Interesting debate this one...
I worked as a TV news cameraman throughout the 80s and early 90s and for
the press photographers 'on the road', the Nikon F3, then later the F4,
was the standard.
Judging by what I see these days, even Nikon appears to have lost pro
market share to Canon's EOS. I was at the World Swimming Championships
in January in a corporate box behind the photographers's area and I'd
say it was 800r more EOS. Canon even had a technical support centre
set up at the event. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I can't help
but think the pro market is fast becoming dominated by one brand and
it's no longer Nikon.
The 'enthusiastic amateur' market is still there, but you can now buy a
new Canon or Nikon SLR for just about any amount from $500-$5000+. At
some price point the camera goes from being an amateur device to a
professional one. Perhaps the hobby of photography has changed...there
was a time when the 35mm SLR was the trademark of a real enthusiast
because it took some knowledge to operate one. These days of course
'everything is automatic'. Unfortunately it's difficult to sell a camera
on romance alone...
Steve
>
>RE the debate about hypothetical OM5s and 6s and digital OMs
>IMHO:
>It is too late for Olympus to win back a sizeable part of the
mainstream
>pro market. That market already belongs to Nikon and Canon. However the
>OM range is still unbeatable as an enthusiastic amateur's non-AF
system,
>for all the reasons I rambled about before.
>I am convinced that Olympus could still make significant amounts money
>selling OMs to this market. The only issue is price. The R&D has
already
>been done. The existing and past OM equipment does all that many
>amateurs could ever reasonable want.
>If Olympus concentrated on:
>- marketing the current OMs (NOT 2000) at a reasonable price (i.e. much
>lower than now) and/or reintroduced the OM1n/OM2n, priced against the
>Nikon FM2 etc. (they could probably forget the titanium too)
>- picked out a popular sub-set of their EXISTING primes, zooms and
>accessories and priced them right (maybe about 10 lenses in all)
> - marketed the range properly, targeting the enthusiast
>I'm sure the orders would come flooding in.
>Sorry to any pros out there!
>BTW, are Olympus still actually manufacturing OM3 and 4Tis, or do they
>have a stockpile of already built cameras that they are slowly selling
>off for inflated sums?
>
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