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Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

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Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#371

Post by slantyyz »

foldr wrote: post #324
sudosysgen wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

35mm film already affords you the very maximum in light gathering and blur, though. The kit lens used to be 50 1.8 or 1.4, which really is pretty much the amount of background blur people are looking for today. You didn't complain about lack of aperture or blur because you already had what people today are looking for. Even medium format and large format had pretty much the same amount of background blur and low-ligh…

Yes, but the point is that people rarely if ever used that level of background blur, as it wasn't trendy to, e.g., take portraits where only one eyelash is in focus.

People today shoot and chimp, which was impossible back in the day. If you wanted a preview, you needed to have a polaroid around.

Film and processing cost money, and took from an hour or to days to get back, so people would set the aperture in a more reasonable range.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#372

Post by bayindirh »

makapuf wrote: post #370
sudosysgen wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely not. The lithographies, processes, and packages are completely different. Some sensors are still made on 300nm processes, useless for modern CPUs. 45 nm is considered cutting edge for imaging sensors, but would be a huge setback for computing. Intel, GlobalFoundries and even IBM fabs would be much better.

Sure. But in th he grand scheme of things 45nm is intel core2quads Q9400. My main pc has this cpu and the only thing I miss is not enough ram.

The increase in CPU power doesn't become apparent until you start to use vectorization heavily or use your CPU for floating point-heavy scientific computing.

Some of the code I've written can speed up 3x just by using newer SIMD instruction sets and bigger caches. It's unbelievable until you see it.

I also manage HPC clusters, so we see strange effects when developers excessively hand-tune their code for a specific architecture.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#373

Post by Jedd »

slantyyz wrote: post #355
Jedd wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an Olympus user / fan - but my understanding is that Panasonic made the better video bodies. I suspect one generation back would have some highly competent video capabilities are very reasonable prices now.

> my understanding is that Panasonic made the better video bodies. I love the stills output (esp the colors) from Oly cameras, but for some reason I don't quite like the handling/ergonomics. I don't know if it's because I had a Panasonic LX3 way back when, but I find my GM5 way more usable than Olympus E-PL6 from a button and menu perspective. YMMV of course, but my GM5 and GF2 feel much more solid than the Olympus b…

I've held a friend's Panasonic, but that's as close as I've come to one - never used it, navigated menus, etc.

I had a Minolta 7Hi originally - fixed lens, but sophisticated for the time - then Olympus E620 (FT), and then the EM-5 MkII (mFT). So my experience has consistently improved, but isn't very wide.

With FT and mFT cameras, the Olympus menus for a long time (and perhaps still) have an unfortunate default setting of the 'Super Control Panel' being disabled. Almost everyone enables this excellent feature, but that requires some deep diving into the standard menu system, and sometimes some conflicting settings need changing. But (!) once you've done that, I've found navigating the settings & controls to be blissful.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#374

Post by ISL »

sudosysgen wrote: post #320
ISL wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the biggest questions are: Can I leave the camera powered on, always? and Can I handle it effectively with gloves on in the snow? Those two questions drive as much of my camera choice as do technical concerns.

I can personally handle my A7ii with gloves, but no you can't always leave it on. I mean, you can, but not for much more than two or three hours.

I realize that I'm moving the goalposts a little -- here in Washington, gloves in the snow means soggy softshell gloves. Over time, my 6D has continued to build my trust that I can operate everything that needs operation when my gloves are squishy.

I first started using a full-frame camera in 2017 and looked hard at a number of options, expecting to wind up with an A7R-series camera -- the sensors are just awesome. I was coming from an EOS-M background. It was a revelation to me the first time I rented a DSLR and never needed to turn it off. I only turn the camera off when it is packed away within luggage.

One-handed case-open-grab-grip-up-to-eye-compose-and-shoot with gloves on was just amazing. No waiting... and I was practiced at switching on a camera as it left the case. Now, when I'm chasing wildlife, I can regard them through the viewfinder for hours without fear of draining the battery. The battery is only tapped if I hit the back-button focus or depress the shutter. I suspect my next camera will again be mirrorless, as the advantages are many, but if so, I'm really going to miss the always-ready capability of an SLR.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#375

Post by makapuf »

bayindirh wrote: post #372
makapuf wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But in th he grand scheme of things 45nm is intel core2quads Q9400. My main pc has this cpu and the only thing I miss is not enough ram.

The increase in CPU power doesn't become apparent until you start to use vectorization heavily or use your CPU for floating point-heavy scientific computing. Some of the code I've written can speed up 3x just by using newer SIMD instruction sets and bigger caches. It's unbelievable until you see it. I also manage HPC clusters, so we see strange effects when developers excessively hand-tune their code for a specific a…

Well of course hpc can benefit from 13 years of cpu advances. (And gpus). Noting that sse4 was even available on it. My point was we still wouldn't be relegated to stone age if we were stuck on 45nm processes, and we could also benefit from better architectures.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#376

Post by etangent »

_ph_ wrote: post #333
etangent wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Olympus cameras are extremely capable, yet small in size. That advantage evaporated after Sony released A7 in 2013, which was almost equal in size yet contained a vastly larger and more capable sensor. Olympus hung on while A7 line was still expensive, but now that one can get an older used model for as much as a new micro-four-thirds one, Olympus bit the dust. Many saw this coming for a long while.

No, the advantage did not evaporate with the A7. Yes, the body of an A7 is pretty close to the mFT counterparts - though for a really tiny body look at the E-M10 and the E-M5, these are a step smaller than the Sony. But the one thing which did not shrink are the lenses. Actually modern designs rather grow the lenses. Look at the Olympus 25/1.8, 45/1.8, they are tiny. And of course on the long side, look at the differ…

It's true that on the long end 35mm full-frame lenses are significantly larger and heavier than micro-four thirds lenses. However, most people don't shoot extremely long lenses most of the time (and when they do they can afford to use a lighter f4 lens because larger sensors have better noise peformance). Compare Tamron 28-75 f2.8 for Sony E mount (550 g) with Olympus 12-40 f2.8 (382 g). That's only 168 g (44%) more for a lens that lets in >3.5x more light. If you wanted to take portraits with very shallow depth of field with Olympus (possible with the Tamron lens), you would have to buy a dedicated prime (and one could always find a brighter prime, often for a used one for much less money in the 35mm full-frame world).

Even on the long end, advancements from Canon/Nikon/Sony (such as DO and PF lenses as well as very high-resolution sensors with excellent noise performance) meant that Olympus' advantage was disappearing. For example, all 300mm lenses with the same aperture share the same design and similar size. And yet 300mm f4 from Olympus weighs 1,474 g while 300mm f4 PF from Nikon weighs only 755 g -- twice less. Yes yes it's true that the Olympus comes with a 2x magnification factor. However one can make that up by using a camera with a very high-resolution sensor (such as the one in Z-7) or simply by using a teleconverter and taking advantage of higher noise performance of the full-frame sensor.

Ultimately the reason micro-four-thirds lenses were lighter was not because the system was better -- they were lighter because they were dimmer. The fact that this was not mentioned in most marketing materials made Olympus and Panasonic look quite bad -- and many interested prosumers (like myself) had felt the company was lying to them.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#377

Post by otterlicious »

lifeformed wrote: post #232
akersten wrote: post #5

Sad to see them go - photography's such a great hobby and having competition in the space is healthy. There's a few brands out there still, but there is a noticable stigma in the professional community around equipment that isn't Canon. If you're not using L-glass, it feels like you get the same kind of judgement that Android users experience when they show up with green texts in iMessage. As a matter of principle, I…

> it feels like you get the same kind of judgement that Android users experience when they show up with green texts in iMessage. Is this a real thing? Do people actually care about that?

To the extent it really did exist as not a joke it was mostly misplaced ire that should have been directed at Verizon, which didn't support regular text messages larger than 160 characters for far longer than was reasonable. (Every other carrier figured it out in the flip phone era.)

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#378

Post by to11mtm »

bayindirh wrote: post #304
amarshall wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel offers custom work https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/foundry/overview.htm... You forgot Samsung as one of the big fabs.

Thanks for pointing out both. I was not aware of Intel and, I didn't realize that Samsung got that big. It occurred to me that Kingston probably has its own fab too.

Yeah, but my guess is Kingston's fabs are primarily geared towards Memory (i.e. NAND Flash and RAM) (much like Micron).

Memory is fairly easy to fab; in fact memory was one of the first things we saw Asian fabs rise up and overtake US/EU fabs on.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#380

Post by arghwhat »

ksk wrote: post #368
arghwhat wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The wonderful world of patents. On an unrelated note, I do believe that Canon has also pulled a patent on quad-pixel AF. Patents being awful aside, quad-pixel AF would be awesome: every pixel becomes a cross-type focus sensor. (For the uninitiated, focus sensors are usually either horizontal or vertical, and cannot detect features that are perpendicular to them. Cross-type sensors are a combination of the two to incr…

Not disagreeing, but just to counter your point a bit, the Sony A9 has zero cross type sensors, but it has the best on-sensor PDAF system currently on the market. Conceptually, I totally agree with you that cross type sensors are BETTER than non cross type sensors, and dual cross-type are even BETTER, but its rarely as simple as that in the real world.

"Best on-sensor PDAF system currently on the market" is a non-scientific statement, but I'll certainly agree with you that it's great.

However, in less optimal situations (e.g. low light, low contrast, and contrast perpendicular to the detection direction), it's my personal experience that current non-cross-type PDAF solutions fail, requiring 90 degree rotation to focus, which wouldn't be needed for cross-type. That, or use of an alternate focus subject if one is available.

It's more of an issue on smaller, less light sensitive sensors. The super high-end sensors are more likely to find something to focus on even when things are suboptimal.

But, alas, I'm a hobby photographer, and the 4500 USD an A9II costs is a bit more than I'm willing to spend.

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