ePhotozine reports that “Olympus is to investigate cracking around the screws of the screen bezel on Olympus OM-D models after many users discovered that their cameras have the fault. There is debate as to whether this is a manufacturing fault where the screws have been over tightened, causing the plastic screen bezel to crack, or whether it is down to the quality of the plastic itself. Olympus are unsure whether the problem is due to a faulty batch, and is currently looking into the issue.”
We just had these nice E-M5 deals for Black Friday….. I hope they didn’t ship you a faulty batch of cameras!
Speaking of US deals:
Four Thirds owner may be inetrested to know that there are new rebates on Samyang/Bowler lenses:
$70 off on the 35mm f/1.4 at at BHphoto (Click here).
$80 off on the 14mm f/2.8 at BHphoto (Click here).
More deals: $1039 for the 12-35mm X zoom at Amazon (via Panacam) and $299 for the G3 with lens at Bhphoto.
53 Responses
I think Oly will blame it on the user putting the camera through the shower test — not using the right kind of water or soap and a thousand other excuses. On DPreview some user even experience the tripod screw thread falling off leaving a large hole at the bottom… so much for being splash proof.
@observer.
You had a good look at the picture of the tripot mount plate?
I’m engineer and there is no way that a normal tripod mount could do that. You must be using considerable force to bend the plate like it showed there. Let’s not generalize this thing please, for what can easily be user error.
The base plate situation seems to be a real issue though.
Observer, you are not very observant. The tripod plate was a user-issue; Olympus have acknowledged publicly and quickly there may be a problem. Care to mention dust on a D600? Do you work for another manufacturer? Your post reeks of an outright attack on the brand without evidence or history to back you up.
As for the fault, I live and work in China and I’m betting somebody in QC slipped up on the raw materials side. Of course, it could be a design problem. Either way, I’m sure Olympus will fix it and do their best to eliminate the issue.
“You’re holding it wrong”
maybe we could help olympus to determine the defective batch informing the serial number of affected units…
i was thinking if people having this issue was not following the upper indication (for the fingers position) and, instead, pulling the lcd by the bottom edge, someway forcing exactly those screws…
That may well be an important trigger for the problem indeed.
But, a closer inspection of the bezel strongly suggests the problem is caused by a somewhat unfortunate design of the screw holes and the usage of plastics that aren’t strong enough to compensate for this. This very likely would not occur even with weaker plastics if the profile of the bezel wasn’t interrupted by the screw holes. This way the profile does not add to the strength of the bezel, if it were uninterrupted however that profile would have made it stronger.
Disclaimer, I did not dismantle an E-M5 display so far, so this is purely based on what can be seen from the outside.
Doh, I have the crack…
I wasn’t expecting this type of shoddy workmanship from Olympus. Having to sell a majority stake to one of their direct competitors just to survive appears to have been a telling blow. I think we can be expecting more of this now they’re in such dire financial straights.
Hear hear. A tiny hairline fracture in one of their products is an unequivocal omen for the demise of the entire enterprise.
Sigh… only on the internets…
lol
+1
Drama queens rule.
lol
+12345
Hear hear! A tiny hairline fracture in one of their products is an unequivocal omen for the demise of the entire enterprise.
Only on the internets…
E-PL5 hase the same screen, hasn’t it?
Doh…I have this same problem. What can we do about it and will Olympus replace this? It’s such a small problem that I really don’t even want to send it in. But it just bugs the hell out of you that you spend a thousand dollar on an equipment, you want it to be defect free.
Let me know on what you guys are doing. If you are sending it in for a repair. By the way…it’s the middle screw on the bottom.
Yes it is the middle screw, and I’d send it in for repair. Mine doesn’t show this crack, but if it would, that is what I’d do.
Reasons?
– weather sealing
– hair cracks tend to grow until something stops it, and it doesn’t look there is anything in place to stop it.
– as you say, a device, especially in this price range, should not have such a defect
– if many people send in their camera for repair, they are much more likely to come with a permanent solution
I have the problem.I wonder if that means that its weather sealing is now compromised.
My old Olympus C5060 has a cracked bezel so it is not a new problem to Olympus…
any on else waiting for the omd to be $500ish. Still think it is over priced
Why? It’s perfectly priced for what you get. If you do a bit of research, look at competition, look at Olympus line-up, you will see it’s priced exactly what it’s suppose to be.
Unlike Fuji who overprices for what they offer.
That’s kind of a cheap shot. I think Fuji prices are about right. The X-E1 is the same price as the E-M5. The two cameras are different with each having their own strengths. The X-Pro 1, which I own, is expensive sure, but it’s also the only CSC on the market with an optical viewfinder (except Leica — now THEY are overpriced).
Also, the X-Pro’s screen bezel is metal and doesn’t crack 🙂
yes, I’m looking for some of the newer bodies to drop in price. m43 bodies are released often, so they depreciate very quickly. The E-P3 for example sells for under $400 now, and it was announced just over a year ago. Let’s see where the OM-D prices are a year from now.
Well, what’s the big deal? This really is the only thing wrong with this camera, other than not being able to resize the focus area, the squishy buttons, strap lug placement, noisy IS, tripod socket falling out, having to buy a 300.00$ grip to make it comfortable to hold. Of coarse there is also the lack of black prime lenses and the cost of buying an over priced lens hood for every lens, and fact that buying Olympus products supports organized crime, but other than that, what’s not to like?
Aside from all that mine takes incredible photos, even with the crack….I am just going to keep shooting and to hell with that little singlet…Who cares!
Remember the E3? Same type of thing hapenning…they fixed it.
There actually is a huge difference between the E3 issue and this one. In case of the E3, the rear cover would separate itself from the display, but no actual cracking happened on the outside, and for an out of warranty E3 this issue was easy to fix yourself if you noticed it in time. If you were too late, replacement rear covers and even complete display units are still readily available. Think I repaired about 5 or 6 E3s with this issue, and fixed it preventively on my own E3. A simple preventive fix was also easy in this case. In all cases, it is possible to address this issue for little money, and without loss of proper weather-sealing.
This E-M5 issue however is difficult to repair oneself, it requires replacing the bezel. Also, it looks like there is no easy preventive fix for this that you can apply yourself, other then gluing some piece of plastic over the bottom part of the bezel. Hence, the E-M5 issue actually looks a bit more serious then the E3 issue to me.
But all that is moot for now, since every E-M5 around should still be under warranty, and as you correctly point out, Olympus addressed the E3 issue with very little fuzz, I’d expect the same in this case.
I was very tempted to get an OM-D this Summer but I thought I’d let the results come in from the beta testers first. I’m the opposite of an early adopter, I’m a late adopter. It’s also much cheaper.
Then you missed the sales on the OM-D.
I guess get a used one? Still don’t save much $.
Just got mine back from repair today, one of the upper wheels was falling off, I guess wasn’t glued really good. But was repaired on guaranty within a week, so at least uncomplicated and fast handling of this issue…
Mh, not really happy they did a complete reset as well, so my settings are lost. One the other hand, they did the firmware update, which wasn’t easy to do for me as a linux user, so it has also a good side 🙂
gave it a try for a month, took approx 1000 shots with it mostly outdoors and in some inclement weather (the only sort we get here in Wales). first impression was that the body and most buttons were solid but the wheels felt a bit flimsy and had the impression, due to weight, that the body metal was actually quite thin (similar to ep3) and not up to a good bash. final straw was when my second HDL-6 didnt work and I realised it was the camera not the battery grips that was at fault. if the em-7 has built in grip and a more solid feel then I will be interested but too many fiddly bits on this camera. Pany have almost got it right with the GH3 but I’ve gone back to my G3 for now.
Yep, I also have the crack on the middle screw. You can barely even see it but it’s there. 🙁
Mine is not having this issue. I have noticed that when mounting the OM-D on some tripod plates the plate actually pushes on the bottom of the screen, I wonder if this could have anything to do with the problem?
Another case of en-bezel-ment at Olympus…
Nice! 😀
darn… why did I have to read this post.. i checked my e-m5 and it has a crack at the middle screw too.. arg.
And here I thought only Panasonic was capable of doing anything less than perfect and Olympus was incapable of anything but perfection. Thanks for shattering my world view.
They were great with the OM film bodies and were pretty good with their 4/3 bodies, but I knew something was up, when I got one of the first EP-1’s and it felt like it was covered with thick tin foil, that wasn’t glued down to the body very well and flexed when you pushed on it with your finger. Then I tried to focus on something that was barely moving and knew right then, that Oly had gone down the shitter. Seems they are still down there too, as far as QC and policy goes.
This is making me feel better about my X-Pro1 purchase. 6 months, 8000 shutter clicks, absolutely no build problems
Just checked, I’m cracked at the middle screw too 🙁
I’m OK, thank goodness, but my EM5 got a tiny crack in the bezel 🙂
For me it’s quite impressive that Olympus recognizes faults in official statements so quickly, like they did with the banding issues. Compare that to other producers of electronic devices – for example Apple (still my favorite notebook producer) – unless all the media are reporting for weeks about such faults, they would never put an official statement out where they recognize them.
Of course, that’s only useful if they’ll finally solve the problem.
I am due to buy my wife one in 14 days when I leave Africa as they are not available here. I will still buy it. I have never had a problem with warranty with Olympus over my 20 years of owning them. They always have given it a really good clean out when something needed repairing at no charge. For the whiners. Failure rate for vehicles runs at 4-11%. The further you get from Asia in either Europe or America it s towards the higher rate. So make sure you don’t buy anything outside of Japan or Korea.
Cars break down. Would you not buy one because there was a known problem? Maybe, but you make an informed decision. With the information I have I will buy my wife one, and I will buy the e6 or em6 because I know they will have fixed the defect if it is across all manufacturing runs. That’s life.
Seems like quite a lot of crack owners here, guess I’m lucky I don’t have it. But it could be that people having it are more motivated to comment, so what does that mean anyway.
But if I did have it I would consider a little layer of epoxy on the bottom edge, covering the screws as well. A rather permanent fix. Actually I am even now wondering if this could be a smart preventive measure. Doubt I would ever regret it…
Don’t epoxy it! It would probably void your warranty and if you ever had an issue where the screen needed repair they wouldn’t be able to open it up to fix it easily.
Since the likely cause is the over tightening of screws loosening then gently re-tightening would be a better preventative measure.
You may well be right, but that will also void your warranty.
Update – In the meantime, I didn’t do anything and yes, of course, I’ve had the crack for around a month now. I think I’ll just keep on shooting.
Hi guys,
I have this problem on my OM-D and two days ago I called Olympus Italy and they told me that will return under warranty.We will see.
Thnaks
I got another problem. The cap of the shutter dial popped out only a month after I got the camera. I used an adhesive called shoe fix to fix it.
Probably it does happen due to some type of banging the camera, the bezel protrudes very dangerous. My OM-D it’s always with the grip attached and that saves it from banging.
I, sadly, do too have the crack. It is very very minor, however. So minor, in my opinion, that if some sort of free service from Olympus to correct said issue were to come about, I may not even both to trouble myself with the repair. But, if it starts to effect the function, then I’ll be having a talk with Olympus. This camera has never been dropped or mistreated; I baby my gear. Either way, I’d like to hear a response from Olympus concerning this cracking issue.
1st post.
I have cracks around left screw and middle screw. Mostly concerned as to whether they could eventually penetrate the display and cause an eyesore or a malfunction in it.
Mine shipped from Amazon on June 20, 2012. Silver model with serial number that begins BF350XXXX.
I had a lot of issues with mine freezing and have had a poor experience with their customer support
Any new news regarding this issue? I too have a cracked bezel (and just saw it after my camera had been returned after having to send it in because the sensor fried itself via the internal electronics…). PITA