More statements from JIP

[PakkyT]

and he asked me how many megapixels my camera has

You should have answered "all of them" and then just stared at him.

The E-30 came some time after the E-3, with improved features

It was the E-5 that followed the E-30 and built on it, not the E-3

To his point though, I remember getting my E-520 and back then Olympus wasn't concerned about undercutting the flag ship camera with new features on the E-520 released 6 months later. We gained stuff like being able to turn on just horizontal or vertical image stabilization for use when panning which the E-3 didn't have and maybe a slightly larger LCD. Of course the E-3 still blew away the E-520 in most other stats. But they didn't seem to hold back incremental improvements from "lower" models when those improvements were available.

 

[fortwodriver]

That's a lot of blue-skying in those statements. Actually, a lot of that interview sounds like paraphrasing Steve Jobs from 35 years ago.

It makes me wonder if they'll have a line of "unobtainium" products priced for professional use and a democratized lineup for consumers that will veer more towards lifestyle.

It looks like consumers are done buying cameras based on traditional designs. What comes next for consumes may not look like a camera.

What constitutes "Wow" in Japanese product culture?

It's probably best to just keep taking/making photos at this point.

 

[DefectiveMonk]

It looks like consumers are done buying cameras based on traditional designs. What comes next for consumes may not look like a camera.

My bet is on something like the Alice camera that @John M Flores posted about.

 

[PakkyT]

Actually, a lot of that interview sounds like paraphrasing Steve Jobs from 35 years ago.

If they are able to do even a fraction of what Jobs did with Apple, then they will be considered extremely successful vs. what happened under Olympus.

 

[MichailK]

however, this needs some Ive in the dungeon down below if it is to happen

 

[fortwodriver]

If they are able to do even a fraction of what Jobs did with Apple, then they will be considered extremely successful vs. what happened under Olympus.

Heheh... Yes, I remember the Scully and Amelio...

Is the scale of OMDs now anything like Apple was when Amelio was ousted?

 

[S-Osolin]

My bet is on something like the Alice camera that @John M Flores posted about.

I see nothing but gimmick there. Full manual camera and lenses, on other hand... Leica has carved themselves a nice market with their M line. Yet nobody is following them on the cheaper end. Imagine JIP coming out with manual lenses line, and Pen camera tune and optimised for old school manual focus photography, with as simple as possible phone tranfer. Everyone is doing auto focus, tracking, speed and weather sealing, but you really don't need to focus entirely on that.

 

[doady]

Nobody is focusing entirely on autofocus. My 12-100mm has autofocus, but you can focus manually with it too, complete with distance scale. My C-7070WZ is a point-and-shoot camera, and it has a manual focus mode and focus distance scale as well. To remove autofocus from these lenses and cameras and focus entirely on manual focus is what seems pointless to me.

 

[fortwodriver]

I see nothing but gimmick there. Full manual camera and lenses, on other hand... Leica has carved themselves a nice market with their M line.

Actually they don't. The M market is VERY small. The lenses and cameras are priced in an entirely different stratosphere, too. The brand messaging is completely different too. When Leica carved out of Leitz they focused almost entirely on lifestyle branding. OMDs is focusing on photography. On the other hand, Maitani idolized Leica, so anything's possible in the future, I suppose.


Leica even had to go to a cheaper Portuguese factory to make some of their products and actually lower prices so they could pull more Americans in with lower import taxes.

 

[Mountain_Man_79]

Actually they don't. The M market is VERY small. The lenses and cameras are priced in an entirely different stratosphere, too.

Well to be fair, if the M market is very small, perhaps it’s because they’re sold out pretty much everywhere? Used ones sell for about the full asking price of a new one. Pretty much only the monochrome version is even available. And if the lenses are expensive, it’s probably because they’re permanently attached to very expensive cameras.

I think the original point has some validity, however I’d argue that Fuji has followed at a lower price point with the X100 series.

 

[Lcrunyon]

I think it is very reasonable to be cautious about whether they can pull off what they are trying to do. It’s ambitious, to be sure, even more so in this current industry and with all that’s going on in the world. It is a hard path to success...

...however, I think they are on it — perhaps the only path that has a decent chance. The demand for the 150-400 tripling their expectations is a very positive indicator that their strategy of focusing on the strengths of M4/3 over FF as well as the brand’s areas of competitive advantage could be profitable enough for the new company to keep adding value to the product line.

I just hope that at this point, people are starting to believe that this isn’t the scam so many people were saying it was last year, and OMDS is truly trying to keep the product line going. Everything that was said in the interview seemed fairly frank and sensible, so I don’t think OMDS is trying to either deceive themselves or us. They will have to be on their game in a way that they haven’t always been in the past, but they seem to believe that this new structure might allow just that. We’ll see.

Being cautious is being a smart consumer, of course; but the fastest way to dooming OMDS’s efforts to failure would be for us to give up on them before they even have a chance.

 

[John M Flores]

My bet is on something like the Alice camera that @John M Flores posted about.

I'm not sure if the Alice camera is the answer, but we certainly need cameras that adopt some of the computational photography that phones have AND make the interactions with phones more seamless.

 

[shreebles]

I'm not sure if the Alice camera is the answer, but we certainly need cameras that adopt some of the computational photography that phones have AND make the interactions with phones more seamless.

My WiFi experience has been literally the same with Olympus cameras built in 2013 or 2020, no difference at all. In fact, WiFi transfer has taken a huge hit with Android 11, now taking over 5 seconds to transmit a single image. Surely they could improve this somehow?

 

[John King]

My WiFi experience has been literally the same with Olympus cameras built in 2013 or 2020, no difference at all. In fact, WiFi transfer has taken a huge hit with Android 11, now taking over 5 seconds to transmit a single image. Surely they could improve this somehow?

Make sure Bluetooth is turned off, with both Apple and Android. Even if you get a connection (unlikely) transfer speed slows to a crawl!

I've been forced to use an OTG cable and card reader for my E-PM2 (no wireless in 2012), and it is blindingly fast compared to even well behaved WiFi.

 

[drocco]

Well to be fair, if the M market is very small, perhaps it’s because they’re sold out pretty much everywhere?

Well, I assume the market is small, because very few people are willing -or able- to pay 5000 Euro for a 50mm f2 manual focus lens, regardless of how optically superior it might be.

 

[rogazilla]

I'm not sure if the Alice camera is the answer, but we certainly need cameras that adopt some of the computational photography that phones have AND make the interactions with phones more seamless.

I agree! I think the Pixii is a better idea and how camera should interact with the phone. The modular design seems like a good idea but its clumsy and as phone come in different sizes and will continue to change, it is better to leave the phone in the bag or pocket when shooting. However after you finish shooting through the superior lenses and sensor, it is great to be able to use the superior app and computational power of the phone to work on the photo and share with the world.

 

[Mike Wingate]

Well, I assume the market is small, because very few people are willing -or able- to pay 5000 Euro for a 50mm f2 manual focus lens, regardless of how optically superior it might be.

Well at least the lens is not as cheap as their £3,000 suitcases, but a bargain compared to the handbags, cars, jets and yachts they own.

 

[Mountain_Man_79]

Well, I assume the market is small, because very few people are willing -or able- to pay 5000 Euro for a 50mm f2 manual focus lens, regardless of how optically superior it might be.

Hmmm, my bad. My last comment I actually confused the M series with the Q2. I take it all back. What crazy person would want a Leica M...just garbage...overpriced garbage I tell ya.

 

[Aristophanes]

Th

I'm not sure if the Alice camera is the answer, but we certainly need cameras that adopt some of the computational photography that phones have AND make the interactions with phones more seamless.

Smartphones use proprietary, small-scale, dedicated processors that cost literally billions of $$ in development. No imaging company has those resources and never will. Even RED and Sony FF videocams offload straight to processing

ILC to computation will probably have to rely on battery-killing, high-bandwidth networking instead of in-camera
processing. JPEG has run the distance, too.

That leaves optical camera makers as mostly just ground and polished glass suppliers. They no longer have a “platform”. That’s the crisis to which there is so much resistance by Japan Inc. The only thing that’s saved the industry so far is the general conservatism of the pro and prosumer market (retro and form factor and tactile).

 

[RS86]

That leaves optical camera makers as mostly just ground and polished glass suppliers. They no longer have a “platform”. That’s the crisis to which there is so much resistance by Japan Inc. The only thing that’s saved the industry so far is the general conservatism of the pro and prosumer market (retro and form factor and tactile).

What do you mean with "platform"? What do you mean with general conservatism?