So, today I visited the NYC PhotoPlus show and of course stopped by the Oly
booth. For the Oly collector with everything, Olympus shopping bags for
sale, $50 each <g>.
Last year, Oly had a tiny booth with two people. This year, they had a huge
display, equal in size to Canon and Nikon, with a whole array of cuties,
and a large number of other representitives from Oly USA. After advising
one of the young women that I had dumped an extensive Oly system because it
appeared they were leaving the SLR business, she directed me to a gentleman
named Alex.
I challenged him in the same fashion and asked him if Oly was getting out
of the business. His reply was carefully framed and was to the effect that
they were not leaving the business but were not planning to do much in it.
I asked him if any new lenses at least were coming down the pike and he
didn't think so.
Interestingly enough, he admitted there had been 'discussions' concerning a
new OM body over the past three years. He would not or could not tell me
when asked if those discussions involved manual focus or autofocus.
He stated that Oly's focus would be on digital, and that they were putting
digital above even p&s. This squares with what I have noticed; something
has happened at Oly and it may be that they see digital as the way to come
back and wrest leadership again from the N&C crowd. Witness the very
expensive touchy/feely ad campaign they have been running...
Naturally I seized upon this to ask if they were contemplating making a
digital camera that would take OM lenses. He never did answer me directly
but said digital was only 'halfway' there, and that the marketplace hasn't
yet figured out how to buy a digicam. We discussed resolution vs.
compression ratios, etc.
Then I had an interesting discussion at the IPIX booth. For anyone not
familiar with IPIX, they have basically filed as many patents as possible
for stitching images using Nikon 8mm fisheyes and turning them into
immersive images, and forced others like LivePicture into removing that
capability from their software. I told them I had a Zuiko 8mm and asked if
I could use that setup instead of the Nikon. They told me they were very
anxious to test a Zuiko but had not been able to find one. They also said
(are you listening Gary?) that other fisheyes like the Sigma either were
not true 180deg or had more than one stop light fallof from center to edge,
making them not optimal. There were some other optical factors he mentioned
that were beyond my range of understanding. Anyway the upshot is that I am
going to send him some shots taken with my Zuiko 8mm for testing. I imagine
that if they agree the lens is as good as Nikon the value of your 8mm will
go up substantially!
Regards,
Denton Taylor
_______________________________
Photogallery at www.dentontaylor.com
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