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Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

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Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#81

Post by foldr »

slantyyz wrote: post #66
foldr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one who's serious about photography will stigmatize you for the gear you're using. All modern cameras and lenses are more than good enough.

But a lot of people who self-identify as being serious about photography will stigmatize you for the gear you're using.

Indeed. What usually happens is that trends develop for photos that can only be taken using expensive gear. So for example, when I was a kid and everyone was shooting "full frame", no-one gave too much of a toss about background blur -- beyond the obvious fact that some (easily achievable) degree of it is often useful for softening distracting backgrounds. Now people obsess over paper thin DoF because it's a sign of expensive gear. I suspect it will go out of fashion again in a few years, once smartphones perfect computational blurring.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#82

Post by [deleted] »

sersi wrote: post #24
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…

I somehow always had the feeling that serious photographers use Canon and Nikon to a lesser measure for professional work but a lot use fuji for fun :)

[deleted]

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#83

Post by slantyyz »

h2odragon wrote: post #30
brendoelfrendo wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is actually news to me... I bought a M43 camera a couple years ago because I thought it was a standard with staying power and a healthy ecosystem of lenses and bodies from many manufacturers. Is Panasonic the only one still producing M43 gear? I thought Fuji did as well, unless they decided to ditch it, too. I'd be upset if the standard disappeared!

I got one better: i sank $2k into a full four thrids lens a while back (the f2.0 zoom; its still worth every penny). I've been wondering about finding a new sensor to put behind that, if i have to embrace the suck of adapters anyway, what should i be looking for now? Seems like "any Cannon" is the only sensible answer.

> Seems like "any Cannon" is the only sensible answer.

Why? Most cameras made after 2014 are more than adequate for most non-pro hobbyists. A recent vintage Olympus or Panasonic M43 camera is still pretty competent, and assuming you mean 4/3 by "full four thirds" and not "micro four-thirds", you can always get a mount adapter to use it with an M43 camera. IIRC, the E-M series might work best with the old 4/3 lenses from a focusing perspective though.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#84

Post by nradov »

As a casual underwater photographer I hope the Olympus TG series rugged compact cameras live on under the new owner. I know compact cameras are a dying niche market in general. But no one has figured out a good solution for using smartphone cameras underwater (there are waterproof housings but the controls are terrible and they don't really work with strobes or wet lenses). The housings for DSLRs and similarly sized mirrorless cameras are too bulky and extremely expensive.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#85

Post by sudosysgen »

runxel wrote: post #2

Sad to see them go and see the industry losing even more competition. Had a couple of Olympus' and was always delighted by their quality. But on the other hand the underlying problem is quite true: Since the advent of the smartphone I see myself rely more and more on my smartphone (even tho I still don't really like that "look", but as long you don't plan to have a professional photo shooting it's "good enough"). On…

That's true, but then again what could be any better than what we have now? My camera takes really excellent pictures, I can use any lens made in the last century and have it autofocus, I can send images to my phone almost instantly, I can record amazingly high quality video, if I decide I want to I can use HDR+ and do dynamic stacking to reduce noise and increase dynamic range, I can send the files to my computer wirelessly and edit them with amazing flexibility, and so on. So I don't really know what else I could want.

The fact that cameras are so good that no one has managed to improve them is a good thing. I can buy a high quality camera now and still get great performance out of it in ten years, and when I want to switch gear if I've been careful I can sell it at very similar prices to what I paid for it. Since the only reason I was updating my phones was camera quality this also makes it a good long term decision as each two years I pay 500$ less on my phone as I buy an older model that suits me just fine.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#86

Post by ptero »

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…

I agree with 90% of your points: competition is healthy and sad to see a company go. The market today is a duopoly, with Canon and Nikon as two pillars of high-end DSLR world.

This, sadly, is unlikely to change because high quality lenses are very hard to make. Development takes years and the market is relatively small. And as glass, even for a serious hobbyist, ends up being much more expensive than the camera body, the reason to pick a third party body is just not there.

The 10% I disagree with is the stigma part. I have never noticed it. Unless you are shooting pro sports from a dedicated area filled with fellow photographers you are unlikely to see people who would know or care what you are shooting with. "A really big camera, much bigger than my cell phone; must be really good" is probably all they think. The reason almost everyone in the Canon world uses L glass is because it is so frigging good. My 2c.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#87

Post by cannam »

eropple wrote: post #73
cannam wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not very familiar with video - what M43 camera do you use for that?

My three primary cameras right now are a LUMIX G9 (newest, the recent firmware upgrades put it on par with the GH5 for what I do and it has a full-size HDMI port which matters a lot ), a GH4, and a G7; my off-cam/desk webcam is now my oldest camera, which is a GH3. The latter three all have the same sensor but the GH3 is a lot slower and has worse dynamic range and internal processing.

Gosh, this is educational. I've always assumed (as a happy Olympus user) that m43 was mostly a photography format, and video people were all using Canons.

I've recently been hooking up my Olympus as a webcam, through tedious necessity - and of course it took a bit of adapting. I had no idea any mirrorless camera had a standard full-size HDMI port on it.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#88

Post by mark-r »

Paul_S wrote: post #40

Is Pentax next? Oh wait, that already happened. What a shame. Both Pentax and Olympus had unique features to offer. Cameras are not a commodity yet. I still hope Ricoh will do something, Pentax bodies haven't had a real next generation in a decade.

Ricoh keeps promising that the next Pentax APS-C is right around the corner and will be worth the wait. They've been saying that for a couple of years now.

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#89

Post by dllu »

noncoml wrote: post #65
dllu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Canon gets a lot of hate and is looked down because of their mirrorless systems. The new Canon RF lenses are pretty amazing (albeit expensive) though, and the new Canon mirrorless bodies such as the R5 are shaping up to be highly competitive products.

Maybe, but your reply only makes my argument stronger, that is that Canon is not the king anymore, as it used to be for DSLRs.

Yes, I am not disagreeing with you. Sony's mirrorless bodies are presently the best and the Sony GM lenses also have the best-in-class image quality, surpassing DSLR lenses. For example the Sony GM 135mm f/1.8 is the sharpest available 135mm lens [1] and the Sony GM 24mm f/1.4 is the sharpest available 24mm lens [2].

Sony's ecosystem also has many amazing third-party lenses. A personal favourite of mine is the Voigtlander Apo Lanthar 65mm f/2.

[1] https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/03/sony-fe-135mm-f1-8-... [2] https://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2019/08/some-new-wide-angle...

Re: Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

#90

Post by regulation_d »

rckclmbr wrote: post #15
chrisseaton wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's a few brands out there still, but there is a noticable stigma in the professional community around equipment that isn't Canon Really? I had no idea (as an outsider.) I thought Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fujifilm, etc were all pretty much equal in terms of serious quality. I thought their DLSs all looked pretty much the same. Is that not the case?

I agree with you, Canon and Nikon seem like the "Costco" brands so maybe while he pointed them out. But Sonys mirrorless are top of the industry. Fujifilm has great cameras. And you cant forget Leica

Sony and Panasonic have really strong offerings if you primarily do video, but i think the vast majority of people who take photographs for a living still use Canon and Nikon.
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