Olympus photography division for sale

[bykfixer]

So between smart phones and now corona virus Olympus has thrown in the towel for their photography division. They make other equipment so the Olympus company will be ok. However after the 3rd year of losses they have announced their photo segment is up for sale

https://www.pcmag.com/news/after-84-years-olympus-is-exiting-the-camera-business
An article about it.

Another sign of the times for photography I suppose.

I never owned a digital product by them but did sport one of their point n shoot AZ-1 cameras for several years and it was a dandy. I preferred it over my Rebel G as a matter of fact.

Anyway, any Olympus fans out there? 4/3rds fans perhaps?

 

[carrot]

I'm an avid Olympus shooter.

To say I'm disappointed is an understatement. I'm pretty invested. There is hope yet, as JIP doesn't seem to be planning to strip the camera division clean, but I wouldn't say things look good either.

M43 excels at some things other systems can only dream of. Class-leading IBIS, long lenses are low weight and size, and legendary weather resistance.

Some of this is due to Olympus engineering excellence. Other due to physical size, with the smaller sensor enabling smaller lenses and more powerful IBIS.

I am dual shooting now with Fuji X100F, just dipping my toes in the water. It's good, but lacks in some ways that drew me to Olympus and M43 in the first place.

Olympus lenses are tack sharp wide open. All other systems say you should stop the lens down for sharpness, removing any large sensor advantage right from the outset. You can also shoot with Olympus IBIS from a rocking boat in pouring rain, one-handed with slower shutter speeds. No other system will keep up.

My Olympus gear will continue to last and serve and time will move on. I will eventually commit to a new system.

But photography stands to lose one of the greats that was pushing the bounds for all the photographers who spend time shooting and don't have the time to go on YouTube to boast about their bokeh.

 

[bykfixer]

I really like Fuji cameras for low contrast settings. A few years ago I consulted for a division of a DOT who insisted on Fuji cameras for their employees. I asked why and was told various reasons but the digi-cam I used while there was really nice. My only qulam with them back then was I had to buy an XD card reader, but that was no biggy. (If I recall correct the XD was an Olympus/Fuji design.) Apparently the X100F is a mighty fine camera.

What caused me to learn of Olympus deciding to sell its photography division was when I went looking for a jacket pocket point and shoot with features of a larger camera. Not wanting to enter the micro-lens swappable type I ended up settling on a Panasonic with 1" sensor. Lots of control like an SLR and shoots in RAW.

Not being familiar with the JIP version of VIOS it is nice to see that name still out there. I do get the sense that Olympus technology and designs are being sold but not the name itself. Hopefully it won't become what GT Price did to LA Screw flashlights where cost of production was at the forefront so good ideas were replaced with cheap junk.

It just dawned on me that sometime around 2007 or 08 I had an Olymus digi-cam that touted 20x optical zoom. It was a nice camera and took good pictures but for some reason it stayed in the box most of the time so when a broke friend (of the family) asked me to reccomend a cheap camera I gave her that one and said "this one is much nicer than the cheap ones".

 

[aginthelaw]

Who's going to fix my om-d e-m5 now that I purchased the extended warranty