I love Olympus but…

[AURA PA]

Obviously they need to do some part of their operations radically different from Olympus in order to get profitable;

Getting rid of overhead and managerial dead weight goes a long way. That was the biggest advantage of spinning off Imaging. Now Olympus Medical contracts with OMDS for R&D but can no longer budget dump on them as they did internally. Olympus writes off R&D paid to OMDS. A win-win for all parties.

 

[EZGritz]

The EM5 is disappointing. Not much of an improvement but if they added all the things OM-1 can do they would have to sell it for $1,800. That won't work either. The only thing they can do to move it is reduce the price.

They aren't going out of business though. My local dealer just received their first 150-400 for inventory. It took until this month for them to fill all the backorders for this $7,500 lens, all sold with no discount to people with an M1X or OM-1.

That's $10,000 for a body and lens for birding. Those customers will buy or have bought more PRO lenses, 12-40, 40-150 and TCs maybe. They have $13,000 invested in the system and none of it is coming back the dealer told me. Most of them converted from Canon or Nikon. The Sony people are more loyal so far the dealer says.

As long as they have people investing this much in the system they will be around. If the new OM5 doesn't sell well probably will have no effect on financial performance. It's easy to see they can't make money on $1,000 OM bodies. I wonder if they will keep offering the EM10, if they will make an OM10, or sell out the inventory of the EM10.4 and let it go?

I've been reading people predicting doom for M43 for more than 10 years. They look pretty foolish now that it has close a lot of the performance gap and still offers telephoto systems at half the weight so you can leave the tripod home compared with FF systems.

What's happened is all systems improved but human eyesight is constant so now the M43 sensor can make as good an image as people can see. The gap between systems is a lot smaller than it was. It's a matter of cost. You can make a top-performing body and sell it $1,000. At $2,000 you can. Once OMS proved it can do the job and people began to spend this much on M43 bodies it was clear that the people willing to spend the money can have M43 system performance they want for sports and birding. Those who want it for $1,000 are not going to get it. Even at these prices for PRO lenses and OM-1 bodies the system is much less expensive than FF. A top-of-the-line SONY, Nikon, or Canon sports or birding system with one fast long telephoto zoom is $15,000 - $20,000. And they need a tripod. People who expect to buy something like that in any system for $2,000 with the lens are living in a fantasy land. The OM5 can do everything but subject recognition, sports and birds in flight and there are reasonably priced consumer-grade lenses for it. I'm still using my EM5.3 and find it as useful as when I bought it. The EM1.2 I traded for the OM-1 is still a good camera at 6 years old, just not as easy to use for sports and birding compared with current models. M43 is a bargain at current prices and a very capable system with all models.

The camera doesn't make the photographer or the photo. The photographer does that. An EVF won't make a bad photographer a good one. I found the EM1.2 EVF and LCD resolution good enough. I just needed one that doesn't black out during high sequential shooting. Very few EVFs can do that.

 

[EZGritz]

If they make money they can invest in R&D, maybe for fewer models. PEN and EM10 lines may be gone though PEN sells well in the Japanese market. In a low-volume business, they need to focus on high-cost, high-margin products but they still have to be technically competitive.

It's hard to see how JIP can make money on their investment if OMS doesn't stay in business. As competitive as the camera business is, they probably know to do that they have to have R&D and new models.

Maybe an OM-2 will come around in 3-6 years with a faster or higher resolution sensor. It's hard to see how the OM-1 can be further improved except for firmware tweaks to the AF System.

 

[gary0319]

The EM5 is disappointing. Not much of an improvement but if they added all the things OM-1 can do they would have to sell it for $1,800. That won't work either. The only thing they can do to move it is reduce the price.

They aren't going out of business though. My local dealer just received their first 150-400 for inventory. It took until this month for them to fill all the backorders for this $7,500 lens, all sold with no discount to people with an M1X or OM-1.

That's $10,000 for a body and lens for birding. Those customers will buy or have bought more PRO lenses, 12-40, 40-150 and TCs maybe. They have $13,000 invested in the system and none of it is coming back the dealer told me. Most of them converted from Canon or Nikon. The Sony people are more loyal so far the dealer says.

As long as they have people investing this much in the system they will be around. If the new OM5 doesn't sell well probably will have no effect on financial performance. It's easy to see they can't make money on $1,000 OM bodies. I wonder if they will keep offering the EM10, if they will make an OM10, or sell out the inventory of the EM10.4 and let it go?

I've been reading people predicting doom for M43 for more than 10 years. They look pretty foolish now that it has close a lot of the performance gap and still offers telephoto systems at half the weight so you can leave the tripod home compared with FF systems.

What's happened is all systems improved but human eyesight is constant so now the M43 sensor can make as good an image as people can see. The gap between systems is a lot smaller than it was. It's a matter of cost. You can make a top-performing body and sell it $1,000. At $2,000 you can. Once OMS proved it can do the job and people began to spend this much on M43 bodies it was clear that the people willing to spend the money can have M43 system performance they want for sports and birding. Those who want it for $1,000 are not going to get it. Even at these prices for PRO lenses and OM-1 bodies the system is much less expensive than FF. A top-of-the-line SONY, Nikon, or Canon sports or birding system with one fast long telephoto zoom is $15,000 - $20,000. And they need a tripod. People who expect to buy something like that in any system for $2,000 with the lens are living in a fantasy land. The OM5 can do everything but subject recognition, sports and birds in flight and there are reasonably priced consumer-grade lenses for it. I'm still using my EM5.3 and find it as useful as when I bought it. The EM1.2 I traded for the OM-1 is still a good camera at 6 years old, just not as easy to use for sports and birding compared with current models. M43 is a bargain at current prices and a very capable system with all models.

The camera doesn't make the photographer or the photo. The photographer does that. An EVF won't make a bad photographer a good one. I found the EM1.2 EVF and LCD resolution good enough. I just needed one that doesn't black out during high sequential shooting. Very few EVFs can do that.

Agree….

 

[EZGritz]

Typically corporations drain their various business units to feed the parent which is the reason to have them. They monitor them and often micro-manage them causing a waste of resources. The business units have to be additionally profitable to support this.

I worked for a big Japanese company that owned many businesses. In my experience, they tend to be very autocratic with high-level centralized management making decisions that are typically delegated to lower levels. They act like they don't trust even minor decisions to anyone who isn't an executive. Decisions made in Toyko ruined the business I worked in that was US based. They were too slow and too parochial for us to make the business work. It took forever to make changes and progress the business to keep it competitive with US competitors.

Toyko placed Japanese middle-level managers in the US operations that had no decision-making authority and did not know the business. They were there simply to look over our shoulders and report to Toyko where all the important decisions were made. The additional cost was added to US operations and made it more difficult for us to compete with US companies that did not have this cost and was not slowed down by decisions made by executives in another country who did not understand our business and would not allow us to do the things we needed to do to succeed. I suspect the Olympus camera business suffered from similar problems. They also had to move manufacturing to a lower-cost country. Usually, that money is borrowed from the parent company and the burden of paying it back is added to the business unit overhead as debt. It can impact credit quality and cost of borrowing money to fund operations.

It's possible that the sale of the business to JIP lowered OM System's overhead cost a great deal and made the company more financially competitive. Olympus still owns a small share of the OMS and participates in R&D. Olympus' medical and industrial imaging businesses are profitable and highly technically capable. OMS may be able to pay them for the use of some of their technology and people as needed.

There is a good chance OMS is a lot more competitive than the Olympus camera business was and they are selling more high-priced and presumably higher profit margin products than the Olympus camera business did. It's entirely possible that OMS R&D and engineering refocused on fewer products can produce more technically advanced products with more of the things customers ask for than the Olympus camera division could. It's pretty clear to me they know what they were doing when they designed and delivered new products since the business was sold. I think OMS knows what they are doing and what they need to do to have a financially healthy small company in a very competitive business and if JIT leaves them to do it they can succeed for many years on the products they have in the market now and with what they planned for the future. They may have more and faster R&D than the Olympus camera business ever had. If I were JIT I'd be pleased with what OMS accomplished in 2022. I'd tell the to keep doing it and I'd leave them alone. I might give them more budget and let them expand the R&D budget if they asked me for it. I don't at all expect the R&D budget to be cut.

 

[AURA PA]

A top-of-the-line SONY, Nikon, or Canon sports or birding system with one fast long telephoto zoom is $15,000 - $20,000. And they need a tripod.

Truth ^. My Nikon kit is twice the size and price of my m4/3 kit.

 

[EZGritz]

Looks right to me

 

[Mark Ransom]

100 MP in phone is not useless at all - more pixels means less aliasing issues like moiré.

Actually the opposite is true. The smaller the holes in the screen door, the more likely you are going to get a Moire' pattern.

Moiré is caused when the detail in your scene is greater than the Nyquist limit of your sensor. So yes, if you're taking a picture of a screen door, smaller holes means smaller detail means a higher chance of moiré. But the Nyquist limit of a sensor goes up the more pixels it has, and once that limit goes beyond the detail your lens can resolve moiré becomes impossible.

Of course if one expects it to have four times the linear resolution of 25MP sensor, one will be disappointed.

But 2x the linear resolution ain't half bad!

 

[jakelindsay]

Panasonic's High Res mode is infinitely more useable as they do some voodoo software magic to account for motion.

Now Sony does this for its flagship A1 and A7RV.

Olympus pioneered the High Res (along with Pentax) and they made good strides with the handheld implementation but they would do well to catch up with the software side of things and allow for some motion blur. Panasonic's and Sony's is outstanding.

 

[EZGritz]

I'm out there on the lake birding with N, C, and S birders with telephotos and tripods. They get great photos but they can't take some I can because I'm handholding at 840mm and more and I have ProCap.

I'm shooting stationary birds at 1/5 with the 300 f/4. I can shoot in lower light than they can and it's so much less burdensome to carry a kit half the weight+ the tripod.

I'd love to shoot with a FF 45MP kit and a 500mm f/2.8 or f/4+ a 1.4XTC until I see what I can do with the OM-1 and the 300 f/4 and the 1.4X TC. The FF system still has some advantages in IQ but the gap is not very big. No way I'm going to shoot a kit that weighs 2X and needs a tripod as long as I'm happy with the results I'm getting with the M43 system. So far so good.

 

[EZGritz]

Does it make a better photo? I'm happy with the low res cell phone photos I have because I view them on a cell phone. For me, the cellphone camera is about convenience. I use it because I always have it with me, no other reason.

 

[EZGritz]

Depends. Faster sensor readout may close the gap and eliminate the need for voodoo which reduces detail. Mush is not much better than ghosting. It's pretty clear that this tech is not ready for everything but it's getting there.

 

[tedolf]

A camera can be too small for your hands. The smallest Pannys are now and so are some rangefinders styles.

For you.

Some people loved the GM-5 and they command a hefty price on the used market.



It is usually not the camera that is too small but the controls. It chaps my you know what if I can't operate a camera with thin gloves on.



E-pl1 was about the perfect size.

The OM-1 is perfect and I don't want it any lighter because it needs some weight to balance lenses that weigh 1lb and more. It feels just right with the 12-200 I tried out today.

If they can make some of the lenses smaller and lighter that would be appealing. It will be hard. I picked up a 150-400 in a store expecting it to be a handful. It isn't. I was amazed how light it is compared with its size.

TEdolph

 

[tedolf]

The EM5 is disappointing. Not much of an improvement but if they added all the things OM-1 can do they would have to sell it for $1,800. That won't work either. The only thing they can do to move it is reduce the price.

They aren't going out of business though. My local dealer just received their first 150-400 for inventory. It took until this month for them to fill all the backorders for this $7,500 lens, all sold with no discount to people with an M1X or OM-1.

That's $10,000 for a body and lens for birding. Those customers will buy or have bought more PRO lenses, 12-40, 40-150 and TCs maybe. They have $13,000 invested in the system and none of it is coming back the dealer told me. Most of them converted from Canon or Nikon. The Sony people are more loyal so far the dealer says.

As long as they have people investing this much in the system they will be around. If the new OM5 doesn't sell well probably will have no effect on financial performance. It's easy to see they can't make money on $1,000 OM bodies. I wonder if they will keep offering the EM10, if they will make an OM10, or sell out the inventory of the EM10.4 and let it go?

I've been reading people predicting doom for M43 for more than 10 years. They look pretty foolish now that it has close a lot of the performance gap and still offers telephoto systems at half the weight so you can leave the tripod home compared with FF systems.

What's happened is all systems improved but human eyesight is constant so now the M43 sensor can make as good an image as people can see.

This^

Any 12mp sensor can out resolve most human vision at normal viewing distances.

The gap between systems is a lot smaller than it was. It's a matter of cost. You can make a top-performing body and sell it $1,000.

The big difference is lens quality. Here, m4/3 could have a big advantage. They can make reasonably fast small lenses at reasonable prices. I have a collection of $99.00 lenses that I am quite happy with:

Fantastic Plastic 40-150mm (shoot in the sweet spot 70-120mm)

Panny 25mm f/1.7

Oly 14-42.5 EZ (it's good enough)

and a few adapted M mount lenses.

Don't have the 20mm f/1.7 but that also is very good and cheap on the used market.

At $2,000 you can. Once OMS proved it can do the job and people began to spend this much on M43 bodies it was clear that the people willing to spend the money can have M43 system performance they want for sports and birding. Those who want it for $1,000 are not going to get it. Even at these prices for PRO lenses and OM-1 bodies the system is much less expensive than FF. A top-of-the-line SONY, Nikon, or Canon sports or birding system with one fast long telephoto zoom is $15,000 - $20,000. And they need a tripod. People who expect to buy something like that in any system for $2,000 with the lens are living in a fantasy land. The OM5 can do everything but subject recognition, sports and birds in flight and there are reasonably priced consumer-grade lenses for it. I'm still using my EM5.3 and find it as useful as when I bought it. The EM1.2 I traded for the OM-1 is still a good camera at 6 years old, just not as easy to use for sports and birding compared with current models. M43 is a bargain at current prices and a very capable system with all models.

The camera doesn't make the photographer or the photo. The photographer does that. An EVF won't make a bad photographer a good one. I found the EM1.2 EVF and LCD resolution good enough. I just needed one that doesn't black out during high sequential shooting. Very few EVFs can do that.

TEdolph

 

[EZGritz]

That's right. For me. I don't speak for anyone else. I thought the GM5 was a brilliant piece of packaging and engineering. I wanted one but found it very uncomfortable to operate the controls. It's too small to fit controls that are comfortable for me. = Its too small

I have a PEN PM1 because it isn't worth selling and a PM2 because it's so small with a pancake lens I can carry it in a jacket vest pocket. I don't mind changing settings with the software menu. It's easy to scroll down to what you want on the side of the LCD. It just takes longer. I use it as a P&S on city walks. It works great for that.

I tried a PL/7 because it has some physical controls but I missed the twin dials of the OMDs because I shoot in manual mode a lot and need to change settings a lot. I traded it for the original EM5 but when I used big lenses I wanted a grip so I added one, never removed it, and never went back. For me, a grip makes the camera more comfortable to use with any lens on it.

For me, the EM10 line is the right size and has usable controls with twin dials for people who shoot in manual mode a lot like I do. It's inexpensive and talk about premium, a good used EM10.2 sells for more than a refurbed one did more than five years ago.

It has a usable flash, an EVF, and twin top dials. It isn't as small as a GM5 but it's still small and as functional and I bet the controls are big enough for most photographers. A reasonable, inexpensive removable grip is available from 3rd party suppliers and so is a leather half case. If I wanted another smallish camera I'd go for an EM10.

You go for what works best you. OK with me.

 

[gary0319]

I'm out there on the lake birding with N, C, and S birders with telephotos and tripods. They get great photos but they can't take some I can because I'm handholding at 840mm and more and I have ProCap.

I'm shooting stationary birds at 1/5 with the 300 f/4. I can shoot in lower light than they can and it's so much less burdensome to carry a kit half the weight+ the tripod.

I'd love to shoot with a FF 45MP kit and a 500mm f/2.8 or f/4+ a 1.4XTC until I see what I can do with the OM-1 and the 300 f/4 and the 1.4X TC. The FF system still has some advantages in IQ but the gap is not very big. No way I'm going to shoot a kit that weighs 2X and needs a tripod as long as I'm happy with the results I'm getting with the M43 system. So far so good.

Today my wife and I went to a local wetlands area to shoot a few birds. Along the way we passed a guy carrying a big Canon and a 3-foot lens on a tripod. After he went by my wife commented that she felt sorry for the guy........ not because of his burden, but because he was obviously unaware that there was a better alternative.

 

[EZGritz]

I bet most of those guys know about M43. One I met recently who was shooting an R5 and a 500 prime on a tripod said he loves the R5 because 75% of the images he captures are in perfect focus while the DSLR he traded for it produced only 25% perfectly focused images. He was shooting static birds. A perfectionist.

He knows about M43, about ProCap and hand-holding. He had a second Canon with a shorter zoom, probably a 70-200, not a white L lens. How's that for a lot of weight to carry?

He'd like to reduce his burden, shoot long telephoto handheld and use ProCap. He said, "I have too much money invested in Canon glass to change systems."

Kind of a silly comment. He would lose some of that money if he sold the lenses but could probably trade for new M43 gear with no cash out of pocket. There is more to it than that. He's picky. He told me he took 4,000 images the week before and kept 3,000 he felt were in perfect focus to pick the best ones. He probably believes his Canon gear makes better images and he needs a higher percentage of keepers than he thinks an OM-1 will produce. Or Canon is an old friend he doesn't want to let go of. I can see that. I'm not willing to say there is no compromise, only that there is no way I going to carry such a heavy kit even if there is as long as I'm happy with the results I'm getting. Unless I try his kit and find I'm making significantly better images with it I'm no more interested in switching systems than he is.

I wandered around Laguna Seca one hot summer photographing a race for four days. One trip up the hill in a golf cart a Canon Pro shooter was loaded down with two Canon bodies, a tripod, bazooka lenses, and a SONY with a normal zoom. He said he loved the SONY but the AF system wasn't fast enough for sports. He said used it mostly for studio work. He was a very big overweight middle age guy. He sweated buckets and had trouble breathing. I was afraid he might have a stroke or a heart attack. This was probably ~ 7-10 years ago. He may have gone mirrorless by now - if he lived and didn't find an easier job. If he's carrying that FF glass he's still struggling and 7-10 years older. I don't want to be that guy but they are still out there dominating sports photography.

I go up and down those steep hills in the desert with ease all day for four days. On the fourth day I'm tired but probably tired of taking photos, not from carrying gear. Now with the 40-150 F/4 it's easier. There are a few places on that track where I need something longer but I can leave in a locker or the car and take it to those locations when I go there. I'm still carrying half the weight if I take the 300 f/4 and the 40-150 f/2.9 and the TCs. The light is almost always good. I'm thinking about adding the 12-200 because I don't need a super-sharp lens to shoot car races. No feathers and I think f/6.3 may be bright enough. Most of the time I need ND filters. A one-pound, one-lens solution for the entire event. I can live with cropping or without a few photos of so many. That would be a joy. Fast and ultra-sharp glass is not necessary for everything.

 

[gary0319]

We now have more than 20 members of our small camera club that have migrated from Canon to OM. All of them started the same way...... just adding an OM or EM as an "adjunct" to their Canon FF gear. None have any Canon gear today, usually took about 6 months before

the Canon gear started disappearing.

 

[EZGritz]

When Jerry Katz switches over that will be impressive.

 

[EZGritz]

I don't need super sharp or super bright lenses for everything. I shot an event in the rain last Saturday with the 14-150. The event was something new for me. I took the 14-150 on a hunch that turned out to be right.

I tested the 14-150 against the 40-150 f/4 and f/2.8 and found it as sharp at 40mm. It isn't at the long end but even then it makes nice images if you aren't looking for feather detail.

It was cold, gloomy, and wet. I started with 12-45 indoors and switched to the 40-150 f/4 outdoors but it wasn't short enough or wide enough on the wide end. Rather than switch back and forth between the 40-150 and the 12-45 I mounted the 14-150 for the rest of the day. Even in late afternoon in gloom and rain, it was bright enough on the EM5.3 shooting jpgs, not RAW. I could have used more reach so now I'm thinking of adding the 12-200. Would f/6.3 be bright enough? Not that much difference between that and f/5.6 Not sure, but if not, and if I packed up a half hour sooner would it change the results? No. I could have used it all day, maybe used a prime indoors for shallower DoF but not what I wanted to do.

Something to be said for a 16.6X range in a one-pound lens package. I can shoot a lot of motorsports and outdoor events with the 12-200 and the 25 f/1.8. This event changed my thinking about lenses, especially with usable ISO3200 and ISO6400. With the early EM5 ISO in that range lost too much detail, much more than it does not. This is how advances in the image processor and sensor have expanded what you can do with the system.

last Saturday with the 14-150. Good enough. I doubt a sharper or brighter lens would have made an image. It was about capturing the action, not max IQ. I don't mind the noise, can remove some of it but the driver of the Jeep doesn't mind it either.