On 2/18/2015 1:15 PM, Chris Trask wrote:
It's too bad that Olympus did not evolve in the same manner as did Pentax.
You mean from independent company to one needing to be acquired to avoid
complete failure, and now only a tiny player?
They went from MF film to AF film by simply embedding the electrical contacts
into the lens mount flange.
Unfortunately, Oly's efforts at AF were dismal failures. The didn't work at all well, and failed regularly. Camera store
counter people HATED them, knowing that most would come back.
When they went to AF digital, they just made a new digital body with the same
mount and electrical contacts, and you could use the older AF and MF film
lenses.
For the reason above, Oly never had that choice. Their effort at film AF crashed and burned, leaving nothing to develop
from.
OTOH, Olympus digital cameras can accommodate more of the older MF film lenses
than any other brand, and that is a real advantage if you're looking for
affordable decent MF glass.
Indeed, and that would not be true if they had retained their MF register distance, as Nikon, Minolta, Canon, Pentax and
others did. But Canon had bit that bullet early. Just when you said Pentax did the right thing, they did the opposite.
When Canon went AF with film, they abandoned their FD mount for one with the shortest register distance of any FF SLR.
There was much screaming and gnashing of teeth at the time, but as they became the universal recipient of adapted lenses
from other mounts and their own AF mount was very successful, it became clear they had made a great business decision.
The major reason I bought a Canon as my first DSLR was that I could adapt my MF
Zuiko lenses to it.
Winners Write the History Moose
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What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
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