Where are the Olympus cameras?....

Ben Herrmann wrote:

I loved it back in the ole' 35 MM days when camera models were on the market for years and you didn't have to worry (if insecure) about your model camera being bested by something newer (like in the digital era).

Now-a-days, if we don't see something new in let's say...6 months to a year or so, the world is perceived as coming apart.

As I said, even though I shoot with various contemporary models, there is still a certain joy in using some of the older models.

I am playing with an old D700 I bought for peanuts. I love the output from this camera.

TomFid wrote:

SpinOne wrote:

• Again, AF is every bit an issue for the E-M5 ii today as at launch. The idea that this is somehow a new challenge makes no sense.

This would be true if the market were standing still, but it's not. When the EM5ii came out, it had class-leading IBIS, new HiRes, etc. So, there were lots of great reasons to ignore the limited AF. Now everyone has that stuff, and everyone has better AF.

Yeah, I don't buy it. It had what, 2 months with IBIS before the A7II came out? Were people buying it solely because it had high-res?

By the way, not "everyone" has "it." Nikon Z and Canon R left out a lot of features; Fuji only has IBIS on a handful of cameras; a handful of competitors have multi-shot, I'm not sure any do at the $900 price point; most don't have equivalents of Live Bulb/Time... For an "old" camera, the E-M5 ii holds up surprisingly well in the feature department.

Those gearheads are key because they subsidize the rest of us!

Yeah, I have my doubts about that. I also suspect they undercut the market for new cameras, by selling the old ones at a steep discount when new models come out.

Instead they blew all that development dough on the 1.2 lens line. I wonder how profitable those are?

Apparently, they've been very profitable. Can you think of a better reason why they keep making more? (Or why they haven't put out an E-M5 ii already?

We should note that pretty much every camera maker is now following a similar strategy of producing high-end gear. Panasonic has put lots of work into fast, expensive glass and big, expensive bodies; Fuji is emphasizing GFX and high-end X; Sony and Nikon's "cheap" 35mm mirrorless bodies start at $2000; their higher-end mirrorless is $3000 and up; Canon is starting out with some very nice (and super-expensive) lenses for RF at launch....

• Are you really saying that the only thing standing between Olympus and Corporate Doom is... putting out the E-M1 iii six months sooner than they originally planned? Have you thought this through?

I'll leave that to Oly to figure out, but it seems like they ought to get releases spread out a bit more if they're really going to a 4-year cycle.

That's fine. But in doing so, just remember that "I want a new camera from Olympus" does not mean "Olympus' Imaging Division will shut down if they don't do what I want." Unfortunately, a lot of people 'round here conflate the two.

Parkettpolitur wrote:

SpinOne wrote:

Parkettpolitur wrote:

Everything that distinguished them back then can now be had from other manufacturers as well, with better IQ, DR and noise performance to boot!

Uh huh. So, what can they invent, that won't be replicated in a year or two?

I'm not saying they need a killer feature no one else has. The point is that they had such a feature - or, rather, a bunch of them, back when they were one of the very few 'mature' players in the mirrorless world -, and this is no longer the case. So they need to adapt and offer new products at a quick pace that smartly attack the competition's weaknesses while mollifying m43's own weaknesses.

As noted above, a lot of new cameras still don't have a lot of the E-M5 ii's features. Nikon Z and Canon R left out a lot of features; Fuji only has IBIS on a handful of cameras; a handful of competitors have multi-shot, I'm not sure any do at the $900 price point; most don't have equivalents of Live Bulb/Time... For an "old" camera, the E-M5 ii holds up surprisingly well in the feature department.

The only real weaknesses of Olympus' M43 are AF, and dynamic range/low-light performance. The former can be fixed, ultimately the latter cannot. Any possible technologies that could improve DR/noise will go into larger sensors anyway.

Some people have convinced themselves that portability is a weakness of larger formats. Maybe it is, but it seems pretty clear that there is a limited market for ultra-portable gear.

So no, I didn't assume that Sony weren't going to catch up back in 2013, but I did assume that Olympus were going all out with a high-end line of cameras (E-M1). Since then, they've only released the E-M1.2, which I indeed didn't find particularly exciting, since I don't shoot action. Give me better IQ, more DR, a significantly lower base ISO, hand-held hi-res, global shutter...

E-M1 ii did increase M43 image quality as much as possible.

Hand-held high-resolution is not going to happen.

Global shutter is almost certainly inevitable. For all mirrorless cameras. It makes sense to want it, but it's not going to be a competitive advantage for long (if at all).

In short, and again... cameras are mature. There is very little room for improvement. Even in 2015, camera iterations were diminishing in added capabilities. Meanwhile, camera sales continue to gradually diminish. The name of the game is thus profitability, not market share.

Thus, it's not clear to me that superficial camera iterations is the real answer here, for a small company like Olympus.

petreluk wrote:

these are businesses. They are completely dependent on revenue from shiny new products at retail. Without that, no business, no R&D, no jobs, no marketing, no cameras. So these businesses have no choice but to continue producing new product. You or I may not want that product but the business has to find enough customers who will want it.

And what happens when, year after year, companies put out new product, and fewer people buy them?

That is, after all, what's been going on for nearly a decade now.

Consider the typewriter. That's a moribund business, to put it mildly -- though you can still buy new typewriters. Should Royal put out a new model every year, to keep the market excited? Will that increase the profile of typewriters?

I’m seeing quite a few posts saying that M43 is now “mature”. That’s another way of saying the seam of gold is all mined out and the biz is poised to go ex growth with just a few top-up products released from time to time to keep the wheels turning. If that’s really true, then it’s also a sign that it’s time to move on before the mine’s owners move on themselves, because if they want their assets to produce revenue then they will surely move on too. It looks as if that’s about where M43 is today.

It's not just that M43 is mature. Pretty much all cameras are mature, or very close to it.

Consider the A7Rii and A7Riii. The differences are minor -- slightly faster FPS, a handful more AF points, a slightly better EVF, dual card slots... What can you really do with the iii, that you can't do with the ii? Not much. The improvements border on cosmetic.

Or: Nikon and Canon aren't really filling in any gaps with their mirrorless options. There is no innovation, no new features, in fact they're missing various features available in competing products. It's just branding.

Camera companies are already moving on, by offering higher-end gear. There isn't really anywhere else to go.

SpinOne wrote:

By the way, not "everyone" has "it." Nikon Z and Canon R left out a lot of features; Fuji only has IBIS on a handful of cameras; a handful of competitors have multi-shot, I'm not sure any do at the $900 price point; most don't have equivalents of Live Bulb/Time... For an "old" camera, the E-M5 ii holds up surprisingly well in the feature department.

Those gearheads are key because they subsidize the rest of us!

Yeah, I have my doubts about that. I also suspect they undercut the market for new cameras, by selling the old ones at a steep discount when new models come out.

We should note that pretty much every camera maker is now following a similar strategy of producing high-end gear. Panasonic has put lots of work into fast, expensive glass and big, expensive bodies; Fuji is emphasizing GFX and high-end X; Sony and Nikon's "cheap" 35mm mirrorless bodies start at $2000; their higher-end mirrorless is $3000 and up; Canon is starting out with some very nice (and super-expensive) lenses for RF at launch....

You can get a Pentax K70 with pixel shift for $600, weather sealed.

I think Canon made a lot of  money selling their bottom of the range M50.

so, you're blaming gearheads for undercutting the new camera market because they sell their old cameras on the used market?  You want camera prices to remain high?

Hopefully they are using this time from releasing new bodies to work on their quality control. I don't want to see any more omd bodies with dials that stop working, on/off switches that don't work and lugs that fall off.

For those that missed it, there was a super boring Olympus press thing at Photokina (it's on youtube) where they basically said they were committed to staying with M43, that it's benefits haven't lessened or gone away just because the world is going FF, and that Olympus is not releasing anything this year because they will releasing something/new product? next year on their 100yr aniversary.

Jon

user061018 wrote:

Hopefully they are using this time from releasing new bodies to work on their quality control. I don't want to see any more omd bodies with dials that stop working, on/off switches that don't work and lugs that fall off.

Hopefully, but the bigger the leap in features, the less use of tested components, and therefore the problem gets harder.

gary0319 wrote:

Jonas Palm wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Jonas Palm wrote:

gary0319 wrote:

Kurgo wrote:

RedDog Steve wrote:

Sony has been 'holding back' advanced sensor technology in 4/3 size.

If we had the same rate of sensor advancement as (for example) cell phones we'd have to have new cameras to showcase stacked-BSI, etc.

No need for a steady stream of new bodies with only minor incremental changes.

More like the sales of m43 have been holding back new developments? Sony makes sensors to earn money, if there was a high enough demand I doubt they'd have to "hold back" on r&d on new m43 sensors. Obviously they'll spend r&d on FF ones because Sony also makes FF cameras (and phone sensors because those sell a billion times more than any camera) but the two divisions aren't the same, each has to earn as much money as possible on their own, so if there was a huge demand for m43 sensors Sony'd be thrilled to get the money for it, I should think.

It was already discussed here too, anyway https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4224636

As was noted in your linked-to thread, Sony Semiconductor (not the camera division) will make most any sensor that Olympus cares to contract for. It’s up to Olympus to determine if there will be enough market demand for their new product, not the other way around. Sony Semiconductor needs to make a profit so will contract for the new Olympus spec’d sensor based on the number of sensors that Olympus commits to purchase. Since Olympus sells fewer cameras than Nikon, for instance, Olympus would only be able to commit to a lessor number of sensors and may have to pay a premium. That premium cost will be reflected in the roll-out price of the new camera. If one wants the “latest and greatest” sensor technology in an Olympus camera, it will most likely cost you a premium to get it.

On the other hand, manufacturing cost will be lower with more than four times the sensors per wafer. So once Olympus orders a new design, it is in their own interest to deploy it throughout their product stack (which of course will also make their cameras more competitive.)

While this is true, it doesn't seem to be the way Olympus views it. While the 16mpx variants were pretty widely used in the Pens, E-M5 II, and the E-M10 series, the same is not true with the 20mpx family. The sensor in my Pen F renders different results from the one in my E-M1 II. Maybe not a lot, but noticeable if you have both. I'm assuming there is something different about the sensors, other than just a firmware version (they do have different Sony model numbers)

I'm hoping that the upcoming Super-OMD that is rumored to be in our hands in March will usher in a new technology that will be used in all models, including a new enthusiast 10 series and a follow on Pen F.

Unfortunately, market stratification is a strong tradition in japanese camera manufacturing. In the digital age, this pretty much means that you go from a top model and then re-shape it and functionally cut it down to create your other models. Canon/Nikon/Sony/Pentax/Fuji and possibly soon Panasonic also create tiers by sensor size, with the smaller size being cheaper stuff.

Soon Olympus may be the only one who doesn’t hold their smaller sensor cameras back in order to up-sell to their larger format products.

Unfortunately Olympus has taken the "pro sports shooter" camera body as their top tier, which due to the long lenses used for shooting outdoor arena sports have traditionally been the biggest and grabbiest body shapes of all cameras, in direct conflict with the main selling point of m43. This means their smaller alternative bodies are cut down in various other performance aspects that has little to nothing to do with their size per se, but more with their position in the line-up.

Also, as you note, they’ve created their own sensor stratification based on resolution.

Both of these are choices that may or may not be justifiable within the brand but which are terrible decisions in Olympus’ competition vs. both other camera brands and cell phones.

For Olympus at this point in time, the stratification game is suicidal.

I bit over the top. I think

Well, perhaps. My point was that their current top of the line is not in a model segment that emphasises their true unique selling point vs. their competitors - compactness. Thus they can’t maximize their competitiveness if they position their compact models as lower tier and cut back in terms of sensor performance and features.

I seriously believe they need to rethink that.

They need to commission the best sensor they can (not giving away any resolution advantage pointlessly as they don’t have a larger format option to push), and deploy it throughout a reevaluated line-up of products that doesn’t hamstring their more compact offerings needlessly. And then market it as aggressively as they can afford.

Nope...…….won't happen. I agree that Olympus could be more aggressive with their promoting their products, at least here in the US. In my area though, the local dealer does a decent job of partnering with Olympus to get the word out.

An Olympus ad this week in our local newspaper (full page ads aren't cheap)…….

Nice that they promote their gear somewhere.

You may be right that they won’t up their game when it comes to sensors. I think I’m right in that if they don’t, their offering will loose in competitiveness over time, leading to... well everyone is free to draw their own conclusions. The future will hold the answer to that one.

SpinOne wrote:

Are you really saying that the only thing standing between Olympus and Corporate Doom is... putting out the E-M1 iii six months sooner than they originally planned?

No, not at all.

Have you thought this through?

Yes.  Very much so.  And the point that is trying to be made - a reasonable point, not the far-out ones that [usually older] m43 supporters believe is being said - is that "Corporate Doom" is standing Olympus in the face if they continue to fail to inspire upgraders and potential customers to buy/stay in the system.

The old guys want to play "What we have now is good enough!" but the market does NOT play that way!!  DOES NOT.  Either you continue to produce new products, continue to entice and excite new customers into the fold and legacy customers to buy upgrades, or you die.  Period.  End of discussion.

16mpx CDAF cameras' time has passed.  It was OK 4 years ago.  This is 2018, quickly coming into 2019, and the game has changed - Fuji is upping the ante in crop sensor mirrorless, Sony is going full-bore speed ahead on mirrorless development, both Canon and Nikon have announced FF mirrorless systems.  What was OK 4 years ago is not acceptable performance today.

And some of us want that better performance because, even as legacy users, we have issues with system abilities today that need addressing.  AF performance is middling, TTL flash consistency improves with every m43 generation, 20mpx will allow more room for after-capture crop.  These are not unreasonable desires for 2018 digital camera performance.