Where the heck is Olympus? 3 cameras in 2+ years?

Oli4D wrote:

Quality over quantity. Always.

This whining about fewer bodies and lenses is a bit embarrasing honestly. As if there is not enough choice already...

I'm glad Olympus focuses on big leaps rather than incremental update

Thouse just result in more electronic waste, faster drain of rescources of this planet, etc.

I fail to see how camera industry is even remotely a problem of significance in this context. it isn't.

Just screaming for "MORE" and "FASTER" is not really what we need.

Good that automobile industry doesn't think the same and planet can befit from better and better electric cars.

Or PC industry, that allowed for such a great progress in almost every filed of science and technology.

SW Anderson wrote:

"Offering up a new $3000 USD body is almost the same as Olympus doing nothing for 99% of us and 99% of prospective new buyers."

True, but that's the mass market. I read awhile back Oly is going after the pro market with its next one, the E-M1X, IIRC.

Well, it could be a high-spec halo product announcing what Olympus is capable of doing. Much like the Nikon D5, a seriously impressive pro product for a very small number of photographers.

Jim Pilcher
Bonita Springs, Florida, USA
aligators and mimosas

Zoonami wrote:

nevada5 wrote:

Zoonami wrote:

nevada5 wrote:

Zoonami wrote:

From a pure performance perspective the e-m10 III actually did advance considerably from the mk ii. Better measured resolution, faster af, faster single and continuous shooting than even the e-m5 ii. Better iso performance too. I made a post about it .

Faster single shooting. Hmmm.

Basically twice as fast and 3x faster than an e-m5 ii. Burst also has no buffer in jpeg. So straight up 8.6 fps until you run out of memory card storage. Raw at 6fps is also about 2x as fast as e-m10 ii and e-m5 ii. And yes, I think most people appreciate being able to take fast shot to shot single shots.

I read through the E-M5 II review but I couldn't find any shot-to-shot times (I think they used to call it lag time.) Where is that spec located?

Look at the performance sections of each cameras review on imaging resource. Here is the mkiii.

https://www.imaging-resource.com/PRODS/olympus-e-m10-iii/olympus-e-m10-iiiA6.HTM

Its actually faster than an e-m5 ii, much less lag, and burst there is no jpeg buffer. And raw burst is faster than both other bodies as well.

So both single shot and burst it's noticeably faster.

What I see there at IR is:

E-M10 III  Shutter response (lag time) = 0.140 sec.

E-M5 II     Shutter response (lag time) = 0.137 sec.

I don't think I'd notice any difference there.  But maybe some people would.

rurikw wrote:

JaKing wrote:

rurikw wrote:

that if you want to develop medical products it's more efficient to do R&D on medical products than on consumer cameras and then try to find out whether there is anything applicable to the medical line. In tribute to the respectable history and good work done by the camera department they were allowed to make a few nice products for the 100 year anniversary. After that, silentium aeternum...

I had absolutely no idea that you had been authorised to speak on behalf of the Olympus corporation ... Congratulations ...

Thanks, I'm the official representative in our household. It took some negotiating to get there.

And its an official position very few will ever hold. I’m seriously impressed. I’m King of the Castle whenever my wife isn’t looking.

Jim Pilcher
Bonita Springs, Florida, USA
aligators and mimosas

Haven't been a lot of sensor advancement in three years. Most camera are incrementally better. SONY says sensor generations take three years, software 18 months.

My EM-5, PM2, PL-7 make nearly the same image the newest sensors make. Since then, PDAF on the EM-1 and 20MP are the only significant advances.

A lot of the newer models are not much advanced from the previous one. They generated buzz, but make the same image. There is very little they can do than the previous model can't do.

OLY has been very quiet with new products recently, but R&D has been working overtime. 2019 will be a busy announcement year for them.

The day will come when digital cameras will be mature and there will be no reason to replace them. That be OK with me. I would gain more from becoming a better photographer. I see no benefit in losing money on incremental body upgrades. I'm more interested in taking photos than collecting camera bodies. Just shoot them until they break.

Which has what to do with the number of new camera models?

One significant advance is better than a shelf full of incremental ones.

Probably depends on how successful it is. It will be interesting to see if they bring f/2 medium telephoto and f/2.8 long telephoto lenses with the larger body. That would put them in direct competition with FF DSLRs and MILCs again. Scary.

I'm waiting for the Landau Roof and Corinthian Leather model.

That's right. The PEN-F has also held its value well. Waste of money replacing it. Maybe it means they were very advanced and very capably at the time of introduction. If you bought one then, you did very well. You did not have to waste money replacing it yearly.

Panasonic changed strategy when they went IBIS. Caused them to churn the product line.

They may be hemmed in a corner where they can't make money on $500 - $1,000 bodies, the compact cameras are gone, so they are going to try to compete with FF cameras with big, fast Four Thirds lenses. If they do that, I hope it works out better than it did last time. I doubt it will.

The only thing they can do for sure is add PDAF to all the bodies, go to 20PM for all of them, and use the fastest memory and processors to make it possible to hand hold HDR, High-Res, Focus stacking.

They are in a tough spot without a sensor breakthrough. They have to survive on their lenses.

Not too late. Lots of pent up demand for something new. If good products, they will sell well.

Problems are double tough with declining camera unit sales, and demise of compact cameras in competition from cell phones.

More to the point of where have they been, they design and assemble cameras from components made by other companies. They have to have significantly better components to make better cameras with. The components they used in PEN-F, EM-5 MKII, EM-1 MKII were the most advanced at the time and have remained so until now. For 2019 products they have more advanced components to work with and will be back with exciting new products.

Difficult circumstances to navigate. I don't know how they could do better. A lot of incremental products probably would not help them.

MShot wrote:

I'm waiting for the Landau Roof and Corinthian Leather model.

Yes, we'll everyone at Olympus HQ are just waiting for you to name the new model or option package. I guess we'll have to say WE are the reason there have been no new models. Maybe we can go back to our old jobs at Studebaker or Polaroid - (sigh).

Makes sense to me. The system needed these lenses and the lower end products only sell on price. Good chance they will add more lenses in 2019.

I can understand the desire for the 100-400, but for me they nailed it with the 40-150PRO and the TC. I think that, and the 300 f/4 are superior lenses and the 100-400 is too slow for me.

I think OLY got it right and hope they add to this lineup. A new 50-200 f/2.8-3.5 that works with the existing TC would be a good addition. If they go back to f/2.8 long telephoto primes, and standard to midrange f/2 zooms, don't know. Might sell in small numbers and hurt them, but might be in the plan with the new large body for 2019.