitive with new sensors. So I agree that m4/3 platform needs better offerings. I don't need them, but I am not an average person. My 2 cents.

MaciekPruski wrote:

I wonder if producing all these $1500-$2000 bodies is really that great a strategy for Olympus (and Panasonic too..). It might be ok short term because it brings them more money but it also scares people from buying into the format and they are going to loose customers to Sony, Fuji, and now Canon and Nikon also have mirrorless..

The current midrange models from Oly aren't very good. Especially that they "dumb down" these cameras on features like control dials and interface and advertise them as cameras for selfie crowd. The e-pl9 and em10 mk iii both have this problem. I would instantly buy a new Olympus if it was just a compact body, modern sensor and at least two dials and a touchscreen. They can save other features for the flagships like weather sealing, better autofocus, high framerate, bigger battery life etc. But the cheaper options should also have appeal for real photographers.

Currently to have a noticeable upgrade from my e-p3 I would have to drop big dollars on a Pen f. And the competition at this price point is fierce, I could buy a Fuji, a sony a7, a Pentax Kp, sony a6500, a high end Panasonic etc. That are all compact and have great IQ.

Panasonic have more choice there but their most appealing gm line is getting older and older and annoyingly they reserve better jpeg processing for more expensive models

Your thoughts?

"The current midrange models from Oly aren't very good. Especially that they "dumb down" these cameras on features like control dials and interface and advertise them as cameras for selfie crowd. The e-pl9 and em10 mk iii both have this problem"

This pretty much sums it up.

I went to a e-m5 mark 2 because of that. An Em5 Mark 3 i think would sell very well right now if they marketed it to "prosumers" and not beginning shooters as you mentioned in your comment.

Obviously they do their own market research. And hell, they may be right. But I know theres more people like us out there (especially just looking at THESE forums)

Masefield wrote:

My thoughts are that you are very lucky with the timing of your urge to upgrade your Olympus Pen EP3.

Buy yourself a bargain priced Olympus EM10 II. They are being sold off cheaply now, as they clear old stock to replace it with the new (and inferior) EM10 mark iii.

The EM10 ii price is the best bargain an Olympus shooter could ask for! It is also a massive upgrade from your EP3. It is all the camera you will ever need...unless you want to go into a specialist field like pro sport photography.

You say you would 'instantly buy a new Olympus if it was just a compact body, modern sensor and at least two dials and a touchscreen'...Well, the EM10 II is that camera. The only way to get a noticeably better Olympus sensor is to buy the much bigger and super expensive EM 1 mark ii, I'm afraid. The 16 MP sensor is still brilliant, though! A massive improvement from the older 12 MP sensor.

Over your EP3, the EM10 ii will give you a huge sensor advantage including in ISO and DR. It will give you a superb viewfinder that will transform your shooting for the better. It will give you better ergonomics, better customization options, better IBIS, better video, live composite...and a whole host of other new features and improvements. All this while still being a small, light and beautifully made camera.

Of course, you could spend much more and get the slightly better EM5 II (main differences are weatherproofing, mic input, fully articulated LCD vs tilt screen, tethering for studio shooting, hi res shooting from a tripod) but as far as value for money in Olympus goes...the EM10 ii is absolutely unbeatable.

I agree that the beautiful Pen F has a high premium on it. A 'style tax', as it were. Not so with the equally capable EM10 II.

I'd recommend that anyone looking for a bargain, highly competent Olympus camera snap up an EM10 II before they are all sold out.

Dunsun wrote:

NO! Get the PenF for 850 EU new.

Where exactly in EC you get such a price for a new PEN F ??

In Czech Republic they sell it for 34 000 Kc which is something around 1300 EUR !

Pen F is and was the most over priced mirrorless camera ever produced.

Anyways I would support what has been said: get E-M10 II. I purchased it 10 days ago for around 260 EUR in a new like condition for my girlfriend.

I have owned every Olympus camera excluding E-M1 II and from all their cameras this model must be a very best compromise for size/weight/price features.

By the way I got a very old silver E-P2 too with 1K shots only (for 45 EUR). What a nice camera ! Just wanted to taste those old 12Mpix files again (amazing blues is what they can produce).

Cheers

Same here in Poland

nostradamus_8 wrote:

MaciekPruski wrote:

Belgarchi wrote:

Well, the mid-range options are plenty: E-M10-III, E-M5-II, Pen-F, many Panasonic...

What I miss the most are very light / small bodies. There was the GM5 at ~200g. There are many options in the 400-500g range. What I really want is a GM5++ around 300g.

That $999 for Pen F is a great deal. Unfortunately where I live (Europe) it still sells for about $1500 body only which is hardly midrange. And that is quite a long time after release date. They need a good cheaper midrange model IMO

So you want to buy a midrange camera for entry level price. Makes sense for you, for Olympus not so much. I think Olympus prices make sense all the way through the product line.

Most of the religion makes people blind

dinoSnake wrote:

The 16mpx sensor is an antique and needs to be replaced immediately. The apologists on this board are doing the format NO favor by constantly saying that the 16mpx sensor is an adequate offering in 2018, and it's high time we all stop doing so. Its time has passed, period.

It's not just that it is 16mpx for, as even CNET noted in the EM10.3 review where they gave it 'no buy', it's the fact that the competition offers 24mpx PLUS OSPDAF at the same price point. M43 fanatics can scream "IBIS!" and "features!" all they want, but IBIS and touchscreens don't matter squat if the camera missed the shot because it missed the focus, which the 16mpx camera will do pretty consistently if you actually dare to use C-AF mode. So the 16mpx cameras are somewhat to utterly useless for action, completely missing the soccer / football / basketball / baseball / lacrosse parent crowd, plus anyone else upgrading from smartphones and actually expecting all-around AF performance from those telephoto lenses that entice them to switch in the first place.

With both Nikon's and Canon's mirrorless introductions, plus Sony's price drops, the time for excuses is now over. Either fight for your market or die.

You have a point from a marketing perspective. Megapixels (unfortunately) sell cameras. Yes, at one point, Megapixels really mattered, as we climbed up from 2, to 3, to 4, to 5 and 6 Megapixels and beyond. Once we were at 12 or 16 Megapixels, personally I lost all interest in the Megapixel race.

What I AM interested in is significant gains in real world image quality, for example with DR and high ISO performance. And the 20 MP of the PEN F does not exhibit significant improvements in these respects. So to me, the extra 4 Megapixels on the PEN F are meaningless.

I like to think that on a technical photography forum, people are more willing to consider informed factual analysis, instead of just swallowing irrelevant marketing hooks.

As for C-AF, yes improving that would be important for photographers who shoot a lot of sports. But for photographers like me who shoot landscape, portrait, street, macro etc...C-AF is nice to have but pretty much irrelevant. Even with a perfect C-AF option, S-AF is all I'd use in over 99% of cases.

But yes, even speaking as a non-sports shooter I admit you are right: it would be better to have effective C-AF for competitive and marketing reasons.

MaciekPruski wrote:

I wonder if producing all these $1500-$2000 bodies is really that great a strategy for Olympus (and Panasonic too..). It might be ok short term because it brings them more money but it also scares people from buying into the format and they are going to loose customers to Sony, Fuji, and now Canon and Nikon also have mirrorless..

The current midrange models from Oly aren't very good. Especially that they "dumb down" these cameras on features like control dials and interface and advertise them as cameras for selfie crowd. The e-pl9 and em10 mk iii both have this problem. I would instantly buy a new Olympus if it was just a compact body, modern sensor and at least two dials and a touchscreen. They can save other features for the flagships like weather sealing, better autofocus, high framerate, bigger battery life etc. But the cheaper options should also have appeal for real photographers.

Currently to have a noticeable upgrade from my e-p3 I would have to drop big dollars on a Pen f.

instead of Pen F?

And the competition at this price point is fierce, I could buy a Fuji, a sony a7, a Pentax Kp, sony a6500, a high end Panasonic etc. That are all compact and have great IQ.

Panasonic have more choice there but their most appealing gm line is getting older and older and annoyingly they reserve better jpeg processing for more expensive models

GM1 and GM5 is even more close to the old EPM line, a product of its own out from the Pen-F, Pens, GXs nor EPL line.

Your thoughts?

Pany keeps on doing it to have GF in the entry class, the GX and the G (except G9) mid range cameras as well as flagships. On the Cheaper side, a GX85 and G85, on the latest 20Mp sensor front, the GX9 be launched at a listed price below US$1K price point. Unless brand royalty be an above everything selection, there are still new M43s rolling out in last 3 years covering every classes.

Belgarchi wrote:

Well, the mid-range options are plenty: E-M10-III, E-M5-II, Pen-F, many Panasonic...

I was at B&H today playing with cameras (messing with A7xx's and hoping to see a Nikon Z6), while picking up a few things for a trip to the South of France in a couple of days. I must say, the Olympus M4/3 camera body line-up looks pretty forlorn, stuck in some kind of sad and fussy time warp.

😜

What I miss the most are very light / small bodies. There was the GM5 at ~200g. There are many options in the 400-500g range. What I really want is a GM5++ around 300g.

Why does it have to be an Olympus?

The GX850 isn't bad at all (messed with one at B&H today). Except for the weird flip UP ONLY selfie screen and lack of an EVF (or even an option to have one). The screen is a bigger issue. AND micro-SD? Really? BUT, it's only 269g with battery and memory card.

I could kind of see using one with a 15mm and 42.5mm

dinoSnake wrote:

Belgarchi wrote:

jwilliams wrote:

Belgarchi wrote:

Well, the mid-range options are plenty: E-M10-III, E-M5-II, Pen-F, many Panasonic...

What I miss the most are very light / small bodies. There was the GM5 at ~200g. There are many options in the 400-500g range. What I really want is a GM5++ around 300g.

2 of those 3 are 16Mp and the 3rd isn't exactly a midrange camera.

Where O&P find the people to buy cameras with 6 yr old tech at the same price or more as other larger format cameras is beyond me. All APSC camera have been at 24 MP for years now. When they switched they did it for ALL the camera models. They didn't screw their existing user base by putting the newer tech in only a few select higher priced models. It is pathetic that the 20Mp chip has been out for about 3 years now and it still is in only a handful of expensive cameras.

Well, I know, psychologically it is hard to buy a 16MP camera in 2018...

But I have / had both, and I am not sure I can see any difference in my photos.

The 16MP Four-Thirds sensor is really excellent.

The 16mpx sensor is an antique and needs to be replaced immediately. The apologists on this board are doing the format NO favor by constantly saying that the 16mpx sensor is an adequate offering in 2018, and it's high time we all stop doing so. Its time has passed, period.

There's actually at least 3 16MP sensors. The oldest is the Sony IMX109 (Chipworks confirmed was in E-M5 from early 2012, others confirmed was in E-PM2).

Then the Panasonic MN34230 in the E-M1 from late 2013 (and likely other Panasonics).

The Sony IMX159 is about 3 years old and came out in 2015 at the same time as the 20MP IMX269. Given the full width 4K capabilities of the E-PL9 and E-M10 III, it's pretty certain those cameras are using this newer sensor and not the older IMX109. So that sensor is not that old actually.

It's not just that it is 16mpx for, as even CNET noted in the EM10.3 review where they gave it 'no buy'

I tried to find that review, but couldn't. Only found the E-M10 II review where they gave it 4 stars.

, it's the fact that the competition offers 24mpx PLUS OSPDAF at the same price point. M43 fanatics can scream "IBIS!" and "features!" all they want, but IBIS and touchscreens don't matter squat if the camera missed the shot because it missed the focus, which the 16mpx camera will do pretty consistently if you actually dare to use C-AF mode. So the 16mpx cameras are somewhat to utterly useless for action, completely missing the soccer / football / basketball / baseball / lacrosse parent crowd, plus anyone else upgrading from smartphones and actually expecting all-around AF performance from those telephoto lenses that entice them to switch in the first place.

With both Nikon's and Canon's mirrorless introductions, plus Sony's price drops, the time for excuses is now over. Either fight for your market or die.

I don't know about Olympus, but the DFD CDAF in my GX85 has no problems performing as well as the PDAF sensor in my D5000 (actually better in low light). And the reviews point to it being as quick as any option in SAF. A sensor having PDAF doesn't mean it performs any better (for example Fuji is still behind in AF even with OSPDAF).

Also, the sensor being 16MP doesn't really have anything to do with AF performance, that depends more on the AF technology being used. The resolution isn't the limiter here.