Sony's Oly investment

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/09/.../?ref=business

or http://tinyurl.com/c67hlfn

"The two companies will also consider cooperating in digital
cameras, they said."

So we shouldn't expect any fruit from this union for digital cameras for
some time. At the glacial pace of Japanese ventures we may see
something in a few years or more.


--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

In article , Alan Browne
says...
So we shouldn't expect any fruit from this union for digital cameras for
some time. At the glacial pace of Japanese ventures we may see
something in a few years or more.

The cooperation has already been going on for some time. The sensor of
the OM-D is from Sony.

Olympus has always been struggling to get decent sensors for their
cameras and now they seem to have solved the problem.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On 2012.09.28 15:02 , Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
says...
So we shouldn't expect any fruit from this union for digital cameras for
some time. At the glacial pace of Japanese ventures we may see
something in a few years or more.

The cooperation has already been going on for some time. The sensor of
the OM-D is from Sony.

Olympus has always been struggling to get decent sensors for their
cameras and now they seem to have solved the problem.

That's just component supply. Sony manufacture all sorts of chips that
you will find in a wide array of products.

The investment at hand is in the medical imaging side with the companies
also considering in digital cameras (see what you snipped from the prior
post).

--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

In article , Alan Browne
says...
That's just component supply.

The sensor is the most important component in a camera...
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On 2012.09.29 04:51 , Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
says...
That's just component supply.

The sensor is the most important component in a camera...

In the context of the investment at hand it is completely irrelevant.
It's just the existing supply of components.

The sentence you snipped (regarding cameras): "The two companies will
also consider cooperating in digital cameras, they said."

... likely means higher integration. Perhaps EVF's, optics, firmware,
software, etc. Perhaps Sony will source lenses to Oly and/or v.v. But
that's not part of the investment at hand either so far.

--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

In article , Alan Browne
says...
In the context of the investment at hand it is completely irrelevant.
It's just the existing supply of components.

But it is highly relevant for photographers. This is not a forum for
investors.

The sentence you snipped (regarding cameras): "The two companies will
also consider cooperating in digital cameras, they said."

... likely means higher integration. Perhaps EVF's, optics, firmware,
software, etc. Perhaps Sony will source lenses to Oly and/or v.v. But
that's not part of the investment at hand either so far.

Possibly Sony and Oly will share more components, but again this is not
a problem. Both companies have strengths in specific areas.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On 2012.09.29 11:14 , Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
says...
In the context of the investment at hand it is completely irrelevant.
It's just the existing supply of components.

But it is highly relevant for photographers. This is not a forum for
investors.

The original posting was to clear up the fact that the Sony investment
in Oly would have no effect on photographers in the near term. Or even
ever.


--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

In article , Alan Browne
says...
The original posting was to clear up the fact that the Sony investment
in Oly would have no effect on photographers in the near term. Or even
ever.

The availability of a good image sensor has a very big effect for
photographers. Olympus has always been struggling here.
--

Alfred Molon
------------------------------
Olympus E-series DSLRs and micro 4/3 forum at
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MyOlympus/
http://myolympus.org/ photo sharing site

On 30/09/2012 7:16 a.m., Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
says...
The original posting was to clear up the fact that the Sony investment
in Oly would have no effect on photographers in the near term. Or even
ever.

The availability of a good image sensor has a very big effect for
photographers. Olympus has always been struggling here.

There was probably no real reason why they couldn't have used Sony
sensors earlier (than the OMD E5), presumably Olympus was using Sony
sensor for P&S cameras, so they would have already had a relationship.
With larger format (4/3 - 35mm) it seems that Sony have worked their way
into a very strong position.
CMOSIS (supplying the new Leica M) seem to use similar technology to
Sony Exmor (on-chip 14 bit column AD conversion). It will be
interesting to see how it performs against the (same pixel pitch) Nikon
D600 sensor. I don't think it will win - it will be a generation
behind, perhaps similar to the D3x.
Claimed 76dB linear dynamic range is less (about 12.6 vs 13.4 stops),
FWC is also just over 1/2 that of the D600.

Alfred Molon wrote:
In article , Alan Browne
says...
That's just component supply.

The sensor is the most important component in a camera...

The lens is more important (assuming your only goal is image
quality). It collects and focusses the light, hopefully avoiding
too many lens imperfections (especially the ones you can't fix
in post). The sensor only records, and even mobile phone camera
sensors do good enough with good light.

Now, if you meant "camera body", you might have a point.
But again, depending on your type of shooting, you might need
fast, reliable, predictive AF more than the best sensor. Or you
might need good automatics for the JPEG engine more --- imagine
you shoot for newspaper or the web and need the photo really
quick (say sports), so no time for raw converting and WB fixing.
Or you need to hold your camera for long time spans, then it must
be comfortable to hold. No good sensor will help you if your
hand is too tired to properly hold the camera. How about long
battery life? Or tilt&swivel LCD, for those types of shooting
where even an angle finder won't do?

"XXX is the most important component in a camera" assumes far
too much about the circumstances of the shooting to be true.

-Wolfgang