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Re: [OM] The slow death of OM

Subject: Re: [OM] The slow death of OM
From: dolphans1@xxxxxxx
Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 04:07:38 +0000
My favorite year, was 1972, and little did I know then, 
that this was the year the OM series camera was 
introduced. It was also the same year, my favorite 
football team went undefeated and won the Super Bowl. 
Talk about a long time ago? Well think of Richard M. 
Nixon and Water Gate.

The demise of the OM camera probably started when 
Olympus made the decision that  ?professional 
photographers?, didn?t need to have auto-exposure or 
auto-aperture cameras. They felt there was no real 
market in this area. They put most of there efforts into 
the compact camera market.  Most people wanted a small 
simple to use camera that didn?t require much if any 
effort at all and Olympus sold millions of them.

This really put Olympus behind the eight ball, as far as 
the pro-market goes, when Canon Corporation came out 
with the AE-1 in 1976. A camera that Joe Theisman (I 
believe) made famous a little on further down the line. 
The AE-1 had the first microprocessor built inside of 
it. (CPU) The "AE-1" was the first 35mm AE SLR camera 
that had shutter speed-priority, and TTL metering. 

Then Olympus came out with the OM-10 cameras in 1978, 
which had there share of quality control issue problems 
and the OM-77 and 88?s (in 1986), which had there 
quality control problems as well. I believe Minolta was 
the first Camera Company to produce a 35mm auto-focus 
camera, Nikon had the F-501 auto-focus shortly 
thereafter, and they were pretty popular as well. 

When Canon finally introduced the Canon EOS system in 
1987, it was first auto-focus camera ?truly? built for 
the ?professional photographer? in mind, which by the 
way, had a top shutter speed of 1/8000 sec. It was 
somewhere at this point, in my opinion, when Olympus 
started to get really far behind the major 3 companies, 
as far as the professional market goes.

The EOS- 1 camera definitely changed the way 
professional photographers saw auto-focus cameras and 
thus it became very popular. And later, tennis star 
spokesperson Andre Agassi, helped to give it further 
name brand recognition. The "EOS" system, was developed 
under three major guidelines: 
1) - no price increase due to the introduction of the AF 
mechanism
2) - a lightweight design which enables shooting indoor 
sports hand-holding the camera with a "300mm  f/2.8" lens
3) - Auto-focus sensitivity equivalent to exposure 
sensitivity.


Though Olympus made an effort to introduce the ?all in 
one? camera, as in the IS auto-focus camera series line, 
it was never really considered a professional camera.

This is why I feel Olympus is devoting so much time into 
the digital camera market? They don?t want to be left 
behind, again??

Sam?..



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