Wall Street Journal (via 43rumors) reports: “Olympus said Friday it will raise ¥49 billion ($631.6 million) by issuing new shares to Sony Corp. With the capital tie-up, Sony will effectively become Olympus’s biggest shareholder, with a stake of 11.5% in terms of voting rights. The two companies also plan by the end of December to set up a joint venture to develop medical devices and to study collaboration in compact digital cameras.”
Olympus and Sony didn’t disclose any detail about the collaboration and I don’t know what to expect from this. Olympus has a great experience when it comes to high quality lens design. They are for example the only one doing f/2.0 fast zooms, the [shoplink 14498 ebay]14-35mm (here on eBay)[/shoplink] and the [shoplink 14492 ebay]35-100mm (again here on eBay)[/shoplink]. This is certainly something the NEX system needs urgently.
UPDATE: In a PDF released by Olympus/Sony they say: “The two companies also aim to enhance their competitiveness, primarily in the area of compact digital cameras, by exploring opportunities for mutually beneficial transactions and collaboration between their respective camera businesses, including the supply of Olympus technologies such as camera lenses and mirror cells to Sony, and the provision of Sony image sensors to Olympus.”
On Monday Sony and Olympus will have a press conference and we may will learn more about their future camera strategy!
55 Responses
First one here for the news of the day:) Sounds good.
Woohooo… good news…
mmh. the 12-35mm an 35-100mm are from Panasonic 😉
And 75mm f/1.8 is from Olympus 😉
yeah but that M4/3
Panasonic lenses are m4/3 as well, aren’t they?
Those are 2.8. Olympus make 2.0 for Four Thirds.
Maximums, the lenses the Admin mentioned, are for 4/3 cameras, not the micro 4/3 format. Also, the Olympus 16-35 and 35-100 are f/2, not the f/2.8 from Panasonic 😉
ah, i see. Forgot those 4/3 lenses.
the ebay link shoewd me a OM-D Kit with the Pana 12-35mm 2,8, thats why i posted it.
Great news for future Sony lenses.
If you like compact cameras, then yes.
this can only be good news for us 😛
GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD
Sony knows how to make a good business after all! 😉
cool =) SONYMPUS will rule the market.. maybe
Sonympusblad
LOL!!!!
Carl Sonympusblad
if anything.
SONYMPUSONICANOLTA
Olympus to ditch m43 and develop e-ount APS-c mirrorless Wahaha… Joke a side (hee) seeing that they mention compact camera… I wonder how Sony can benefit from this. I see Olympus gaining more from Sony technology…
As a shareholder, if Olympus do well, Sony do well. Assuming Sony aren’t losing sales to Olympus, they will also be further cementing sensor sales to Olympus in compacts and m4/3s.
Under each lens to bend the sensor?
Curved sensors will come eventually.
Nikon have had patents for this for years now.
Im sure Sony has similar.
Sony in a mission statement a couple of years ago stated they want their cameras to see BETTER than human vision.
Funny how God made the human retina curved. He must have know something.
+1
funny how god did not let us develop curved sensors to begin with if he knew something..
Oh he has give us his blessing WE just haven’t quite figured out how to do it/
;-
5 axis I.B.I.S.
Bring it.
Don’t forget fast CDAF
This is wonderful the camera that made me want to do photography was a olympus and my first digital camera was also a olympus, and I just got a mf olympus om lens for my nex-c3 soon to be sold to help pay for nex-6.
Sony + Minolta + Carl Zeiss + Hasselblad + Olympus = there’s no excuse if Sony still fails to compete with Canon and Nikon in the digital camera market.
Sony are already kicking the crap out of Canon and Nikon. You are talking about dSLR sales, not mirror-less.
Sony will have to make a deal promptly.
Such as
Sony will provide sensors to Olympus. Olympus however will have to make lens for NEX and share 5-AXIS IBIS technology to Sony.
eeeee that’s what the deal is about. Check the press note at Sony.net
Sony + Olympus = Soly 🙂
Solympy
Haha
Sorry to burst the bubble but it looks like the sharing only applies to P&S cameras.
http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/photo-news/539186/sony-and-olympus-join-forces-on-cameras-in-400m-deal-update-1-50pm
‘We will study the concrete possibility, for point-and-shoot cameras, that Olympus will supply camera lenses and lens barrels to Sony and that Sony will supply image sensors to Olympus.’
That’s a pity. Hopefully this is just the start though.
Sorry to burst your bubble, the RX1 is a point and shoot and under the cybershot division of Sony
I’d be keen on a full frame digital the size of an Olympus XA.
mirror cells???
sony to world domination.
PDF’s gone – your short dream of Sonympusblad is history already.
PDF gone but a HTML friendly version comes instead
http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201209/12-0928E/index.html
Well, all you guys complaining about the a99, better run out and get it now. Once they go down this route, DSLRs are out. That’s what happened to Olympus..
Too late. a99 is NOT a DSLR.
It has a mirror therefore it REFLEX
😉
but the mirror doesn’t move…………
Olym Nolta!
SoNikonOlmPentaxiBlad…. C’mon, Canon, there’s room for you, too. Sony sensor domination!!!
Sony should learn about those sweet Oly jpegs.
Interchangable sensors on refurbished OM bodies perhaps?
great! Hopefully, Olympus will make the sony firmwares
I think that initially there will be no lenses from Olympus to Sony. The primary objective are medical technology from Olympus and sensor from Sony.
Why do I say that? Because if Olympus is doing this because of financial matters, it makes no sense at all to start things that will make you spend a lot of money, like lenses development.
Can that happen someday? Yes, sure, but not now. People are thinking too big, this is certainly not such a situation. They will focus on what really matter and after that, who knows.
I doubt that anything different from medical stuff and sensor will happen within 1~2 years.
As much as I wanted Olympus lenses – any lens for f**** sake! – it won’t happen any time soon.
Olympus doesn’t have to start lenses development for Sony, just share Lenses expertise. That way, maybe Sony can deliver lenses of better or same quality, FASTER. They really need to catch themselves with the sensor and bodies.
Like to share Lenses expertise wouldn’t consume time and money. It’s not something you do in one day and Olympus do have their stuff to do, I don’t think that with all that happening Olympus has engineer resources to share like that. Sony does have some knowledge to make lenses and they can share expertise from Zeiss, they don’t need Olympus for that! They also didn’t acquires Konica Minolta for nothing, that’s the origin of their cameras!
I don’t think that the lack of expertise is what is holding them from launching lenses, the problem is that they have two different mounts and with the A65, A77 and A99, the NEX cameras were not a priority. But now NEX cameras are hot sale, well, it’s been some time now and we do f**** need lenses! Fast primes at least!
If people were already pissed at the lack of lenses one year ago, what about today? Meanwhile, they only announced the 35mm f/1.8 prime this year, but they announced NEX-F3, NEX-5R and NEX-6. It becomes hard to keep investing in the NEX series with this lack of commitment from Sony on the lenses front, the body:lens ratio is ridiculous, even more when there are tons of zoom.