Olympus Shutters Camera Business After 84 Years (bbc.com) 90
Olympus, once one of the world's biggest camera brands, is selling off that part of its business after 84 years. The firm said that despite its best efforts, the "extremely severe digital camera market" was no longer profitable. From a report: The arrival of smartphones, which had shrunk the market for separate cameras, was one major factor, it said.
It had recorded losses for the last three years. The Japanese company made its first camera in 1936 after years of microscope manufacture. The Semi-Olympus I featured an accordion-like fold-out camera bellows, and cost more than a month's wages in Japan. The company continued to develop the camera business over the decades, becoming one of the top companies by market share. "There's a huge amount of affection for Olympus, going right back," says Nigel Atherton, editor of Amateur Photographer magazine. The 1970s was a high point, with their cameras advertised on television by celebrity photographers such as David Bailey and Lord Lichfield. "Those cameras were revolutionary - they were very small, very light, they were beautifully designed, had really nice quality lenses," adds Atherton.
"Litchfield"? (Score:2)
No. "Lichfield".
The authors of TFA screwed up.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, the spelling was Licitfelda circa 700 AD, putting a 't' in there is fine. Standardized spelling in English is a recent fad anyway, maybe most people are fine with going back to the old ways.
Re: (Score:1)
Not according to Wikipedia, which lists it as "Licidfelth". This has a "t" in it, but at a different place in the word.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
No Ts in the Domesday Book either: http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/... [domesdaybook.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
that's 3 hundred years later you n00b!
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. Pay more attention, speed reader! Literally right in front of your face:
The form "Licitfelda" is recorded c. 710 - c. 720.
Scandal (Score:5, Informative)
I'm actually really surprised it took this long considering the scandals they've been through [wikipedia.org].
"By 2012 the scandal had developed into one of the biggest and longest-lived loss-concealing financial scandals in the history of corporate Japan; it had wiped 75–80% off the company's stock market valuation, led to the resignation of much of the board, investigations across Japan, the UK and US, the arrest of 11 past or present Japanese directors, senior managers, auditors and bankers of Olympus for alleged criminal activities or cover-up, and raised considerable turmoil and concern over Japan's prevailing corporate governance and transparency and the Japanese financial markets."
Re: (Score:3)
Looks like Olympus stock is up 18-fold since 2012 lows.
My Olympus though is in the desk besides me... (Score:4, Interesting)
...waiting to go into its housing and go scuba diving with me.
I hope they find a buyer for the division, and that such a buyer does not squander the goodwill the brand has acrued over the years.
But yes, the stand alone camera market is a tough (pun inteded) one to be in. People either go with a full blown DSLR, or go with their smartphone's camera. Point and shoots are some edge cases at best.
Re:My Olympus though is in the desk besides me... (Score:5, Interesting)
Even for the DSLR market, competition must be tough. The cost to develop custom CCD arrays and ASICs for a limited run product (DSLRs) must be huge. When DSLRs first came out, Canon had better electronics, and took business away from Nikon who had better lenses. Nikon's electronics have improved immensely since then.
In the future, to justify the cost of the manufacture of the custom semiconductors in a limited marketplace, I could see both Nikon and Canon looking to merge the video camera marketplace with the still camera marketplace. Both already sell DSLRs that can do video. Its mostly about focusing, stabilization, and sound pickup to merge the two technologies.
Re: (Score:1)
I believe there is some dumb law/copyright/ip licensing issue with cameras that can do 30 minutes of video which is why they limit themselves to only doing 29 minutes of video which may preclude them from doing the video market.
Re: (Score:1)
I think it's more to do with VAT or import tax than copywrite.
A camera is only cosidered a video camera if it records 30 continuous minutes or more.
And video cameras are in a higher tax bracket.
This is just from memory though, so I could be wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
It was a dumb law - the EU imposed a 6-12% import duty on video cameras that didn't apply to a stills camera. 30 minutes was the threshold at which a stills camera would have been reclassified as a video camera.
That law was due to be repealed in July 2019 but I can't find positive confirmation that it was.
It's also why some manufacturers (e.g. Panasonic) had EU and non-EU versions of some of their cameras. The non-EU versions did not have that 30 minute constraint.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget the ability to continuously write to storage, for extended takes.
It's fine for consumer markets and independent film-makers at the moment, but better storage technology would be nice.
Re:My Olympus though is in the desk besides me... (Score:4, Interesting)
Canon ended up with a leg up due to them being one of the first to introduce electronics technology (like auto-focus) to manual cameras. They also got on the digital camera bandwagon early, adding Kodak-produced digital sensor backs to their SLRs [wikipedia.org] in the 1990s..
Nikon... I actually wasn't sure if Nikon would survive the transition to digital. Unlike Canon, Nikon was more an optics company, not an electronics company. They still use some Sony sensors, and use Sony to manufacture the sensors they design [petapixel.com]. But they seem to have managed the transition.
The other camera companies - Olympus, Panasonic, Fujifilm, Pentax, etc. buy their camera sensors from someone else - usually Sony.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Sadly Nikon seems intent on self-destruction (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I still use point-and-shoots. The quality is still much better than the best smart phones (megapixels are misleading; the width and depth of the optics matter and can't be replicated in a smart phone) and ease of use, size, weight, and storage are all great. I'm not a pro photographer and don't want to learn a DSLR or carry it around.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
I agree about your magapixels point. You can't really compensate for a decent bit of glass I think.
But I do understand why people prefer to just use a phone.
Personally, I still love my old OM-1n, but don't use it anywhere near as mush as my EOS 6D.
I think the diference is that I tend to go out to take photos, so have already taken the decision to carry the DSLR.
For parties and walking round town with my friends (Oh, I remember those days :-), the phone is perfectly adequate.
Point as shoot can sometime be th
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I absolutely agree: the best one is the one you have with you. I started using Lumix when my wife and I did a river cruise
Re: (Score:2)
The quality is still much better than the best smart phones
I wouldn't be so sure [androidauthority.com]. It really would come down to the specific models in question.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure it comes down to specific models. One thing I really like about my Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS25 (quite a few years old already) is the 20x optical zoom. The Sony RX100 IV in the article you posted only has a 2.9x optical zoom. I get some rather impressive zoom shots with the Panasonic you could never get with a smart phone.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I bought a TG3 for motorcycling - impact resistant, dust/water-resistant, real buttons and knobs for operating with gloves, and a real zoom lens, and screw-on filter mount, which are useful outdoors at times.
But then I buy it and find out it does not have full manual controls. Also all the software features suck. The panorama mode is useless, years behind smartphones. Same for video stabilization. HDR doesn't really do multiple exposures either. Even the remote shutter cellphone app doesn't
Re: (Score:1)
As JockTroll says, but with slightly less vitriol, always read the ingredients on the tin before you buy something new.
Don't blame the manufacture for you not doing the research beforehand.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
When you buy a donut, you expect it to contain sugar. They always have. It isn't really a decent donut without it.
I don't look at the ingredients to make sure there is sugar in every donut I buy, I just assume and expect that it does because it would be a shitty donut without it.
Re: (Score:2)
Superzoom point-and-shoots deliver a combination of image quality and versatility at $250 unavailable at any price in a smartphone camera or full SLR. 1 cm macro, 25X optical zoom, fits in a shirt pocket. Smartphone images are lower quality in most situations, good for snapshots and entertainment video. Spending lots of money for a larger sensor SLR or mirrorless camera gives low light performance, better control and very good images, but they're bulky, can't do much macro without special lenses and more mo
Digital killed em (Score:2)
What did they expect? Their digital cameras were mediocre at best. They sold, and performed, pretty much universally at the high side of the low end market, with a few models being in the very low end of the middle market. That area has been flooded with cheap no-name competitors for years now, on top of cellphone cameras being "good enough" for the people who would spend the money on that tier of equipment.
Canon and Nikon were always a much better product for the price spent once digital started to appear.
Not surprised, their cameras were garbage (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
That is exactly how I feel about the 4/3 system. It is just another incompatible system, cornered between smartphones (that are getting better) and full DSLRs that will always be superior.
And there is just not enough space in the DSLR segment for 4 manufacturers. Even Sony is struggling, and they make the best sensors.
Re: (Score:1)
YouTube is full of vids of real professionals tossing their SLRs for 4/3s for 80-90% of their photoshoots.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: Not surprised, their cameras were garbage (Score:2)
And if by same size you mean not at all the same size, you'd be right.
Also, lens size matters too.
Re: (Score:2)
I love my TG4, I still use it for kayaking, snorkeling, skiing -- pretty much any place I'm afraid of using my phone. I bought a second one (cheap, it's scratched) as a backup, but haven't had any problem with either one. Photos look great -- quality tends to be better than my phone, especially for action shots. Love the wifi photo transfer, makes it super simple to get pictures off the phone. It's the last dedicated camera I bought, figured I'd eventually get a TG6 or TG7, but looks like TG6 is the end of
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
why not carry another pound of gear and take something with a full frame camera
The full frame camera may only be half a pound or a pound heavier than the m43 alternative but I can carry a 200-600mm lens that fits easily into a small bag and weighs just over a pound. The full frame equivalent weighs four times that much and needs a bag of its own.
The olympus cropped sensor just couldn't compete with a real full frame camera.
Which is clearly utter bollocks given the number of professionals making a successful living while shooting m43 cameras.
Full frame has a few advantages but so does the crop sensor. Pick the right tool, and take into account all of the trade-of
Re: (Score:2)
People have been bashing Olympus and Panasonic for their "small" sensors cameras for years saying the pros only want full frame, medium format or in a pinch ASP-C. But even a MFT sensor is way bigger than the <1" sensors you find in a cell phone, there's been a market for that. Particularly with hybrid shooters who are interested in video, but Panasonic cornered that market. What I read is that Olympus tried too hard with high end bodies and glass bringing them to a price/size/weight where they'd compete
Re: (Score:2)
Revenge for XD cards (Score:3)
just as the end of circuit city was justified by their DIVX format, so too is the end of Olympus for their XD card.
Please stop making restrictive proprietary formats. (Apple anyone? )
Re: (Score:2)
Except XD cards weren't proprietary at all. They were an evolution of the SmartMedia card format - which in the end is basically just raw NAND flash. There are plenty of SM to XD adapters that let you use XD adapters in SM equipment. The only difference is that there's a special block at the beginning that describes the NAND l
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
xD-Picture Card together with SmartMedia were the LEAST proprietary flash memory card formats that ever existed. They have no controller, no translation layer, no secret command sets. You get direct connection to raw NAND flash chip.
Re: (Score:2)
Their choice of memory cards was one reason I stopped using them. Back in 2003 or so, I had a 128M card in my camera. A card that big used two chips, and it was a very thin format, so I'm sure there was a lot of fragile in there. Well, on a weekend when I had taken a lot of pictures, I apparently whipped it out of the slot a little too fast and the flexing caused it to break inside. A few years later, XD happened, which was merely SM in a smaller case. The important part was that nothing else used it (maybe
I have always liked the Micro 4/3 format (Score:3)
I take my camera on a lot of hiking and travel. So my next upgrade is going to have to be to one of the heavy Nikanons. I guess it will give me great shoulders.
Re: (Score:2)
Panasonic still makes good micro-four-thirds cameras
Re: (Score:2)
I find my Panasonic micro four-thirds camera and the compatible Olympus lenses are a great combination.
Re: (Score:2)
I take my camera on a lot of hiking and travel. So my next upgrade is going to have to be to one of the heavy Nikanons. I guess it will give me great shoulders.
Canon's M-series APS-C mirrorless weigh the same or even a little less than Olympus's 4/3 equivalents.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
OK but with a crop factor of only 1.6 APS-C's 1.8 lens is the same as a 4/3's 1.4 with its factor of 2. So you a smaller lens gets the same result.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Camera bodies can be made lighter, but not the double-sized lenses.
A pity (Score:3)
In 1999 my first digital camera was an Olympus, it was the first affordable 1 Megapixel camera.
A little later I went with the Minolta Dimage range, they were great but eventually bought by Sony.
Presently I'm using a Nikon DSLR and Canon compact but still have an old analogue Olympus lying around, the compactness and lightness is amazing.
I assume the next one to disappear will be Pentax...
Re: (Score:1)
One of the cheapest, most plasticity POG I ever had the displeasure of using.
Re: (Score:2)
I had two, the first one (Z1) was sold on, the second (Z2) lasted for three years until I tripped and fell with the camera in hand which broke the lens.
Looking back at the photo's they were very good but the sensitivity was not at par with present cameras.
Former Olympus user (Score:2)
I have an OM1, OM2, and OM10 along with a few lenses. They were great cameras. As the article says, they are small and light and I did like their design. My favorite lens is their 135MM. Sharp as all get out.
Also, they forgot their celebrity spokeswoman Cheryl Tiegs.
Re: (Score:1)
Owning a brace of OMs, you know they are still great cameras. (Nikon, too, is in rough waters. Digital eats its young.)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, they are great cameras. I own one Nikon dslr but won't be going the mirrorless route. I just do it for my own benefit. I can't afford to keep replacing equipment every year or so.
Re: (Score:2)
Same here, my first SLR was an OM-40, to which I later added an OM-10 an OM-1. They were comparatively compact, not heavy, and the Zuiko lenses were good quality - if expensive for me at the time, as a kid / student.
I used this system for a long while, even in parallel to my first (compact) digital camera (Canon PowerShot G3).
The era came to an end with my first DSLR (APS-C, Canon), as from then on, I was done with film.
Looking back, that must have been around 20 years, and many thousands of pictures - I ne
Another brand of my stash bites the dust (Score:2)
Good thing I recently picked a Canon body, hope they stay in business longer.
Hope Panasonic will keep the 4/3 format alive.
Impact on Panasonic's MFT range? (Score:1)
Knowing that many MFT cameras in Panasonic's LUMIX range are actually Olympus bodies with Leica lenses, I cannot help but wonder what will the impact be.
Re: (Score:2)
Panasonic has switched to the Leica L mount anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
They've added it to their range, rather than switched to it.
They still (currently) produce and sell m43 mount cameras.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
What I want to know (Score:2)
is, who is going to manufacture colonoscopes now?
The whole prep routine is bad enough, but I don't want some cheap knock-off 'scope being "introduced" to my rear end.
So, is there anything left? (Score:2)
So, is there anything left of Olympus?
The only things I know of that they ever made are cameras and voice recorders. And it's not like the standalone voice recorder business is exactly thriving these days, there's still a market for high end standalone cameras, but a phone can handle audio recording just fine.
Re: So, is there anything left? (Score:1)
Probably just a bag of patents. It's sad to see once great companies turned into these ghosts that do nothing but sell patents until they all expire.
Re: (Score:1)
Check out their website: https://www.olympus-global.com... [olympus-global.com]
They've been making medical optics and microscopes for donkeys years.
Cameras is just on the consumer side.
Also, have a look at the hardware when you go for your next eye test.
It'll most likely be either Olympus, Topcon or Keeler kit.
Re: (Score:2)
Phones suck for audio recording. Maybe good enough for "here's a new idea for later".
Something like this is probably cheaper than your phone and offers very good mics and 2 line-in with good preamps (Tascam DR-40X Four-Track Digital Audio Recorder - the other two recording options I have are nice, but this rocks with the nice mics built in and AAA battery powered, take it anywhere):
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod... [amazon.com]
Phones do take pretty good photos,
Re: (Score:2)
You misunderstand.
The primary market for most digital recorders is lawyers.
Accurate enough voice reproduction for transcription is sufficient. The built in mic on ANY phone is far beyond adequate for that.
That said, the only thing that makes a phone inadequate for music studio grade recording is the mic. Pop on an external and a dedicated recording device is redundant for ANY purpose.
Think of the unemployed! (Score:1)
What about the unemployment resulting from this obsolescence of separate cameras?
Shouldn't we worry about them just as much, as we were supposed to worry about the cloth-makers threatened by the textile mills [wikipedia.org], the grooms (and other horse-related professions) threatened by automobiles and railroads, the computers [wikipedia.org] made obsolete by computers [wikipedia.org], the taxi-drivers being replaced by Uber part-timers, and so on?
Stylus Epic (Score:3)
Before I sold the camera, I tested it. I put a new battery in it, bought some film, and shot a roll. I found the last place in town that still developed film and returned the negatives. You can still get film developed at Walgreens but they won't give you your negatives back, just a CD. It was a great little camera and I decided that I was okay sticking with digital. I love being able to have a lightweight point and shoot camera in my shirt pocket rather than carrying an Albatros of a camera around my neck when I'm sight seeing.
Like Kodak... (Score:1)