Mr. Yukihiko of Olympus Imaging Development Division has been interviewed by DC.watch (google translation here). I highlighted the key info in the hope google translation tool didn’t fool me as it happens sometimes:
1) Worldwide DSLR+Mirrorless Camera Sales went down by 15%. But Mirrorless alone is till on expansion (Sales are growing for both lens and cameras).
2) The PEN series is not selling as expected in USA and Europe, but the E-M5 sold very well in Europe. (PEN and OMD are selling well in Asian countries).
3) The manager is confident that the E-M1 will sell better in EU and US than previous MFT cameras.
4) Future focus is on premium products (New OMD camera and lenses, and so on).
Note, there was a lot of talk about OMD and absolute zero talk about PEN. Probably Olympus marketing is betting on OMD cameras (and less on PEN’s) to increase their sales in 2014.
116 Responses
My opinion on PEN? Olympus shot themselves in the foot with the E-P5. Beautiful camera, but that price bracket with a clip on EVF? They’ll be watching the GX7 sales closely, because it should have been their market.
That said, I hope they are developing an answer to the GX-7. I’m buying an E-M1 for the PDAF and weather proofing, but I’d rather be buying a similarly specced camera in the style of the PEN FT.
It’s worth noting that Maitani only developed the 35mm OM series because the PEN-F half frame wasn’t supported by Kodak in the USA. It would be nice if Olympus brought out a modern PEN in his original vision.
Can you expand on what you mean that Olympus half frame failed only because it wasn’t supported by Kodak? The half frame model was able to use standard 35mm film, right?
Sure. Info comes from here:
http://www.olympus-global.com/en/corc/history/lecture/lecture2/part1.html , a lecture from Maitani San.
“Fuji and Konishi both produced half-size mounts, and so did Agfa. Only Kodak refused, which meant we couldn’t sell our cameras in America. However, the executive in charge of exports to America refused to accept this. He told me that we must meet our quota, and the only way to do that was to make a 35mm SLR.”
I’m far from an expert, but it sounds like Kodak wouldn’t support the half frame format for slide mount….and since Kodakchrome was the main slide film in the USA, this would have left the camera woefully inadequate for the USA market.
Maybe they should have done then, what I think they may need to do now. Exit the US market. Without subsidies to the US market the price elsewhere could drop and enable better market penetration and customer care in there rest of the world. The US is just not ready for small efficient, modern cameras. Olympus is banging their head against a wall trying to change that.
just look at their cars…. europe/asia has been getting more HP from 2.0l engines than america gets from 6L engines… lets not talk about corners 🙂
I think the US is behind when it comes to small and powerfull!
Actually I wrote that “Just the same, the US is not ready for 2 litre diesel fleet cars yet”. But I thought I would take it out.
Maybe you should take a look at the 2015 Mustang, then.
High performance 4 cylinder, 2.3L w/305HP
Maybe you should be looking at the new honda civic 1.6 diesel: 120ps, 3,6 l/100km consumption, 94g/km emissions, compact but roomy. That’s the European standard. Still totally different priorities.
Well done, froggy. Such arrogance will further endear micro 4/3 to American readers. You sure you don’t work for Canon?
Where did you see the arrogance? In Europe (unlike the US) consumption taxes on petrol are high and road taxes are calculated on the basis of emissions. In Europe, the market trends are set mostly by urban people while in the US they are set mostly by suburban and may be also rural people (that applies to both cars and cameras). In Europe people commute mostly by train, and move around by public transport (metro, suburban railway,tram, bus), in the US, unless you live in Manhattan or Fenway, chances are that you have to drive (possibly also through a stretch of highway), even to buy a bottle of milk. Now, multiply such cramped urban spaces by a thousand, and you have Tokyo, where (in the suburbs!) the average family flat is 60-90 square m. Hell, the US is (or was – airline restrictions may be changing that) different even in terms of luggage choice: while in Europe Rimowa was advertizing its luggage as “featherlight sturdy polycarbonate”, in the US they would sell you cheerfully stuff twice as heavy, with the argument that it has both a rigid internal body and an outer ballistic shell, therefore it is hefty and sturdy (and who cares if you only have to roll it to and from the trunk of the car?). I could go on, but if you cannot get the point so far, you never will (unless, that is, you do live in Manhattan!).
What about it? I see nothing.
The new 2015 mustang is beautiful. I own a 2002 supercharged GT and that new one would look great next to it 🙂
Oh! For our super marketing gurus. Selling more does not = more profit. It depends on the cost of sales to volume. And of course the camera is built with a sell price in mind and a sell cost is part of that. If the sell cost is limited to normal day to day operations then the volume need not be so high. The entire equation changes. At present the sell price includes a very high sell cost in the US. The sell cost elsewhere is lower.
So selling all those EOS M Caneras for $299 didn’t bring Canon any profit?
Or Nikon 1 for the grand total of £150…
Nikon 1 may not have started out profitable, but at least it bought itself market share. In the US it is the #1 or #2 mirrorless, duking it out with Sony. Samsung is #3. Micro-4/3 is way down the list of mirrorless formats in the US.
Nikon can afford to cross fertilize the 1 with profitable DSLR sales, thus crowding Olympus out of the market. The way the big boys play. Who do you think will win that battle for the US mirrorless market in the long run? Hint: A company that is profitable, not one struggling for survival.
Show us the source for your numbers Ronin.
A small detail regarding the ‘big boys’. Canon, Panasonic, Sony as well as Olympus have a business to fall back on to stay afloat, Nikon doesn’t, and as a result Nikon is in a much more vulnerable position then for example Olympus, despite the difference in current market share.
ronin Nikon are the most vulnerable camera company. They have almost gone before more than once. Almost 80% of their business is photographic and the compact market is shrinking and that effects them more than Olympus. If things carry on like they are it is predicated they will be gone within 5 years. Olympus cameras can be kept going by the medical profit they make. That option does not exist for Nikon. They have nothing to fall back on.
No Bob it didn’t. That’s why the new one is not on the US market.
DonTom: In Sweden we always used to mount the slides manually – very easy and the Pen cameras did sell well. My brother had one.
I didn’t know Sweden is part of the US market. I also didn’t know that when 1 person owns a specific camera, it dictates that the camera is popular…
Some more clarification from a quick google:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/kodachrome/discuss/72157613035503987/
Obviously Kodachrome did move into the format at some stage, given the image of a 35mm half frame mount on this blog entry!
http://av-workshop.com/blog/slide-scanning-what-type-of-slides-do-you-have/
Yes. Olympus really need a GX7 of their own. The E-P5 was a mistake.
I used to hope that. Now that I have a GX7 I’m happy. IMO, Panasonic now
owns the PEN market. It’d be nice if Olympus decided to compete there but
if not it looks like I’ll be using Panasonic bodies with mostly Olympus lenses.
Isn’t it nice to be in a multi-vendor system?
… and I would be buying even more happily a similarly specced (IBIS, manual controls, weather sealing) product close to the GM1 size!!! 🙂
-Don’t forget you’ll be paying more money too.
And really, not having weather sealed cameras never stopped me from making a camera purchase. Having ibis is nice, but its prasied so much, it makes me think most people that talk about it are criped or something. Is ibis THAT MUCH of a Crutch? Is it needed to that much, otherwise you can’t take a decent pic?
And what is up with this “Olympus needs to make a GX7-Like camera”?? No, they don’t! Why don’t you just BUY the GX7? !
Pathetic blind fanboyism at its finest.
I hope they never make a GX7 like camera. I hope the E-P6 is just like the E-P5 same VF and all! I hope the next Pen uses the same old milked sony sensor. In fact, I hope Olympus sells off the camera division, and someone rids of the Olympus name off cameras for good!
Y’all dont deserve jack, BUT paying for overpriced name bragging equipment. I hope oly lenses keep getting bigger as well as their cameras… the second coming of Four Thirds is upon us…
LOL!!
Agreed they made a big mistake omitting the viewfinder on the E-P5.
Yes. They shot themselves in the foot with the top pens. The way it was presented makes it just a SHG phone. I said some time ago that the pen top cameras must have built in evf.
Without it they are just heavy phones. Also next to useless where the sun shines.
They could even go as far as making it a real rangefinder. Ability to take m lenses with an Oly speed booster would be nice. Making AF available for zoom and long lenses, which a real rangefinder finds hard to do.
a bit over the top opinion, but funny.
“Maybe, maybe not.”
PEN appear to be treated as expensive compact cameras, and we know what is happening to that market
Too bad…I bought an EP5 Kit. (VF4, 17mm f/1.8)…sold my EM5 within a month and decided I did not need an EM1. This Pen is everything MFT needs to be for me. So overlooked. I have no issue with “The Wart…the VF is far superior to the GX7, centrally located and easy to use. I myself am surprised how much I love this setup…it was going to be my “second” body, LOL. Just ordered an EPL6 from Hong Kong as my back up body…this system complements my FF system so for my needs the Pens and the best lenses are the perfect combo. Small yet powerful.
Bob, I understand your pleasure with this camera. I have an E-PL1, it has worn the VF-2 for 3 years. When I get my E-M12, the VF-2 will be handy for some shooting (low level macro in very bright light I imagine).
BUT….after 3 years, I can also report that it is an annoying wart to have on an otherwise sleek camera body. If you have a close look at a PEN FT, and imagine a reasonable EVF where the VF is….you may get what I mean.
I am happy with THIS camera. The VF is an incredible piece of tech and it unplugs for travel. Like I said I am surprised how much like this camera…It is so well built, so fluid to use…just a joy. The VF is a wart (as I said in my post), but what a great wart. The IQ is great.
Totally agree! I now own an E-M1, but I miss the E-P2 for the extra mobility it provided. Always debating for an E-P5, but I have a few good 43 lens and love the weather sealing.
The E-P5 has always been interesting to me..hmm maybe later :-0
Same here. I absolutely *LOVE* my E-P5. I’ve always liked the PEN form factor and the clip-on (clip-off!!) viewfinder! I could not live without a PEN camera.
I currently own: E-P2, E-P5, D7000, 6D and A7.
So, you collect junk. Have you got lenses? Flashes? Are you any good at taking pictures?
As E-PM1 and E-PL5 user, I must say is more than enough for me. E-P5 is just a beauty I want to have, maybe when on sale.
If the Pen had an EVF, like customers are begging for since its introduction in 2009 (!!!) they would not have to worry about sales that much.
There’s no doubt in my mind that they would have better sales if ALL of their m43 cameras had viewfinders. However, their marketing is still awful. They need to get the “dSLR in a smaller package” message out there or they’ll be stuck with the enthusiast market only.
And moreover, they have to have their camera on displays!
If I go to ANY electronics shop, and I mean ANY, I see boatloads of Nikons, Canons and to smaller degree Sony and Samsung. I have never ever seen ANY Olympus nor ANY Panasonic camera on display that was not a crappy compact, not even a Panasonic LX or Olympus XZ: only crappy low-end compacts. What a heck of a message is that to the layman? That they only do crappy low-end stuff (Nikon and Canons do make crappy low-end cameras too, but I seldom see them on display).
In the USA, I have never seen ANY Micro Four Third camera or lens, EVER, not even in a dedicated photo shop (I’ve not been to the “big” shops such as B&H, but that’s representative of 99.99+% of the US population). Only one dedicated photo shop had once a (very limited) stock of Olympus gear, but it was not on display and they showed it to me only upon pressing requests.
Now their (stupid) marketing department says “but most of the sales are online anyway”, which is true. However most US consumers want to hold the camera in their hand before springing out its price, especially if it’s a more than a few hundreds, don’t you get it?
Do you think Nikon and Canon are stupid? They have their cameras on display EVERYWHERE, including grocery stores! Yes, Target and Costco (which I call grocery stores since they sell lots of groceries) have LOTS of Nikons and some Canons and Sonys on their display. The other day I went to Costo and it had THE WHOLE line of Nikons on display from the Nikon 1’s to the D7100 all of them where there (with their kit lens). What do you think people learn about that? I don’t want to sound sexist, but this is what I see happening with my eyes: wife goes grocery shopping, husband goes together. He stops with her at the camera display (strategically placed at the entrance) and shows her the camera he’s interested in. What does the husband learn? What does the wife learn? What the Christmas gift (even if bought online) could be?
Unrelated but telling: at a luncheon I met a old, wealthy, experienced amateur photographer (mostly landscaper). He was truly a guy interested in making great pictures (he showed me his ones: very beautiful, many taken at the end of long hikes). Unlike we folks in this forums, he used gear for a purpose, he did not care too much about the equipment, he cared about the results (but was willing to shell out money for better gear, when needed for the quality and/or for the convenience). He had never heard about mirrorless! These are the people that Olympus and Panasonic should target in their marketing! These are the people who can spend money, make great picture with m43 gear and enjoy their size/weight advantages, and in the end spread the word. Until Panasonic and Olympus don’t fire their camera’s marketing people, they are doomed to continue losing money on their camera divisions (luckily for us, their other divisions are profitable, so they are unlikely to go out of business, so we can enjoy their gear which is great, until the CEOs decide to kill them)
Maybe the US is just not a very important market anymore.
Approximately one sixth of the cameras sold are in the US/Canada/Mexico and that percentage will shrink over time.
Is it worth spending resources on that market when the ‘bigger is better’ attitude is so prevalent and that money would reap bigger rewards if it was targeted elsewhere.
Just a thought…
The “Americas” market might be shrinking, but it is still huge: from http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201306_e.pdf out of 7.2 millions interchangeable cameras shipped worldwide in the first half of 2013, 1.7 millions were shipped to the Americas or 23% which is closer to 1/4 than to 1/5 and certainly not the 1/6 you claim.
I don’t recall exactly and can’t find now how many interchangeable cameras Olympus and Panasonic sold/shipped, but I believe it’s in the 1 million/year ballpark each, i.e. 1/2 million per the half period reported above (the closer I can find is http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/its-financial-report-time.html but it does not have Panny and it collapse Olympus numbers from interchangeable and fixed lens cameras).
So a company that sells about 1 million cameras per year worldwide (losing money on the business) can ignore a market with 3.4 millions purchases per year? Yes, it’s a tougher market, but it is one when they have lots of potential if they replace their incompetent Japanese marketers and hire local ones.
NO EVF… AND only a shitty 460k display.
when they don´t include an EVF then you should expect you get a good lcd display for 450-600 euro. but no.. olympus only puts crappy features into the pen cameras.
EP5 has Screen Dots: 1,036,800
Body price will come down.
http://www.olympus.com.au/Products/CompactSystem-Cameras/PEN-Bodies/PEN-E-P5.aspx
Not much room to pivot PENs, maybe improved connectivity, made to order skins and get them more in the hands of Western celebrities (preferably female).
Also need to introduce in camera panoramas, make the photostory feature more like Fuzel app and introduce custom gradient maps (but give it a better name).
Maybe make a video centric O-MD and also a super tough version.Forthcoming O-MD “lite” needs to be available in white and maybe some other colours.More fun or interesting lenses and also a Olympus fisheye with new features…
Olympus and Panasonic also need to reinvent camera flash on board and off camera…something that “knocks the ball out of the park”.
I would like to buy a PEN. But the features were to weak (no HDR, no Pano (&no EFV))!!!
So I still have to wait….
only a 460k diplay.. and for what price?
i can get an aps-c DSLR for that money.
only idiots buy PEN cameras….
Except that the E-P5 blows away any APS-C DSLR in terms of IQ and speed. I can tell comparing to my D7000.
APS-C DSLRs are the worst compromise: they are big and bulky like a full frame DSLR, but have the IQ of a crop sensor. On top of that, there absolutely no decent lenses for APS-C. It is a fucking joke.
lol no mFT even matches the best last gen APS sensors let alone betters this gen ,even the lowest end cheapest Nikon outperforms the E-P5 image quality:
http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Nikon-D5300-versus-Olympus-PEN-E-P5-versus-Nikon-D7000___919_883_680
The 2010 D7000 outperforms the 2013 E-p5 in every image quality criteria ,DR,color depth, high ISO noise ,DOF control.But,hey you could be right and every professional review site on the internet could all be wrong lol.
The mFT forum is the camera equivalent[ ooops I forgot how much you all hate that word] of guys buying small sized condoms.Then desperately trying to convince themselves that smaller is better
Merry Christmas my small camera holding chums lol
“”On top of that, there absolutely no decent lenses for APS-C. It is a f^&*( joke.””
Mike ,
Nikon and Canon APS users have lenses covering from [FF equiv] 14mm -1800mm [not forgetting various tele-convertors] covering everything from ultra-wide to super telephoto.They are all native mount with full AF and full compatibility,then there are a huge selection of off brand APS lenses. From sigma we get a 19mm F2.8 they get an 18-35mm F1.8 🙁
The only downside is that some o the lenses are on the large side but this allows for the potential of an upgrade path for those who may eventually go to FF. Though surprisingly some dirt cheap native APS lenses like the Nikon 35mm F1.8 deliver very decent results.
The E-P5 does not even match the last gens best APS let alone this gens. It is these type of blind claims that make us mFT users look like daft.
http://www.dxomark.com/Cameras/Compare/Side-by-side/Nikon-D5300-versus-Olympus-PEN-E-P5-versus-Nikon-D7000___919_883_680
But who knows maybe every single professional review site on the internet are all wrong. Bottom line if you are truly worried about the best image quality mFT is a poor choice. We win on size 7 weight , having a good selection of decent lenses with great video from Panasonic and cool features like 5-axis. There is an unavoidable price to pay for the smaller size.
to oly guys reading this, any chance to have a premium-ish zoom?
meaning:
– significantly better than the kit ones.
– but a bit smaller and affordably cheaper than top-pro line.
This would be nice!
I don’t think there is place between the 12-40 f2.8 and the 12-50mm f3.5-5,6. Rather they’ll add a super snall zoom like the Panasonic 12-32mm.
at least in terms of build and iq, i do think there is a little gap between 12-40/2.8 and 12-50/3.5-5,6 don’t you think?
back in 4/3 there use to be a 14-42 kit, then 14-54 and 12-60 premiums, then rich guys’ top-pros.
you oly, put a 25% off on the 12-40 or i’m keeping my 14-54 while holding my euros.
In build? not that much.
In quality? yes, there is a fair bit of difference, through you get more range in a much lighter package, so I’d rather call it a different trade-off.
Where is the E-7?
Dead & gone….
If I understand the automated translation right, the guy says that they aim to bring cameras “able to compete FF image quality” with the “smaller” 4/3 sensor working on the pic engine and lens quality…
He also says we can expect “specs easy-to-use than ever, such as minimum shooting distance, in many ways”… and a lens “easy to operate and small”… Is that the new “cheaper” kit-zoom they plan to release with the next OMD (12-40/2.8-4 🙂 )?
You have to laugh at the excuses that get made by Olympus [ women are too poor to buy mFT lol] and made for them by their fans for the poor sales.As for the claim about mirrorless sales growing not on a worldwide scale . Mirrorless sales are 83.5% of what they were last year DSLR sales are 84.2% of what they were last year [ both stats cover JAN-OCT 2013 ]
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201310_e.pdf
Sorry for the facts I know some of you guys get up set with reality
I am starting to get a bad vibe about mFT despite all the bull crap we get fed the bottom line is that there has not been any improvement in image quality for coming up on 2 yrs.It looks like their plan seems to be to milk the market with increasingly expensive gear. Got to cater for that huge “Pro” market lol, the mFT Pro market is so small that just about every pro who has ever touched a mFT camera gets a link from here. mFT are rare in most of the world and rarer still amongst Pros
Olympus are a bunch of liars. They have excuses for days. They’ll blame anyone but themselves. If I was Panasonic, I would distance my company as much as possible.
I said it before, M43 needs to stay small and affordable. What Panasonic is doing by going smaller will do very well for them. Even after buying the GX7, I am feeling the same way somewhat of M43. I see them losing the Mirrorless race. I’m going to sell my GX7 and go Fuji.
When Panasonic decides to bring the GM1 to the states in all black, I might pick that up, becsuse I’m keeping my 20mm & 25mm lenses. I just feel the 43 sensor will never be better than it’s APS-C competitor. And the Fuji X system has been getting better.
In case you haven’t noticed the previous rumor, Panasonic (as well as having just gone smaller), is about to go even bigger than the GH3 with a purpose built video body.
But you don’t even notice what you write, so I guess that would be too much to expect. Most of us here realise that having large and small bodies is a strength of the system, not a weakness. But I guess you just come here for the attention, so it doesn’t matter.
It’s obvious that I already mentioned that… You’re upset, I know. It is what it is.
I’ve mentioned that the GH series is big because it’s geared to videographers. It’s has a AA filter that is necessary for video. It’s big for rigs and such. Most shooters will buy it ONLY for video. Panasonic should stay small, Stills-Wise. I hope they make a whole series of lenses for the GM1.
Most pros will shoot FF or APS-C, not M43. Those that do shoot M43 professionally are such a minority, it’s not even worth mentioning. M43 will ALWAYS be a second or even third option to a professional. I see enthusiast shooting more Fuji or Sony. -Where does that leave m43? Last place.
You may think I’m hating, but I’m not. I just see it that way. Don’t like what I say, fine, shoot with what you got and be happy with it. I shoot with my GX7 and even though I love the sharpness of the pics and color, it doesn’t compete with my Canon 6D in DOF and High ISO, which is why I’m going to sell it and either wait for the XPro2 or XE-2.
I mostly don’t like your extremely unpolite attitude, your stating opinions as facts, and generally acting like a noisy and very obtrusive person with a serious attitude problem.
Like to post your ‘opinions’? fine, but don’t be surprised when people have an opinion on that and voice that opinion. Don’t like it? don’t post or grow a better attitude.
That’s strange.. I never claimed anything as “fact”, it’s my opinion and in the free world, you have the right to not agree.. wow, I never knew voicing my opinion on M43 would hurt feelings.
“That’s strange.. I never claimed anything as “fact”,”
Lets see…
“Most shooters will buy it ONLY for video.”
Correction: YOU THINK most shooters will buy it only for video.
Just an example of you stating an opinion as fact.
“it’s my opinion and in the free world, you have the right to not agree..”
Considering how you respond to people who do not agree, its good to hear that you at least realize people have that right…
“wow, I never knew voicing my opinion on M43 would hurt feelings.”
A silly assumption presented as fact. See a pattern here?
I think yaa is a prat. I think yaa works for some M43 manufacturer. I think it’s the sort of trolls nobody needs in a forum. I also think yaa knows sod all about photography, and politeness.
Yeah, he’s upset and a little slow. Maybe for now on I should Dumb down my comments, like: “FACT: The PEN series is not selling very well, if at all.”
“IN MY OPINION, I think MFT users, mostly Olympus Fanboys take what I say too serious. Maybe there’s some truth to what I’m saying.”
At the end of the day, A Camera is a TOOL. -STOP acting like one.
“At the end of the day, A Camera is a TOOL. -STOP acting like one.”
Some of that medicine would quite help you MrAllcrap.
I think you should learn some polite language
Yaa,
(I think that 🙂 ) Most people here agree with you.
Don’t waste your time with him
please buy something other than mft so you wont come and post here anymore, no one cares what you think
Yeah, no one care, but you… You replied to my comment.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.
Spoken like a true troll……
Yep, the only mission you ever accomplish is constantly demonstrating what an absolute idiot you are. Congratulations. You’ve done it again.
Mr Allcaps, does that mean you’ll stop posting here ?
Olympus should focus on not bringing out overpriced cameras with tiny sensors
They should also focus on not committing mass corporate fraud on an unprecedented scale.
(and people who whine about DSLRs being too heavy need to join a gym, lol)
Better to make big sensors with oil splatter, dust and out of focus corners!
Of course it is and with a metering system that provides inconsistent results, which was confirmed by one of their technicians.
Enjoy your D800 with missed AF, and your 85mm which is soft and utterly sucks compared to Canon’s 85/1.2.
My E-PM2 is a wonderful camera…and this past week it was on sale on Amazon with the 14-42 and the 40-150 for 350 dollars…what an awesome deal . If Olympus wants to sell more cameras in the U.S. maybe they should advertise more here . The only Olympus ads I see are little popups on the internet . Be more visible…I did get an E-M1 as well and the image quality is not a lot better than the E-PM2 but the tracking is very good . I shoot ice hockey and rugby with good results
Olympus and Panasonic need to sell their DSLR-styled cameras (E-M1/M5, G6, GH3) through Best Buy and not correct them when they list them in stores and in their circulars as “DSLRs”. BB had a Black Friday circular with the Sony A3000 “DSLR” (actually said it in the description) right there with the true DSLRs. The average US consumer doesn’t know what the “SLR” part of that term actually means and they generally don’t care either. They “know” DSLR means capable camera, even if they never take the kit lens off. Let their ignorance fuel sales. A G6 or E-M5 (or new model below it) sitting amongst the bulbous CANIKON DSLRs might get some attention due to its (I hate to say this since I own an E-M5) “cute” size.
The G series would be a Great Camera for the United States if Panasonic would just market it for what it is, a DSLR alternative. Smaller and feature rich.
I think the G6 and the GM1 would sell like hotcakes if they were in Best Buy and marketed correctly. I also dont think Olympus cameras won’t sell in BB, for the simple fact that they dont look like DSLRs or a Point & Shoot.
I agree with you on this
well teh pen cameras are crap.
i had a e-pl1 a few years agon and it had a shitty 460k display.
then they released the e-pl3 and it still had the shitty 460k display.. who in his right mind would buy such a crap twice?
after some time i looked at the e-pl5 and guess what…. yes same the shitty 460k display.
The amount of vitriol, xenophobia, stereotyping, envy, misrepresentation and plain nonsense that’s being spewed by a disproportionate large number of posters is now exceeding comical proportions. There are better things to do than keep follwing a bunch of miserable jerks. I gotta do the laundry. 🙂
+1 Yup. After reading that weneed to go to gym to use DSLRs, and the sad information that MrAllCaps is going to leave the system to go to fuji, I’m going to take a coffee with a lot of sugar and clean some lenses. 🙂
Aww… Don’t be like that… I’ll still be around. After all, I’m not letting go of my 20mm & 25mm. And if Panasonic brings a GM1 to the states in all black, it’ll be mine.
All black? Obviously a man of style over substance…..
Really? I would think it the other way.
I for one don’t like the Silver/Black camera. I have a AE-1 Program, and I wish I had the all black version. STYLE? You sound dumb, seriously. I consider Black discreet. I happen to use my cameras, not having them dangle around my neck like jewelry.
You want style over substance? Refer to Leica/Olympus fanboys. They like Silvery stuff, dangling from their necks, sitting on their shelves like Trophies. You may be one of them…. In Denial.
Who needs a PEN if Olympus will make a low-end OMD with integrated EVF for about 700$? Ok, maybe a low end PEN, but I can’t see that there will be a need for “high-end” PEN.
This is really bad news for me, if I wanted an SLR styled camera I’d buy an SLR with a proper sensor! M43 should be small and discrete. The reason people didn’t buy the Pen was no viewfinder and looked a bit naff.
If Oly came out with a Leica / Fuji X body they will sell more then OMD.
Yes, although I love my E-M5 I end up in using far more my E-PM1, so the next one might be the GM1.
Probably Oly suffers from an unconscious drive to its past, OM. Leica after all never stopped doing the same form factor.
The GX7 is a great design, and if Oly misses it, it will end up in killing the Pens. Things evolve, and if you listen to K. Tuck we might even be in the Last Days of Pompei, sseeing the last material cameras, the new generations shifting entirely to phones.
Well, I don’t mind, too old, but give me at least one perfect camera before the end 🙂
In memory of my film Leica and Contax G1 (especially the last; RF and AF!!!), I favored RF style cameras like E-P1 and onwards. Now I have the EM5 and more and more prefer that hump form factor. Tried the GX7 and while nice did not bring me on.
Forgot the subject 🙂
Oly does right thing; go where the margins and profit exist, build on success. One thing – remember about the lenses. There is now time for tilt/shifty. Make the 45/1.8 the first in a line of great, low cost prime lenses. Make the short DOF experts happy with 1/1.2 primes.
Maybe if they make their products readily available once they’re announced, instead of having to wait several weeks…
I love it. Olympus says they wished the Pens sold more and the 43rumors crowd just assume it’s about the E-P5, forgetting about the Pens that are supposed to be the sellers by simple virtue of the low price points.
Sorry, Olympus, but you going down the same (unsuccessful) path as you did with your original 4/3 system. Bigger and more expensive cameras is not the best path IMHO. I certainly do not expect the EM1 to outsell the EM5 given the current pricing here in the USA. Staying below $1000 is a better stratergy with fewer competitors for the mirrorless share. I am fairly certain that Canon & Nikon will compete with Sony (& Fuji) for those $1000+ cameras, driving prices down and hurt Olympus if they are solely focused on this market.
Follow-up on the success of EM-5 (or take a leaf out of Panny’s GM-1), keep it small, but flexible, fast and reliable. Continue building fast, small primes (8mm/f2, 10/2, 25/2 macro, 100/2.8 macro, 150/2.8, 300/4, etc. Don’t focus on building more of these large but fast zooms as they offer little over the competition. Another move should be a fast fixed lens EM styled camera. Again look at the GM1 add a viewfinder and a fixed 17/1.8 ED version lens. And lastly, get someone in who knows about style, hire someone from Porsche (like Contax did many years ago). Sony clearly wins the award for the ugliest mirrorless cameras but the EM-5 & especially EM-1 are not far behind. Even Panasonic, maker of boring electronic appliances, has two of the best looking cameras on the market.
Oh really, you don’t expect the E-M1 to outsell the E-M5? Genius. Neither does Olympus. That’s the way it goes with tiered models….the lower levels sell more than the higher ones. Don’t want something the size of an E-M1? That’s manageable…buy something smaller. I really don’t understand the folks that don’t quite get the concept of choice…….
p.s. Good luck mounting a 300/4 on a GM1 sized camera!
“p.s. Good luck mounting a 300/4 on a GM1 sized camera!”
The other way around will work better, mounting a GM1 sized camera on a 300/4 🙂
He probably expects the Nikon D4 to outsell the D7000 as well.
I think someone should explain the basics to him.
This interview was really talking about sales from a Western perspective.
I believe the Pen sales have been very good in Asia, particularly Japan, but that;s a very different market.
According to the report as cited by admin: “The manager is confident that the E-M1 will sell better in EU and US than previous MFT cameras” That to me implies better than the E-M5 so Olympus does expect the E-M1 to be a better seller. Comprende numbnuts DonTom?
I have no interestof in the E-M1, it offers nothing for me over my E-M5 but I hope it is successful particularly in the US despite the poor marketing effort. I’ve invested in half a dozen primes from Oly/Panny but have not seen anything to interest me since the 75mm or 60mm primes. So Olympus isn’t making too much money from me and that is not going to change based on their road map.
@Stunt Cupid
The O-MD user group on Flickr has grown by 30% since the E-M1 was launched, I think Olympus are pleasantly surprised by the demand for the E-M1 and by all accounts is selling well.
YDDY, we know you are a great mFT fan and a true believer in the system.But your claims about the success of mirrorless and mFT in particular are infamously unreliable.A tiny selection of O-MD users on flickr means nothing.
There is only one data set that matters namely CIPA:
http://www.cipa.jp/stats/documents/e/d-201310_e.pdf
It covers every single camera to come out in Japan the key statistics are firstly that up till the end of October 2013 mirrorless sales are 83.5% of what they were in this period last year. DSLR sales are 84.2 of what they were in this period last year. So mirrorless sales are down just as much as DSLR sales a little more actually.
Till the end of October there have been 14,121,861 interchangeable lens cameras sold of which 11,579,973 are DSLRs which is a fraction over 82% of the market.So you have just under 18% of the market accounted for ny mirrorless.
So without doubt or hype or wild claims worldwide mirrorless accounts for 18% of the market. Shared between Olympus, Panasonic, Sony,Fuji, Pentax ,Canon and Nikon. At best with current sales the best number for mFT share of this market is around 40-45% that is between 7.2-8% of the market. That means there will be 10 DSLR’s sold for every mFT camera using the higher market share number. To further put this into perspective Olympus at its peak held 9-10% of the DSLR market.
Even in the best market in the world for mirrorless [Japan] 64% of the market is DSLR and DSLR sales are actually up 39% on the same period last year.In Europe 7 out of 8 interchangeable lens cameras sold are DSLR, in the USA 9 out of 10 are DSLR, even in Asia 75% of interchangeable cameras sold are DSLR.
mFT is perfect for me as I very much appreciate the lighter more compact gear ,which I value more than absolute image quality.But the fact is if you exclude size from the equation you can get better image quality and very often for less money.
I do not see why you feel such a pressing need to constantly push forward your rather unique interpretation of the “success” of mFT. Obviously as a mFT user I want the companies to be stable and make profits so that they can continue to make the products I love.
Your interpretation of the numbers are so far off reality that they are often laughable, your regular claims about Flickr being a case in point.I do not need mFT to dominate the market and it never will,the fundamental flaw in your arguments is that you are so blinded by what “you” think is right that you simply cannot see the bigger picture.
You’re talking about the whole mirrorless market share, YDDY is talking about EM1 growth on flickr only…
Do we have more detailled datas for mirrorless showing shares for each model/brand?
Not official numbers but sometime we have leaks. I can’t fine the more detailed one I saw months ago, the best I can find now is http://www.sansmirror.com/newsviews/its-financial-report-time.html
i converted a iphonetographer to the em5! they bought the 40-150 r and the 12-50 em5 kit, and they couldnt be any happier. the reason behind it was the size of the entire kit compared to the d7000 etc plus the great controls and speed.
Wow, what is up with all the hate? Do not like the system? Fine, do not invest in it, plain and simple. From what I can see the people that complain the most are people that yearn for full frame. They complain about prices, and that I can understand, but I also understand that certain features cost money to R&D (let alone implement). If we want the system to have great IQ (like the one we have now), it will keep costing more.
Do not like expensive lenses? Well, if they are weathersealed, very fast, and very well built, they will cost a lot as well. I bet if they all were released built like the 45mm (a great lens) people would complain as well. On that note, I think the best option for any m43 company is to build both versions (a pro metal version and another version like the 45mm kind of build quality to keep the price a little bit down).
For me, it is close to perfect and I am very happy with my EM-5. I have all the lenses I could ever need with the 14/2.5 17/1.8 25/1.4 and the 45/2.8
Maybe a macro but I will not use it much (if at all).
In fact I find the lack of brick and mortar shop as a motive for lack of penetration of m4/3 in the US the worst excuse. How to justify that some European countries have twice the penetration in the same conditions? m4/3 was in fact born out of Internet Commerce, as witnessed by this same site. Even the fact that they are smaller cameras facilitate delivery.
The recurrent trolling about FF tells instead of badw ill towards new photography and of a desire to keep the class divide between those who use FF dSLR and those who use P&S or cropped SLR. It tells about a ferocious capitalism that has no social compact anymore. That is why some say or imply that mirrorless are ‘communist cameras’, since they cross that divide.
That is why m4/3 is not sticking in the US, although perhaps Sony might succeed in re-establishing the social divide with the absurd price of its mirroless lenses. Unfortunately camera makers are playing the same game by raising the prices per unit, and putting at risk the easy environment that m4/3 was in its beginnings.
However if one is ready to be patient there’s always some discount that makes possible to put together an inexpensive system, precisely by comparing prices on the Internet.
In fact this is heading to be one of the largest system ever, without the brick and mortar having any big part.
Somehow this place actually managed to get even worse…
Hi
People do like to debate equipment. It’s part of the fun of being an enthusiast I guess. It has nothing to do with picture taking as such.
On the design question I think that the EM5 looks great, and the EM1 looks fine as well, plus it has the ergonomics. As for the GM1, it is in a class of it’s own. Especially when you put something like the Oly 45mm f1.8 on it. No other format has the flexibilty of m4/3. And the IQ is good enough for the vast majority of applications.
What more could one want? I do not feel constricted by the format. Quite the reverse. I was using the GM1 in a mall the other day and I felt literally invisible. I dont usually get that feeling with my EM5 (and grip).
Berni