Olympus 4/3rds advantages fading

RichA wrote:
Dear Olympus: You can take the silly 140-600mm sticker off your
70-300mm lens. The party is over.
Canon now has an 18 megapixel APS sensored camera.


I really just don't get the point in this crap that CONTINUALLY is
posted on internet forums. Be it Nikon, Canon or whatever bashing.

I doubt ANY of the people who "blast" these products have ever used
one. They base everything they post off some review site or parroting
nonsense they have heard from other people here.

I might can see if someone is interested in make 16X20 or larger
prints the advantage of over 10MP or if they NEED higher that 400ISO
wanting a larger sensor. But for MOST people ANY DSLR today can deliver
the goods at 11X14 and smaller print sizes. I've got some really nice
11X14 prints done with a "noise box" 5MP E1 that look as good as print
of the same size I've made with newer Canon APS-C sensor camera. I'm
sure at the pixel level there is noise but you can't see ANY of it when
printed.

But I guess that is the difference between a photographer and a "tech
nerd", a photographer looks at the finished product.

wrote:
RichA wrote:
Dear Olympus: You can take the silly 140-600mm sticker off your
70-300mm lens. The party is over.
Canon now has an 18 megapixel APS sensored camera.

I really just don't get the point in this crap that CONTINUALLY is
posted on internet forums. Be it Nikon, Canon or whatever bashing.

Rich is a troll and snob. And a hypocrite. He loves to bitch about
how cameras are not worthy even while he uses mediocre cameras.

--
Ray Fischer

In article , "
writes
But for MOST people ANY DSLR today can deliver the goods at 11X14 and
smaller print sizes.

Most any P&S will deliver a good 11x14" print under the right
circumstances. Your point is?

Fact is, Olympus never had a 4/3 advantage. They bought into 4/3 as a
route to the masses, having given up lunch at the top table when they
stopped development of the OM series over a decade earlier.

Does it hurt Olympus that the "advantage" is fading? Not at all. They
have made no attempt to disguise the fact that their business model has
been "cheap and cheerful" for the past 25 years, and they have been very
successful in leveraging that, and more strength to them!
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

Kennedy McEwen writes:
They have made no attempt to disguise the fact that their business
model has been "cheap and cheerful" for the past 25 years, and they
have been very successful in leveraging that, and more strength to
them!

Still, I think the lament of many on a group like this is that back in
the day, companies like Olympus (and Pentax) managed to offer a very
appealing mixture of relatively cheap, small and light, but _also_ very
high quality (not just in terms of pictures either, those cameras were
very nicely built, and just felt _good_).

I think there's a perception that the 4/3 stuff is a sign that they've
ditched "high quality" as a goal.

Maybe the economics just aren't there anymore, but it would really be
nice if there were DSLR equivalents of the OM-2 or ME super: small,
light, elegant, but also of solid, high quality construction, and on par
with the best professional cameras in terms of images produced.

-Miles

--
..Numeric stability is probably not all that important when you're guessing.

BTW, another point I think, is that there's a sense that a false
dichotomy is being created with modern DSLRs and their marketing --
that a camera can only be "high quality" if it's a massive bloated
expensive beast.

Olympus's (and Panasonic's) pushing of 4/3 for "small and light" cameras
seems an unfortunate attempt to reinforce that false dichotomy.

-Miles

--
Justice, n. A commodity which in a more or less adulterated condition the
State sells to the citizen as a reward for his allegiance, taxes and personal
service.

In article , Miles Bader
writes
Kennedy McEwen writes:
They have made no attempt to disguise the fact that their business
model has been "cheap and cheerful" for the past 25 years, and they
have been very successful in leveraging that, and more strength to
them!

Still, I think the lament of many on a group like this is that back in
the day, companies like Olympus (and Pentax) managed to offer a very
appealing mixture

Don't get me wrong, Miles. I think Olympus could have been one of the
greats in this industry!

But, with Yoshihisa Maitani still warm in his grave, it is worth saying
that he was the only visionary of that goal that Olympus ever had. Once
he left the OM project (the "M" is his name) it died a long slow death
and Olympus (the other letter in the name) with it. They have been
little more than a toy camera maker for a couple of decades now.

Maitani was a little man, but left a huge legacy that the rest of the
company simply failed to live up to. ;-(
--
Kennedy
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed;
A lovely little thinker, but a bugger when he's ****ed.
Python Philosophers (replace 'nospam' with 'kennedym' when replying)

Miles Bader wrote:
Kennedy McEwen writes:
They have made no attempt to disguise the fact that their business
model has been "cheap and cheerful" for the past 25 years, and they
have been very successful in leveraging that, and more strength to
them!

Still, I think the lament of many on a group like this is that back in
the day, companies like Olympus (and Pentax) managed to offer a very
appealing mixture of relatively cheap, small and light, but _also_ very
high quality (not just in terms of pictures either, those cameras were
very nicely built, and just felt _good_).

I think there's a perception that the 4/3 stuff is a sign that they've
ditched "high quality" as a goal.

That depends on what your notion of high quality is. They can assuredly
make the highest quality 4/3 system if they want. They will never match
the highest quality FF system. For that, they've lost the opportunity
to retain and gain the pickiest amateurs and pros.

If that is the niche they are comfortable in, so be it.

Miles Bader wrote:
BTW, another point I think, is that there's a sense that a false
dichotomy is being created with modern DSLRs and their marketing --
that a camera can only be "high quality" if it's a massive bloated
expensive beast.

Image quality is a thing of the basic mechanics of the camera (lens,
mount, viewfinder, shutter, sensor). All the rest that 'bloats' the
cameras are just the features that people come to expect as they've been
in all the high end cameras before.

Needless to say (so I'll say it anyway) a FF sensor will always trump a
smaller sensor for a given number of pixels. That race will never close
because whatever benefits can be brought to a smaller sensor (esp. for
noise) will always be applicable for a larger sensor.


Olympus's (and Panasonic's) pushing of 4/3 for "small and light" cameras
seems an unfortunate attempt to reinforce that false dichotomy.

All it does is draw attention to their lack of a larger sensor system.

Alan Browne wrote:
Miles Bader wrote:
Kennedy McEwen writes:
They have made no attempt to disguise the fact that their business
model has been "cheap and cheerful" for the past 25 years, and they
have been very successful in leveraging that, and more strength to
them!

Still, I think the lament of many on a group like this is that back in
the day, companies like Olympus (and Pentax) managed to offer a very
appealing mixture of relatively cheap, small and light, but _also_ very
high quality (not just in terms of pictures either, those cameras were
very nicely built, and just felt _good_).

I think there's a perception that the 4/3 stuff is a sign that they've
ditched "high quality" as a goal.

That depends on what your notion of high quality is. They can assuredly
make the highest quality 4/3 system if they want. They will never match
the highest quality FF system.


It depends on what the final product looks like if it's high quality or
not. As I posted, I've got 11X14 prints from both an E1 and a "late"
canon APS-c camera and at that print size, they are both "high quality".
If I can't see any improvement in the final product, how is it going to
be -higher quality-? As the sensors improve, this difference will be
even smaller. Now I'm NOT talking about viewing images at the pixel
level. If you enjoy that, no argument you need to be using a LARGE
sensor to play that techie game.

Just like in film days, of course if you are making larger prints a
larger format will produce cleaner results than trying to stretch a
smaller format that big, but I doubt MOST people ever print larger than
8X10 and most of the really big prints I have seen people make, the
"quality" wasn't anything to do with the camera used!


Stephanie

Miles Bader wrote:
Kennedy McEwen writes:
They have made no attempt to disguise the fact that their business
model has been "cheap and cheerful" for the past 25 years, and they
have been very successful in leveraging that, and more strength to
them!

Still, I think the lament of many on a group like this is that back in
the day, companies like Olympus (and Pentax) managed to offer a very
appealing mixture of relatively cheap, small and light, but _also_ very
high quality (not just in terms of pictures either, those cameras were
very nicely built, and just felt _good_).

I think there's a perception that the 4/3 stuff is a sign that they've
ditched "high quality" as a goal.



So I assume you have used one? Or are you just repeating a perception? I
use both Canon and Olympus stuff and don't see this lack of quality in
the Olympus products you talk about here. Maybe compared to a top end
full frame Canon with a $$$ L lens, a $500 Olympus kit isn't as high
quality but I don't think when you compare models at the same price
point they feel cheap compared to their competition.

Stephanie