I keep receiving emails from readers pointing me out the report published by Yahoo (Click here). It says that the digital camera business from Olympus will disappear from the US market within 2014. It’s not the first time I hear these kind of negative forecasts about Olympus and as of today…Olympus digital camera business is still alive 🙂
Honestly, I think there is a bigger chance that Yahoo will crash in 2014 rather than Olympus! I agree with Thom Hogan when he says: “The medical side of Olympus is healthy enough that they can take their time deciding ultimately just what happens with cameras, and I’m pretty sure they’ll first try to execute a strategy that helps them get back to profitability before giving up on it.”
So please don’t worry, and let’s see what Olympus will deliver us soon with the new OMD!
83 Responses
This forecast is a good consideration for the future. Although they are still in business, a few more major failures in the imaging division could spell the end for the financially-strapped company. At one point in the past, we even thought Kodak would be here forever. Still, I am sure most of us here wants Olympus to stick around for awhile.
How can you say this is a good forecast? Let me pick it to bits…
“Based on increased interest in high-end cameras, the company plans to focus on increasing sales of SLR cameras, which accounted for just 35% of its imaging business. Meanwhile, sales of its largest camera segment, compact cameras, will be cut in half. Of concern to investors, the company has pledged to stop issuing dividends until the camera business is restored to profitability.”
Point one, anyone who follows Olympus know that they are not increasing or planning to increase sales of DSLR camera’s – it’s only DSLR is well out of date and will be merged with it’s mirrorless line of cameras.
Point two, Olympus getting out of the point and shoot market is a good thing – it is already a low margin, high volume business that is about to become a drain on any company that tries to stay in that market. Olympus are cleverly keeping products in that market where they have something unique to offer such as weather sealing or a superzoom, they will no longer offer cheap and cheerful camera’s that offer nothing that a smartphone can’t do.
Point three, the fastest growing segment of the stills camera industry is the mirrorless segment – and in that segment Olympus has more market share than anyone, they are ahead of Canon, Nikon, Sony, et al. Which would you prefer; a large stake in decreasing segment (Nikon, Canon) or a large stake in a growing segment (Olympus, Sony)?
Since the OM-D, Olympus has shown that they are on the right trajectory but those sales won’t hit the balance sheet until the next reporting period – if Olympus can continue to release products that people love like (i.e., the EP5) they will continue to see the success that they have had over the past few years.
And as for not paying dividends, this is a sensible decision for company that is trying to bring it’s debt to equity ration down to a somewhat more risk averse number. Paying a dividend out when you have substantial debts to cover is foolish, why would any sensible person suggest that they should pay dividends at this point in time?
I didn’t say the forecast was good. I said it is good to consider the author’s negative forecast despite Admin’s optimism. I agree with you that things don’t look very pretty for the company right now.
Here’s hoping they leave the camera business, just so the Olyfanboys can enjoy some Humble Pie.
The stock they have of FT lenses, bad decisions, lying and the Yakuza has hurt them extremely.
I think they’re going to sell the division off, just to stay afloat.
People like you have made the last three years so very worthwhile… Thanks.
Maybe cheap to middle p/s cameras will go away now that almost everyone has smartphones with comparable photo performance. But m4/3 cameras take different niche and selling quite well, at least from amazon statistics.
Olympus probably should have stopped making more than the Tough series and their enthusiast point-and-shoot models a long time ago. They’ve been getting mediocre ratings for a while and that’s no way to sell cameras.
Do a few cameras really well and sales should follow, if you didn’t dig a huge hole previously.
Olympus, please leave only:
1. Tough
2. XZ-1/10
3. m43
4. 4/3 sensor compact
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and you are probably dick compact with an FF camera that you don´t know how to handle.
> Honestly, I think there is a bigger chance that Yahoo will crash in 2014 rather than Olympus!
Totally… There is a small exodus from Flickr (owned by Yahoo) since the recent revamp, on top of what they have been losing to Instagram, and, although I am a big fan of Marissa Mayer as a person on the basis of what she has achieved, I think there may be a limit to her magic.
When Yahoo purchases Olympus Imaging, of course, then we’ll know it’s doomed.
If there is an exodus from flickr, where are they going? Instagram is not what I consider an alternative.
Where do the people of 43rumors.com share their photos?
http://500px.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=e-m5
On Facebook, where else?
I prefer 500px over Flickr any day of the week.
Shin, Amalric, what’s so wrong with the new Flickr layout? I use it on a tablet, the app to post the pictures, and the web browser for everything else. I like to see the slide show of my photos, though the loading is quite slow (because of their full size I think).
When replying to comments I switch to the old version. The option “modify” is just right the avatar: touch/click on it and you’re back to the old Flickr layout, except for the top part of the page.
I really don’t understand all this hate.
Oh, I don’t hate the new Flickr. Since I am brand new there, I haven’t had time to get attached to the old ways. 🙂 But, a lot of others do hate the new Flickr. Here is the thread with all the complaints, if you are curious:
http://www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157633547442506/
Obviously, not all complaints are coherent. Here is a brief musing from a financial analyst’s point of view:
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/05/27/minyanville-flickr-yahoo/2363285/
This is what I’ve gathered so far (I only have the Web-based version, so it might be very different from the tablet version, and I am using MacOS 10.6; old!):
1) The new photostream default and the home page are too cumbersome and aesthetically displeasing. People think it is too crowded, too much like a social network rather than like a portfolio, and is too phone- and tablet-centric. I do agree with some of this; the new photostream really strains under my bandwidth, especially when viewing others’ photos, and I can’t see the stats and titles as easily. Although it has been the default for groups and favorites and such, it does privilege landscape shots, and there are great photos by others that I’ve missed because of this.
2) Accessing the old photostream layouts takes extra steps, and not all of the old layouts seem to be available. If you know how to do this on the Web version, that would be great. I’ve been adding /?details=1 to the end of my bookmarks, like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/LeicaApostate/?details=1
3) The descriptions and comments are off-screen when looking at individual photos. This does mean the photos are larger, which I like, and I like the black background.
4) The new pricing structure… I actually like the new pricing structure, since I don’t pay anything, and now I get more storage, more groups, etc., but whenever you change pricing structures there is bound to be a rebellion no matter what. A lot of people are opting not to pay for the ad-free upgrade, which could mean trouble for Flickr, but I’m not sure. I would actually prefer to see more ads, since that would mean more money for Flickr, but I know I’m in the minority.
5) People don’t like the transparent menu bar on top. It takes up space.
6) EXIF, larger sizes, user profile, and such are hidden under a menu. Takes another step.
I’ve tried a few of the other sites that people are moving to, and I haven’t found any to be particularly better. I actually like the overall culture at Flickr (Thank you, Marco, for being the impetus for me to join and for your comments. 🙂 ), and the relationships that quickly formed there. I might register at other sites, but I will be staying at Flickr. I don’t like to spread my personal information around, and I tend to stay with current relationships. 🙂
this is very bad rumour for the m4/3 users.
when I sometimes read mu-43 site …I have feeling theres is many happy m43 users at states and big base
seeing the prices the US dolar prices…I cannot imagine that in EU they sell more m43 in europe than US
…so if they close in US ..pretty sure they will do in EU later
so they will focus only on Asia ?
Whats the point to close the business in US when you produce the goods on 1 factory ….why not to deliver to all countries ? …we are in the internet age…whats the point to limit by country?
Unfortunately in the US they have this habit – mot invented here, no go. That explains why Oly, and its original solutions never had a great welcome in the Land of the Free.
Consider also that I was thrown out from mu4/3 for having protested against a giant US flag in a picture, and having been mobbed by the local crowd, I was banned forever by the little man and local tyrant Amin Sabet, behaving like he were the dictator of Sierra Leone.
Respect American values, included fried chcken, Disneyland, and Poltical Correctness or you’ll be thrown, First Amendment notwithstanding – LOL!
Therefore if Oly folds down in the US, and they must need to import from Asia or from Europe it will be the just retribution they brought upon themselves. By comparison penetration of Oly in the UK in 2012 just doubled, so you can tell who is more tolerant of new camera directions.
You are full of insults. Every day. Most I could care less about, but it’s more than obvious that it’s you with the nationalistic problems.
I don’t even have a nation, American lamer. If anything I belong to a Region, rather more cultivated than yours.
Now you can KMA.lamer 🙂
You live in Italy which without any doubt has the most corrupt political system outside an African dictatorship.
Yes, it is very corrupt. Tossers like you don’t help make anything better tho.
Olympus is struggling in America because it’s…. Japanese? Isn’t *every* camera company (except Leica and Hasselblad) Japanese? I’m confused.
“Unfortunately in the US they have this habit – mot invented here, no go.”
Really…? You typed THIS, REALLY??
As a consumer, I won’t even touch this.. You’re a Joke, Seriously. -Honestly, I am humoring you for even responding to your Outrageous comment. Obviously, you don’t know much about Americans besides what you’ve read from some hateful comic or something.
And, as a American with family from England, I’m glad not all Europeans think like you. You’re a Jerk. You look like one, write like one and you probably Stink like one. And I hope that’s not you in the pic, because you look like some Pervert that would get thrashed in the streets of New York taking pics!
.
“”””And, as a American with family from England, I’m glad not all Europeans think like you. You’re a Jerk. You look like one, write like one and you probably Stink like one. And I hope that’s not you in the pic, because you look like some Pervert that would get thrashed in the streets of New York taking pics!”””
You have described him pretty well,he is a sleaze with a habit of taking long tele shots of unsuspecting women
Woah woah woah what a load of crap. Anyone nervous here? Go out and take photos for your sister’s sake. Whoops I was forgetting: you can’t.
They are trying to apply western logic to a strictly Japanese organization. It doesn’t work this way. Olympus Imaging has been around for 94 years. A few years of losses won’t tip it over, at least not while the company’s medical business can support it.
That said, Olympus should be more decisive as to its strategy. Killing its most basic compact camera line won’t do. They will have to keep working hard at the high end and – dare I say – be a bit more competitive price wise. The E-M5 is a good example of what an attractive product priced right can do for Oly’s reputation. 2013 seems to bring overpriced luxury cameras with limited appeal (which is fine), but a lot depends on the E-M5 successor which will appear next year. Olympus has a rare opportunity to sweep the market with it.
The report doesn’t forecast the demise of Olympus but that it will abandon the USA market. What % of USA mirrorless sales/profit does Olympus have?
North America takes 14.8% share in Olympus’ imaging business.
http://www.olympus-global.com/en/common/pdf/ar2012e_12.pdf
@PLI and @carl
Olympus imaging USA is probably running at a loss due to higher distribution costs, lower margins and the fragility of their bricks and mortar chain stores, also USA seems fairly entrenched with a DSLR mind set.
It’s always good to look back at the accuracy of past predictions, here is the 2012 article (2013 is not over yet, so, they may still be right):
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pf_article_112989.html
A quick Google check tells me that the only one they got right is Saab (and yet, I’m not sure if they are 100% dead, and when they made the prediction, they were already in very bad shape).
Last year they predicted Avon, American Airlines and blackberry would disappear, and whilst those brands might be struggling they are still around.
Even General Motors and AIG are still there, despite their unusual handling of reality.
I also think the cheaper p&s cams don´t make any sense for a traditional camera specialist. They have never ever made sense for any well-known camera maker. And this applies more than ever to a mature and saturated market.
The market doesn´t need 600 camera models any more.
So I think Oly should reduce it´s portfolio to ft/mft, a max of 3 Tough models, the stylus models and maybe 1 or 2 superzoom models. But that´s only the manufacturer point of view.
The other important question is: Will the resellers keep a manufacturer in their programs which is only offering a small portfolio of higher prices models? Or must Oly also offer cheap cams to keep in the shelf?
“They are trying to apply western logic to a strictly Japanese organization.”
The lack of transparency in Japanese listed companies means for years and years they can remain afloat with continuous losses due to creative accounting and Yakuza dealings…
*Olympus imaging will not go “bankrupt” but more likely bought over or swallowed by Sony.
olympus cameras will be gone in 2 years.. the shareholders will not accept this forever.
panasonic will drop out too… there is not enough room for such small players.
sorry to disappoint but if any camera company is going to suffer over the next 2 years it will be Canon and Nikon.
Isn’t this like the kind of stuff you said a few years back already?
@Raist3d
Wow! Posting under your own name for a change, how long will this last?
Hmmm… Canon and Nikon no longer have the largest selling mount in the home market (Japan), that’s taken by Mft. DSLRs continue to lose market share to mirrorless worldwide, DSLR growth has stalled or is falling in many markets. Canon and Nikon have no exit or change of strategy in the fast declining point and shoot segment.
Canon and Nikon had a heap of stock in Jessops, Jacobs and Comet in the UK who went bankrupt in the last 12 months. They also have a heap of stock in poorly performing bricks and mortar retail chains in the USA….
Canon and Nikon are unlikely to release anything exciting in the DSLR segment this year or in 2014.
> Canon/Nikon no longer have the largest selling lens mount in the home market
I’d like to see your math on that. I suspect you’re using the BCN numbers. First, they don’t represent the complete Japanese market, second, you can’t quite compare the mirrorless and DSLR numbers they report.
Using 2012 CIPA numbers (accurate) and BCN market shares (slightly suspect), m4/3 would be 22% of the home market, Canon would still be 23%+, and those numbers moved apart further in the first quarter of this year.
@Thom Hogan
http://youdidntdidyou.com/forum_images/olympus_omd_presentation_3_to_YouDidntDidYou.jpg data source BCN Japan
I would go for the Olympus, certainly.
Sorry. Canikon still nicely profitable. For example, Nikon Still (Mostly) Defying Gravity (May 9).
http://www.bythom.com/
“I use the defy gravity term because Nikon has managed to somehow do a few things that no other camera company did in the last year. Take compact cameras. The market itself lost about 20% in unit volume year-to-year, but Nikon went from 17.37m Coolpix to 17.14m Coolpix, barely over a 1% loss in volume. Put another way, they gained market share in a declining and very competitive market, a tough thing to do. The question, of course, is how many of those cameras are actually in customer’s hands at this point, and what was the average selling price to manage that task, but Nikon’s numbers don’t reveal those answers.
DSLRs (plus the Nikon 1) and lenses both came in slightly down from their previous estimate, though significantly up from last year. Both were a little softer in sales than Nikon anticipated in the first quarter of 2013, but look at these charts and you’ll see that that, too defied gravity a bit.
Overall, Nikon turned in a profitable year, though not a hugely profitable one (4.2% net profit margin before taxes). Cameras are now 75% of Nikon’s business, and after everything is said and done, basically all of their profits.”
Why?
Canon is like Apple: it can produce a turd and people will buy it as long as it has EOS on it or an L badge.
Nikon is dominating every market. Full frame DSLRs, APS-C DSLRs, mirrorless cameras. At least Nikon has understood that small compact ILCs only have a place in a price segment below DSLRs.
If Olympus goes under, it’s because their cameras are ridiculously overpriced. If a person has to choose between a PEN E-P5 and a D600, for roughly the same price, what do you think people will get?
@Mike
The days of Canon producing turds that people will buy are over, these are different times.
Nikon doesn’t dominate mirrorless (mft and Sony),action cams (go Pro), hybrid photo/video cameras (Panny).
“Nikon has understood that small compact ILCs only have a place in a price segment below DSLRs.” …even Thom Hogan will tell that they messed up their pricing with their failed Nikon 1.
The PEN E-P5 and a D600 are not similar priced and are aimed at two very different types of consumers.
D600 consumer is likely:
to be male, older and conservative
thinks bigger is better
likes spending more time editing/rescuing photos while stuck on a computer
doesn’t shoot live view
crops photos a lot because they can’t frame in camera
doesn’t change lenses in the field
doesn’t share his camera with other family members or friends
is happy for their camera to sit in the cupboard more often than not
lacks social skills and friends
is happy to buy a new computer to edit the 24mp files
btw Olympus E-M5 and Nikon D600 on flickr have similar upload and user numbers, so what gives?
Wow what a nonsense comment.
Nikon D5200 and D7100 have Panasonic video beat.
How about a D600 buyer that wants the lens selection? Whatever we are paying for a 12mm/2 or 75mm/1.8, you can get much more lens for the same money from Nikon.
Or what about people who do not want to compromise quality for size?
How about people that like to shoot wide angle? How do you want to do what you can do with a 24mm/1.4 or 14-24mmf/2.8?
And the most important part of my comment: $1500 for an E-P5 with (soft-ish) kit lens is ridiculous. For $1600 you have a D600. Olympus needs to adapt its prices if it wants to convince people to switch.
Youre kidding with all this right?
Maybe he is, but he is quite right. Try reading his comment again with an open mind, the penny might drop.
@Mike
Massive amounts of banding on Nikon D7100 hmmm… http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3495121
that poster has the same skills as you none, the shots are all deliberately a hugely underexposed you have posted dozens of shit images that can make any equipment look bad . I am genuinely curious are you officially retarded or whatever you Brits call it. In a forum which is literally filled to bursting point with idiotic fanboy posts you mange to stand out at a whole new level of dumb. Your interpretation of numbers is of particular amusement ,though what is most amusing is the idiots that agree with you .
wow ,who would have thought it if you underexposed a low light shot by multiple stops then push it in post by between 3and 10 stops you would have a problem lol
And E-P5 consumer is likely:
to be male, older and conservative
nostalgic about other people’s memories
happy spilling cash on bijoux and status symbols
interested in women much younger than himself
to mess with strange people’s teeth on a daily basis
(Just joking of course)
Hmm, In Japan 2012 the total sold Nikon mirrorless was 13.3% and the total Olympus mirrorless was 28.8%. So where is the Nikon domination in mirrorless?
Coming from scratch, you must admit reaching half the share of Olympus is quite impressive.
@Mike
Nikon’s own predictions were that they would reach 50% of the leading mirrorless competitor within 6 months of launching the Nikon 1 (October 2011) especially considering what a tough year Olympus had, so that’s a Nikon fail. The Nikon 1 is just an expensive for Nikon “flash in the pan”.
They didnt really come from scratch did they? They jumped on the mirrorless boat that was by the way created by oly and panny. THAT is coming from scratch.
I wouldnt worry much about your predictions, the death of m43s was predicted to happen around when the gh1 was announced. Im still waiting… meanwhile the high quality lens stable keeps growing and growing, with more on the way, not exactly a sign of a company dying off in as close as 2 years. Everybody and his dog has an omd, and gh cameras are flying off the shelves, how exactly did you come to your predictions?
The M is a turd..and it is not selling?
-Or is that personal opinion.
Don’t spew nonsense if you can’t back it up.
And stop spinning stuff as well. Sure, CaNikon isn’t saying much in Mirrorless, but how do they fare in everything else?
What is Olympus’s marketshare in DSLR’s??
SPin, Spin, SPIN!
What’s so hard to understand. If a company operates a business at a loss they must fold. It’s a shitty fact but it’s a fact.
LOL…look at all the camera business experts with no facts to back up any of their opinions! Very humorous.
While it’s true Olympus Imaging is not having exactly a peachy moment, truth also is that Yahoo’s article is a bit sensationalistic.
Well, I doubt they will be gone as a camera manufacturer any time soon…but I hope they cut overheads as part of reducing the compact camera business. That’s a problem with Japanese firms, they often reduce production in tough times, but don’t make the tougher calls like redundancies etc, so they just keep bleeding.
Don’t worry .
The new Pro OMD sure shine this time .
I might one of the potential buyer .
Yes…and baby Jesus “might” come back to earth, dressed in a tux singing Dixieland….
@yun
the problem with the so called pro OMD is going to be pricing the E-p5 with EVF is an £1150 ( i would never buy an mFT without an EVf )purchase no weather sealing etc considering you can buy the D600 with an excellent FF sensor for £1400 heck you can get the D7100 for under £900 so where would a potential pro model land in the price scale
“Honestly, I think there is a bigger chance that Yahoo will crash in 2014 rather than Olympus!”
That sentence made fun reading!
By seeing what they did to flickr in the name of ‘Pro photogs’ don’t exist anymore’, forcing upon old members an iPad/geek interface which negates photographic choices and careful composition, I hope that 2013 financial results explode in their faces.
The other side of the pond is desperately trying to raise easy money at everybody’s expense, Adobe being another example. Clearly they have lost their mind, and have no respect for customers anymore.
-Leave Flickr.
-Don’t use Adobe products.
-I hope you don’t have a iPhone/iPad, because if you do, WHY?
-Stay away from Aperture.
I hope you like SilkyPix…
Do people use Adobe any more?
I’d hate to see them go down, i highly doubt they will anyway.
They should simplify the naming scheme for the there m 4/3 series a bit too.
Probably confusing for the less attuned consumer say what?
It should be, ep-1/2/3/5 etc &
om/5/6 etc, or something like that,
it’s called k.i.s.s.
Well, I believe that Yahoo has 50% of changes of being right!!! How can we trust Olympus after all? If the continuity of the company depends on quiting the digital camera business, they will, beleive me.
u mean disaster?
Be wary of experts and analysts.
Analysts as seen on the webs are not experts in the vast majority of cases. There are some real experts but the vast majority are figments of their own imaginations. A Canadian comes to mind and some others. There are also the experts who just do things as they are So doing widen the real world, such as Steve Huff. There are those that make life understandable like Cambridge in colour and to many others to praise or decry, if only a little. No doubt there are many that enhance photography like Steve and Cambride in their own manner and many like the Canadian who will not let photography win out over their ego. Generally speaking all these people are good for photography, like them or not. They really do like their chosen thing. Photography.
Financial people on the other hand are a total waste of space and never find anything good to say unless they want the shares to go up or down (Rene Rivkin). There is a Sunday paper in Sydney (1 of 2 major papers) that includes a financial segment that has 8 subjects choosing $100,000 of shares in any 10 of the traded companies for a 1 week listing of growth or loss on the stock exchange. There is a Madam fortune, a dartboard and 6 real people at least 4 of whom are analysts with big financial companies. For the past half year the madam fortune has won at least 45% and the dartboard has never been lower than 6th. (it is a standing joke between the wife and myself over our Sunday paper read and bacon sandwich brunch.). So much for the financial analysts (feel free to look up yourself on the Sun-Herald Sydney web site), I think many will have similar tales. One that proves, in general, world finance is a load of rubbish, controlled by people who have no idea of what they are doing or saying, unless they want to make something happen invariably to feather their own nests. S&P comes to mind, a truly evil company, or were all the world papers wrong again? That why so many had to sell up and go broke.
Be wary of experts and analysts.
“”Be wary of experts and analysts.””
Yep , much better to rely on fanboys , blowhards and the often [very often ]dodgy rumors that appear here lol
The rumors here are all based on fact!
Admin gets some wrong from time to time.
But the rest are pure and written in the firm belief of the writer. The most expert of all, the opinionated writers.
most of the rumours area wrong or, put in such a vague way that simply by the law of averages some will be right eventually lol
I remember when everyone said Apple would die and fade away. Look at them now.
Listening to Yahoo criticize anyone is comparable to the CEO of Rim cracking on the iPhone. If they really knew so much about the business, you’d expect them to have a better financial standing and success.
“It says that the digital camera business from Olympus will disappear from the US market within 2014.”
My understanding was that Oly is already poorly represented on the US market. Also, US for some time was a rather unattractive market: weak US dollar, expectations of low prices topped with prevalent “bigger is better” mentality. (Great example of the twistedness of the market is that even as the recession peaked, recovery of the US auto market was driven by increased sales of SUVs, not economy cars. All that while oil prices steadily go up.)
Anyway, living in EU, I’m not particularly worried about such rumors.
“with prevalent “bigger is better” mentality. (Great example of the twistedness of the market is that even as the recession peaked, recovery of the US auto market was driven by increased sales of SUVs, not economy cars. All that while oil prices steadily go up.”
Ummm…got a source for that? Just a quick Google search on cars vs light truck sales in us shows car sales increased rapidly a least in 2008-2011. Heres just one example http://www.esa.doc.gov/Blog/2011/05/31/car-or-truck-why-gas-prices-help-drive-sales-cars-over-light-trucks
Considering its Yahoo analysts and given state of Yahoo, Im quite positive that they really suck at their jobs. 😀
Yea I agree, Olympus could have probably bit more of marketing in US, but so what, its not most important market for them. 🙂
Honestly, I don’t think that Yahoo will fail anytime soon.
Share price at 52 week high. Earnings per share $3.41.
Even knowing this is a rumor site, most times I see very interesting insights from smart people. But Amalric has the aspiration to be like Charles Bukowski. To you nothing better than a sentence from the famous american poet that says “many interesting people are full of doubts, while some stupid ones are full of confidence”. You must really be a teenager who is just discovering what’s under your paints. You act like you’re an expert on everything with a direct line with some kind of oracle, but your comments are getting worst over time (the exchange rates regarding the EP-5 kit was deeply ridiculous). Time to reboot and change sources pal.