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Re: [OM] RANT: Sample images taken with EP-1

Subject: Re: [OM] RANT: Sample images taken with EP-1
From: Joel Wilcox <jfwilcox@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:38:02 -0500
On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Ken Norton <ken@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> >
> > Live view, supersonic whizbangs, economic aspect ratio for print,
> > outstanding lenses, articulating LCD.  You owe me 10 laughable items.
> >
>
> 1. Lens Mount Change - Killing backward compatiblity for no reason at all.
> 2. Dinky Viewfinders - Forcing live-view!
> 3. Sub-standard auto-focus.
> 4. Elimination of the spot-meter button.
> 5. Me too PASM dial.
> 6. Elimination of dedicated controls for, of all things, aperture.
> 7. Noisy, soft sensors (as compared to every contemporary camera to each
> model).
> 8. The tiny 4/3 format. I like the ratio, but why did they have to be the
> smallest around?
> 9. Svelteness or the lack of. Only recently has Olympus come close to
> delivering on lenses and bodies that reflect the possibilities of the 4/3
> format.
> 10. No OTF/OTS auto-exposure or flash control. HELLO???

Oh.  I thought you were going to come up with a list unique to
Olympus, and if you were going to trash the E-1 as the representative
of the whole E-system, you could have included the size of the LCD and
the limited replay modes.

> Frankly, I'm being charitable. I've bought into the E-system, but maybe the
> fact that my investment stopped with the E-1 and one single lens (14-54)
> says something.

It does.  It says that you are commenting on an extended system from a
limited exposure to it.

> Olympus lost their way with the 4/3 system. The fact that they ceased the OM
> system with the introduction of the OM-3Ti says that they lost their way
> prior to 1993. By the time 4/3 came along, there was no continuity and the
> culture of what made the OM system so unique was lost.  The E-1 was no
> different than the Nikon and Canon offerings. Olympus attempted to be Canon,
> not Olympus.  You will never succeed trying to beat Canon at its own game.
> Your only real marketing benefit is price/performance as compared to the
> competition and frankly the performance side of that equation has been
> limited, except when comparing lenses.

Personally, I don't care about the comparisons.  Olympus could have
been trying to be Alcoa for all I know.  How could you evaluate
whether a company like Olympus lost their way or not?  What is The
Way?  I think all one can say is the tool works for you or not.

Everything tends to suggest to me that Olympus went its own way.  My
impression is that most of the folks that went elsewhere after the OM
era had wished Olympus had been more like C & N and that it was
precisely because they weren't that they were frustrated with Olympus'
pace to market, pixel flatus, slow AF, ISO noise.  Had they selected
4/3 to imitate C & N, you'd be right to say they'd lost their way.
Lost their minds is what I'd say.

> Why I believe the E-P1 (and others to follow) is so extremely critical to
> Olympus AND is so significantly important of a product is that the E-P1
> represents the thinking and culture of Olympus--that of carving out niche
> markets and products where non existed before--yet ones everybody recognizes
> as "I gotta have that."
>
> In my op-ed piece (which is mostly written, just needs to be de-attituded a
> bit), I point out a very unique aspect to the E-P1 which will actually
> transend the featureset and obvious capabilities. This product-line is
> extremely important and is potentially THE one camera most likely to be
> found in nearly every camera bag.

No quarrels.  I think that OM rarely enjoyed the "gotta have that"
moments but thrived under steady patronage of people who knew what
they were after and enjoyed the system a lot -- but let that go.
Ranting on the e-system probably gives you little to build up the e-p.
 It's going to be tough to make the case that the e-p is great because
the e-system isn't, and you don't need to do that, I don't think.  The
e-p ought to be (and is) promising just for what it is in itself.  If
you expect to make that case by also attempting to make me believe the
e-system is a botched enterprise, it just won't resonate with me and
plenty of other users I fear.  Why even go there?  You'd almost be
better off trying to make the case the that DSLR in general -- all
manufacturers included -- was a mistake. The case FOR the e-p probably
needs to be made on a very different basis.

> In one aspect I agree with you, but in another aspect, I believe that this
> "gimmick" is actually THE most important thing for Olympus, the company and
> the employees.  It's a culture thing.  Olympus MUST be Olympus and if
> Olympus has to reach back 50 years to learn this lesson, then so be it.
> Just maybe, today's Olympus will go back and discover what it was about past
> systems that truely worked.

That's fine within the walls of Olympus and among the executives and
employees.  I engage with the product that devolves from all that. I
don't need to smoke what they're smoking.  On a side note, one of the
things that sort of troubles me about the e-p/Pen association is the
implied suggestion that m4/3 -- or actually 4/3 in general -- is
similar to half-frame!

> What I am going to hit on really has nothing to do with the original Pen,
> which I personally thought many of the bodies sucked and was fundimentally
> flawed due to the half-frame format. It will sell you on the new E-P1 not
> for what the Pen was, but what the camera represents to us (the
> photograhers) today.
>
> And it is actually far more groundbreaking than I think any of us
> understand.

Good.  That's what I really want to read.  I hope you realize I'm
giving you some grief here because you're a friend and I don't want
you to explode in your own methane by flying too close to the sun, or
something like that ...

Joel W.
-- 
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