Tris,
It all comes down to supporting the product, and IMO,
Olympus is strategically abandoning it's product. When
you stop to think about it, Is digital really that much
easier to use or even better to use?
A digital camera eats up a lot of batteries, then you
have to store or archive the photo's somewhere. For the
novice photographer, you have to re-learn the way you
shoot photography, when shooting digital.
In 10 years, which is closer and will get here sooner
than you think, Olympus will discontinue parts for the
OM-4T. I'm am also sure they will discontinue service,
and if so, what will you do when a "circuit board" goes
out and has to be replaced on your 4-T? Use as a parts
or donor camera?
IMO, it comes down to a "respect" issue and "morality"
issue. Olympus could donate the parts or lease the name
out to a company that would be interested in keeping the
classsic alive. Instead, they have chosen to abandon the
product and throw the parts away in some land-fill, IMO.
How great is digital anyway? Every few months the
digital camera you just purchased has become absolete
and out-dated, like so many computers we've become
familiar with.
Our society has become a throw-away society, which
appears to be only interested in the making the mighty
dolllar, and that's what I believe is the real reason
behind the discontinuiation of the OM series line.
Unfortunately!
Sam....
>
> >It does seem to me that Oly did miss out on the sales potential of
> >periodic detail improvements and restyling every couple of years that gets
> >reviews in the magazines and gives the impression of continuing development.
>
> As far as I'm concerned that's something Oly did right. Why market
> something as "new" when it's not? Just because this is what Joe Public
> expects and "wants" based on his bad habits over the years with
> "consumable" products like most automobiles and television sets? If
> "photographers" don't want excellent emulsion equipment then by all means
> Olympus is correct to abandon that field and jump into a more viable,
> digital market. I only hope that the company's executives aspire to sit
> atop that market with regards to the absolute quality of this equipment.
>
> Meanwhile, the public will get, is getting, exactly what it wants and
> deserves when it comes to camera equipment designed for use with emulsion:
> shit. Those who know better will buy up (are buying up) any remaining new
> stock and used gear out of the Olympus OM line, and more power to these
> people.
>
> I have the basic equipment I need now. Three 4T's is all I can possibly
> use. I could hope to one day own a fast telephoto or two, but in reality
> the use I'd get of this sort of lens candy would be minimal. If I were
> still working that'd be another story, but then if I were still working
> odds are my publisher would insist that I use digital in the field for the
> purpose of fast transmission. Indeed, except for National Geographic
> photographers (and probably a few other major slicks out there) who employs
> pros with emulsion gear anymore? From everything I've heard and seen in
> the field I doubt many (if any) of the major dailies do. Does Sports
> Illustrated still accept film-emulsion work from its staff? If so, where
> were these photographers the last time I viewed a major sports event on TV?
> All I've seen lately were people out there holding what appeared to be
> magic boxes--whatever this equipment was it certainly didn't look very much
> like old Nikon gear, and of course nothing at all for OM stuff. (I had a
> sick feeling about that when UPI went under, call it a very bad spectre for
> all things Olympus at the time.)
>
> Now that I think on it, I'd volunteer that my sole serious interest in more
> Oly gear would be to one day break down and buy a new 3Ti. I'd guess I
> wouldn't "need" it any more than I "need" a set of chessmen I own which I
> paid about $1200 for (and if you think that's nuts, hold onto your hats
> because that was for a new set and I still have my eye on an antique Morphy
> set from the middle of the nineteenth century which costs three times as
> much <g>), but then as they say, man does not live by bread alone.
>
> Anyway, back to current Nikon gear: I can see why someone would want to own
> an F3. That's _real_ pro gear and was built to take it. Understand me. I
> don't see, in any manner, shape or form, the wisdom of wanting to own such
> equipment for actual use in the field when one could just as easily buy new
> or used Olympus equipment like the 3 or 4, except of course for the ability
> to rent special-use lenses easily, but I would understand a man's craving
> (is this like photographic nostalgia?) for reasons having nothing to do
> with the gear's true utilitarian value. But buy into a system which has at
> its core an FM3a?
>
> You know, sometimes I just can't understand where part of this list lives. <g>
>
> Tris
>
>
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