"Mike Henley" wrote in message
om...
I'm slowly finding that i'm becoming, without intending to, an olympus
collector. They seem to have made some wonderful cameras over the
years. When I research the best compacts the Olympus XA and Olympus
Stylus (mju) were insane hits. When i think of rangefinders I totally
love my Olympus RC and the RD/SP seem highly regarded too. When
researching SLRs (though i have no intentions of buying one, but if i
bought then) the OM range (OM-1 to OM-4ti) seems very cool. The Zuiko
lenses are quite nice too.

It seems this brand has made more classic cameras with timeless
designs than most others. Yet it doesn't seem to be as highly regarded
as its cameras are. why?
I dunno why either - go back maybe 20 years and Olympus and Pentax were the
two big names amongst pros and serious amateurs. As you say, the Zuiko
lenses were very highly regarded. Likewise Pentax glass was always
excellent - I don't think lenses come much better than the Pentax 50mm F1.4.
The last few years though have seen Canon and Nikon virtually duopolise the
serious camera market, and I'm not sure why. Certainly the fact that Olympus
no longer offer a consumer SLR with interchangeable lenses would have
something to do with their demise in this field. Doesn't explain why the
companies have yielded to Canon and Nikon though. I hope the tables might
turn a little back toward Olympus with their new E1 dSLR - it's features
tend to set itself apart from the rest of the dSLR market. I also think the
Olympus compact digitals are amongst the best compacts in the market.