Comments from Olympus Imaging on plans for MFT, including 4K video

[BJL]

This interview at Imaging Resource with Olympus Imaging President Haruo Ogawa and Planning Manager Eiji Shirota might be of interest --- especially to those like bcooter who care about the video side of Micro Four Thirds.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/10/24/qa-with-olympus-president-haruo-ogawa-and-planning-manager-eiji-shirota-as

[Isaac]

Thanks, I found this interesting --

Back in 2007, seven million units had been shipped. At that time, the demographics was late fifties and males were 90% of the total market.
...
Now, the average age is mid-40s and the percentage of females went up to 30%.

And it's refreshing to occasionally see information rather than speculation :-)

[Vladimirovich]

Thanks, I found this interesting --

And it's refreshing to occasionally see information rather than speculation :-)

he has issues w/ math and logic... how come 4 mil mirrorless (not all of them from Olympus) bring an average age to 40s and females to 30% vs 16 mil dSLRs  ... it is very clear the regular dSLRs are as good in bringing young and female, or actually they are even better in that.

[bcooter]

This interview at Imaging Resource with Olympus Imaging President Haruo Ogawa and Planning Manager Eiji Shirota might be of interest --- especially to those like bcooter who care about the video side of Micro Four Thirds.
http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/10/24/qa-with-olympus-president-haruo-ogawa-and-planning-manager-eiji-shirota-as

Strangest comments I've ever read.  In summary we don't do sports because well . . . we don't do sport photography.   We don't do video because we wanted to concentrate on stills, but we now will do video, because we realize three weeks later it's important.

Our market is the small part of the interchangeable lens segment, so we are looking for new markets, i.e.. women, younger buyers, but our camera is perfect for war zones.  Well I appreciate the war zone part but I doubt if that's a huge market.

My response is ok, you build a new camera from the ground up, have great image stabilization that is useless with the marginal video the camera produces, Olympus has a huge lens set in regular 43 that would be perfect for sport photography, but all of this is disregarded?

I wish em well, have a great affinity for Olympus, but they make no sense to me.

IMO

BC

[Manoli]

My response is ok, you build a new camera from the ground up, have great image stabilization that is useless with the marginal video the camera produces, Olympus has a huge lens set in regular 43 that would be perfect for sport photography, but all of this is disregarded?

I wish em well, have a great affinity for Olympus, but they make no sense to me.

If you think that SONY is their single largest shareholder, with a full presence on the board, then perhaps, just perhaps their 'confusion' might be a consequence of someone else's (different) agenda.

I can't see how SONY, with the impending release of the A7 / A7r, and their presence in video, would have welcomed any MAJOR threat from Olympus.  As long as mft remains a side show supplementing their FF offerings, then .. up to a point - yes - but no further. This is corporate Japan.

[bcooter]

If you think that SONY is their single largest shareholder, with a full presence on the board, then perhaps, just perhaps their 'confusion' might be a consequence of someone else's (different) agenda.

I can't see how SONY, with the impending release of the A7 / A7r, and their presence in video, would have welcomed any MAJOR threat from Olympus.  As long as mft remains a side show supplementing their FF offerings, then .. up to a point - yes - but no further. This is corporate Japan.

If that's true, then that's just sad and leaving a great photographic company hobbled and money on the table.

On another thread or two or three, this is this talk about less complicated, more camera like cameras and if anyone here ever worked the original om series film cameras you'd know how wonder small, light, full featured and useful those cameras were.

Olympus is not playing follow the leader (see omd em5 and em1) and look how close the new Sony looks like it. The difference is Sony to me say TV and Olympus says camera.



IMO

BC