Interviews with Oly

[yoshi]

A photographer, Kimio Tanaka, had interviews with 8 brands recently. They are Olympus, Canon, Sigma, Sony,Nikon, Fujifilm, Pentax and Richo.
Each has two-page long. Here are major points.

To start with;

Olympus (interviewee: Mr. Ogawa, Oly's director in charge of marketing)

1. New Mirrorless model series is being developed. It is a diieferent model series from Pen series and has a newly designed EFV.
The interchangeability with Pen series is secured.

2.Successor to E-5 (dSLR) is also under development. Oly is fully commited to dSLR as well and no plan at all to discontinue it.
I (=Mr. Ogawa) personally use a dSLR. The business can not exist if we deprive users of dreams. (my remarks: this comment has nothing to do with the late scandal of Oly.)

my remarks: The interviewer believes that the new mirrorless model(s) are introduced relatively soon next year.

(I have to go out now - to a pub. So will continue later)
yoshi

[Ian]

Re: Interviews with Oly

Thanks for this Yoshi. As you and many others here know I have a special interest in Olympus as I run the Olympus UK E-System User Group website (e-group.uk.net) and hire service for Olympus UK and I own and run Four Thirds User (fourthirds-user.com) and there has been much debate about the future of Olympus branded DSLRs since the Pen was launched. In that time only one DSLR has been produced by Olympus and that's the updated E-3 (called the E-5). Many pessimists declared the E-5 was Olympus' final DSLR and all future interchangeable lens cameras from Olympus would be Pens (Micro Four Thirds).

But my sensing of the situation was that there was a plan to return to the DSLR development once the work to establish the Pen was completed. At the very least I expect a DSLR-sized camera with a Micro Four Thirds mount and integrated high resolution EVF. Such a camera, like Pens, would be able to use the excellent range of Zuiko Digital DSLR lenses as well as Pen lenses, via an adapter. The main compromise would be AF performance but there have been rumours that Olympus has found a solution to this, as Sony has with the use of Alpha mount lenses on its NX-range of compact system cameras. But I also don't rule out a conventional DSLR successor as well.

Many think I am being too optimistic, but your report seems to give more justification to my hopes!

Ian