43 Rumors

I’m agree with what that guy said, but seriously, he is like a toddler whimpering for his toy to be given all at once! Easy boy, one by one! All his request has been answered in Oly and Pana roadmaps, and also from rumors this site leaked. New GF line, we will get it! More pancake, we will get it! Nothing new in his rant.

Small and fast prime lenses (not necessarily “pancakes”, can be a bit bigger with better optical quality) should be the “raison d’être” of mirrorless systems. Manufactures really have to realize that SIZE is the main advantage and selling point of such systems (overall size, including lenses. Not body size alone: You can’t take pictures just with a body).

Why is everyone complaining about Olympus menu? I personally find it OK to use. Not the best no doubt but quoting it as a bad design is exaggerating imo.

1) Small fast primes and not necessarily pancake, please.

2) Larger Pen body in black with integral EVF offset to the left (think digital contax G1), please.

3) Above Camera with a very smooth, near silent shutter. Not electronic, so there is some feedback to photographer.

4) Stop the near replication of each others boring, slow consumer zooms, please. The originality is staggering (not).

+1 to omolympus – whether its panasonic or olympus an internal EVF would be amazing. digital contax G1/G2 please.

I know the Olympus UI has been roundly criticized, but after finding the comprehensive quick info window, I’ve found it to be easier to view and change settings than with any other camera I’ve had.

But yes the menus are awful.

Anyone else feel this?

I plodded through his article and yes, it all sounds plausible — but the reason it sounds plausible is that he’s shading the facts to support his arguments.

For example, Panasonic does NOT offer “three different ‘small’ DSLR style body lines.” Its whole product line contains only TWO body lines/form factors: the GF body, which emphasizes compactness at the expense of an eye-level viewfinder, and the G body, which combines both finders in a slightly larger package. (Its resemblance to a DSLR is just coincidental, IMO.)

The G form factor currently supports three spec levels: the mainstream G2, the video-centric GH1, and the budget G10. That seems to me like a perfectly reasonably way to build a comprehensible product line that covers a range of interests and price points.

The same goes for his contention that fixed-focal-length lenses are being shamefully neglected. Yeah, I’d like to see a 50/1.7 to go with my 20/1.7 as soon as possible, but in all honesty I think both manufacturers are pursuing the build-out of their lens lines in a logical way. They started with a base of good-quality zooms that made M4/3 viable by handling most picture-taking situations, and now are introducing more specialized lenses (wide-aperture, macro, video-optiimized, etc.) to fill in the gaps.

I don’t think this pace of development really lags that much behind the pace of DSLR lens development, considering that the M4/3 makers had to start from zero. A lot of the fixed-focal-length lenses in the DSLR space are nothing more than warmed-over legacy designs from the film SLR era; if you look at FRESH designs, I think the M4/3 twins are keeping pace pretty well, especially relative to the total size of their lens lines.

Example: 28% of Panasonic’s current M4/3 lens line consists of NEWLY-DEVELOPED fixed-focal-length lenses. I suspect Canon or Nikon would have a hard time matching that figure.

No, I don’t want Pana and Oly to get complacent — but I think they’re as well-placed as anyone to build full-line offerings that cater to the whole spectrum from point-and-shoot “graduates” (whom Samsung seems to be ignoring) to photographers who want full-featured but lighter cameras (whom Sony seems to be ignoring.) The fact that neither Pana nor Oly has a significant DSLR business to protect, as Sony does, should give them lots of latitude for further innovation.

Micro Four Thirds lacks portrait lens… It is my biggest complaint now. I use manual lens for portraiture but it is manual focus lens and I miss many shots I take. Unfortunatelly I cannot compare my manual focusing skills to AF (even Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 which is the slowest one of all Panasonic lenses in my bag).
If there is 40 or 50mm f/1.2-1.4 I’d be completely happy with system I own. I hope Panasonic understands the need of expanding MFT system beyond standard/popular types of lenses. I hope so…

Amazing that Sigma or anyone else hasn’t produced anything yet either. I mean with proper autofocus. The Samyangs and Noktor don’t really count.
The E-PL1 made it to 10th place in the Japanese sales charts this month. Surely we’re getting to the stage where it would be worth their while?

Tyson is right that the size of the system is the key though. And Sony is showing the way with body size but will now always be hampered by big lenses.

M4/3 offers no performance advantage except for the fact that you are more likely to have a small camera WITH you. So MAKE THEM SMALL!

I like the GH1 size because it makes it easier to use for video. But yes I agree, the lineup is too clustered right now. We need to start seeing really high-end bodies and really light/small/thin bodies…everything is kind of clustered in the middle right now.

Regarding optics, I’m very happy with the current range in standard (pancake 20/1.7) and UGA range (very compact 9-18) however, it’d be a dream-come-true if they get inspiration from Pentax’s line-up of primes for the longer side, currently:
- pancake 40/2.8 (eq. 80 mm)
- pancake 70/2.4 (eq. 140 mm)
- 31/1.8 (eq. 62 mm)
- 43/1.9 (eq. 86 mm)
- 77/1.8 (eq. 154 mm)
That’s a good mix of reasonable apertures for pancakes and normal sizes for brightness, and their prices are OK. In mFT, they might even get smaller because of the smaller sensor + shorter flange distance.

Regarding bodies, I want an E-PL2 (E-PL1 size, built-in IS and small flash) with one dial and a fully articulated, high-resolution screen (don’t care about viewfinder).

At the end of the day, it is the bulk and weight of your lenses which limit the portability of the system, not the bodies.
Cramped formats like the GF_ and E-P_ (and now Sony NEX) compromise ergonomics, especially with larger lenses and
in tripod work. The G_ format is just about right.

Let’s start with Panasonic:

G1, G1H, G10, G2, GF1. That’s five models (in an array of colors, too!) in a pretty tight space. This is clearly intentional, and it reeks of spaghetti-at-the-wall tossing rather than proper product differentiation. There simply aren’t enough differing features there to broaden the price range or the platform substantively, in my opinion. They’re very tightly targeted in a fairly narrow target, too (tweener users, those between compacts and DSLRs). Worse still, we know that we’re getting a m4/3 video camera, so the GH1 starts to look more redundant, too. It strikes me that Panasonic is trying to find the right product rather than knowing what the right product actually is. That’s disappointing. And to a potential user, it’s gotten a bit confusing. Good thing they aren’t carried by a lot of dealers, who’d just confuse the customer more ;~). To Panasonic’s credit, I THINK they’re really only trying to put three cameras into this space and that some of what we’re seeing is model overlap (not good news when you still have plenty of inventory of generation one when generation two comes out, though). But a hint to Panasonic: your sales and marketing here in the US is terrible. It won’t matter how good or bad or how many products you’ve got if you don’t fix that.

The complaint about Olympus is dead on. The menu system may make sense to Olympus, but it doesn’t to the new user. Even after reading the manual. Even after using the camera for awhile. The camera makers need some real help in keeping the breadth and depth of the current choices while presenting it in a much more usable fashion, but they’re not getting it. Fortunately for Olympus, they’re not the only ones who are confused. Nikon completely botched the added D3000 novice menu system (yes, the camera basically has two menu systems). Canon still thinks that we memorize numbers. None of the makers seem to actually think and prioritize like photographers, though at least Olympus realized that formatting a card is something you do often and should be right up front (Fujifilm buried it under nine keystrokes on the last camera I got from them).

I think the menu problem is simple to explain. First the camera makers figure out all the features they’ve got and want the user to control. Then they try to cram them into some pre-conceived notion of “menus.” Worse, at some point they realize that they don’t have a lot of screen space to work with, so they end up in this show six things at a time of six things of six things world of nested menus. Navigating menus becomes a PROCESS in and of itself, rather than a photographic process driving the choices. If the makers would just get it through their heads that there are really only three menus: pre-shoot (setup), shoot (conditional choices), and post-shoot (workflow), they’d move a long ways towards getting things right. I expected better of Olympus on this. They used to understand photographic processes.

Panolympus acts like all big japanese companies when they’re asked to do something cool: the don’t.

Case in point: at the dvxuser, Panasonic was repeatedly asked to create an affordable 35mm (big sensor) cine camera. Afraid they might topple their business, they never did, topping off their line with a 2/3 (small) sensor cine camera for 80k.

When asked “please do bigger sensors”, they replied “we can’t.
When asked “please add any framerate from 1-60fps they replied “we can’t”.

Then came Red and blew them away. 35mm big sensor, 17k.

Those big japanese companies continue to sound like sowjet planned economies to me. With managers that are afraid to change anything. While they are doing babysteps, the market is doing huge steps.

Sad.

On the contrary, I actually think the menu to be well thought out.

They could improve by placing related tweaks closer to one another, but the systemmenu is like a mind map. U want e3 then go down to e then right to e3

I agree with spanky’s comment above. What I want is a better GH1. It’s ok to have a better GF1 too but I prefer the size of the GH1. Don’t make all the m4/3 cameras small like Olympus.

More faster lenses. Yes! We need a reasonable 14-50 f2.8 to replace the discontinued Sigma 18-50. in both 4/3 and micro 4/3.
A 20-60 F2.8 constant would work as well. This 3.5-5.6 crap is barely useful.

I personally disagree about the menus. I just love Oly menus, they are not stylish, but yet logical and easy to use. Maybe a revamp theme would be nice, but the main logic behind them is the best out there, including with their key-mapping. At least for me, compare to Nikon D60/D90 and Canon 500D I was lucky to get my hands on. What I really want is a replacement for me E520 and better ISO handling, a little bit bigger OVF would be also nice! Faster AF, is must (compare to e520, e3/e30 is fast enough, but faster wouldn’t be a minus ;p).

Built-in viewfinder without the ‘SLR’ hump, thank you.

Better sensor for any of the present and future ranges of m43 cameras!!!!! If image quality (dr,high iso, no banding etc) was as good as aps-c there woulnd’t be half the complaint we see today. Panasonic focus on sensor development!!!! Give us something if not better at least as good as.

GH1 replaced by a slimmer rangefinder body (aka Pana L1 or something like Samsung NX10 which in my opinion holds better in hand than GH1 and it’s slimmer but with evf to the side), better video, better evf, full audio controls, still with tiltabe screen, IS to improve usability with lenses from other makers, and weather-sealed . The top range camera to please video and photo crowd.

G10 replaced by cheaper version in this rangefinfer evf form factor no weatherseal, no tiltable screen, not as good sensor etc.

G2 replacement could keep the dslr body, maybe bit slimmer but weathersealed.

GF replacement keep the current form factor but much slimmer, with the oldest/worse sensor, without evf as today…. the cheapest entry aka EPL1 (wich I also think holds better in hand than the GF1)

Pansonic should also improve colour.

Oly get the rangefinder, weatehrsealed top cam out and consider other makers for sensors if Pany doesn’t come out with out something good.

And of course prime fast lenses!!!! To please video and camera crowd.

Don’t give us average give us the best!

Hey Yo,

I’ll disagree that Panasonic should lay off on the G and GH line. They are actually competing with the entry level DSLRs and providing naturally good video (due to mirrorless design). I know they will develop the GF line also. They’ve got a good spread and don’t want to wreck the LX5 market all together.

For Olympus, new menus would be great, but that’s a minor. They should show us some 4/3rds stuff (E-5, 100mm, and 300mm f4) and a lens road map for Micro4/3rds with a couple promised lenses releasing this summer.

Cheers,
Seth

I personally prefer the control panel in my E-520 to that from the Canon 50D. I don’t know whether the E-3 is similar, but if it is, I prefer that over Canon. I also like the Nikon control panel. If I were to switch, I’d probably go to Nikon just because I like both interfaces fairly well. I can’t justify the rant. I’ve used a 50D and an Xsi both from Canon and I thought the control interface was overwrought and fiddly, while the Olympus seemed natural and rather quick. So, compared to the leading competitor, I find Olympus’ super control panel quite intuitive.

I refuse to believe that the manufacturer does not know that people want AFFORDABLE fast lenses. How can they be so out of touch?

I think they know but simply refuse to provide them for some business reason my small brain cannot figure out.