Four Thirds: Alive petition!

All those of you that want to keep Four Thirds alive should take a look at the following petition: http://www.photocommunity.qtp.it/petition/index.php. This initiative is presented by the italian four-thirds users forum www.qTp.it. The petition expires on December 15th.

Daemonius
2 years ago |Why?
Seriously, theres no need for this anymore.. What I would love to see is that all 4/3s lens would AF at decent speed on m4/3s body.
Perhaps E-6 for m4/3?
Theres no advantage in 4/3 except AF speed.. and even that wont last too long, Panasonics AF starts to be really fast.
Cyril
2 years ago |Who said FT is dead?
“There are no new products currenrly under development.”
Thats it.
cL
2 years ago |Yeah, there is no official announcement of cancellation, but be very wary of these people who called fire in a theater and innocent people die in the process. Their wishful thinking that 4/3 be dead may just be heard by Olympus and as the result, Olympus would just discontinue the line. They totally disregard other people may have different set of priority and may need 4/3′s quality. Self-righteous and self-centered.
As soon as Fuji x100 comes out, which has a lens trumps every m4/3 lens in existence, and a bigger sensor to boost, same group of people would swing again and laugh at everyone who signed a petition to keep m4/3 alive…. Most of them don’t even know what they want, can’t tell a good photo from a bad one, so they buy whatever others are buying…. Sounds like a plot of a coming-of-age story to me.
Let them declare the death on a camera system they don’t use. If we are lucky, we might hear them telling their neighbor to start packing, because they won’t receive social security benefit to pay for their rent in near future. I bet they only voted the winning party, too. :-p
tgutgu
2 years ago |Which means effectively and realisticly DEAD. Interest in the 4/3 products will get lower, sales will go down, and sooner or later it is not economic for Olympus to keep the production, distribution, and marketing costs alive. There are many retailers in Germany, which do not have 4/3 in their portfolio anymore.
So to assume that the announcement of no current new developments is not the final bullet to 4/3 is a bit naive.
juavel
2 years ago |Yes, of course, electronic viewfinders have been outperformed by the electronic VF´s, ergonomy and direct accesses are also equivalent[/IRONIC]
cL
2 years ago |Have you used a 4/3 camera before? Olympus is famous for its 4/3 lenses, not m4/3…. It’s those high-end 4/3 lenses that make 4/3 cameras competitive with APS-C cameras, if not better, despite the obvious DR and low-light disadvantages of the sensor. The reason I’m reluctant to jump ship or switch to m4/3 are the wonderful lenses I have. Unless m4/3 have some serious lenses (just 20mm f1.4 won’t cut it) and have a body with built-in viewfinder (EVF or OVF), I won’t downgrade from my E-620. An E-650 or an E-700 would be nice.
ft mft user
2 years ago |Yes. Produce more high quality pencakes for mft and don’t waste any resources on ft (= bad image quality in relation to size).
Thom
2 years ago |If it has come to this, 4/3 is already as good as dead!
Duarte Bruno
2 years ago |R.I.P.
yeap_nope
2 years ago |I used the e510 and several pro oly lenses and also thought that 43 should live. But now when I bought gf1 seems to me that the 43 dead, these people who want to save 43, just want to keep money invested in lenses
Dummy00001
2 years ago |Uhm… What are the analogs of the of 14-54 or the 12-60 for m43 again? None?
Rumors of m43 superiority are highly exaggerated.
dCap
2 years ago |this is such a shame, I have:
E-30
14-54/2.8-3.5 II
50-200/2.8-3.5 SWD
25/2.8
I want a 21/1.4 and won’t invest in the PanLeica 25/1.4 BECAUSE Olympus have quit this system and dangled an E-5 out there as a leaving present. Olympus have messed up before at the end of the 35mm film days when they thought they could pretend to be Leica like and re-priced their OM-3Ti and primes.
I really really like the idea of FourThirds, the only system where lenses are designed to fit, which Canon/Nikon were just making a few very consumer DX zooms and no primes. Now Canon is still asleep here and has no DX primes, but Nikon have the 35/1.8 (where is the Olympus fast prime?). Advantage of the 43 system has slipped away.
Yep, Oly made some lovely cameras in m43: the PEN is great! I have the E-P1 but their m43 lenses are sad. Why do I have to have a Panasonic 20/1.7? Because Oly can’t be arsed! Their 17/2.8 is junk in comparison. Sure the price ticket on the Pan 20/1.7 was steep, but its a sweet lens. I’d have a Pan 7-14/4 but I’m stunned by its price point (advantage of m43 is the size, but how about competing with DX on price too?)
grrrr
When you look at things like the D7000 or 7D or 60D … the bodies and spec are great, at considerably less than E-5 price. But try and get something to cover 14-54/2.8-3.5 & 50-200/2.8-3.5 in Canikon DX! 17-55/2.8 from Nikon is sweet but 3x the cost of the Oly 14-54 here. Advantage of the Oly 43 lenses is great. Body price of the E-30 compared (price-wise) to the DX from Canon/Nikon and you get a lot more camera for your money on Oly. But they quit, stores are out of stock of E-30 and E-620 is going out of stock too.
Oly … E-5 (one camera ONLY) and some Pro and Top Pro lenses is a business model set to FAIL! Where is the route in and up. The E-620/E-30/E-5 with consumer/pro-sumer/pro lenses option is GONE!
If the Olympus marketing department was a horse it would be taken out the back and shot
I’m grumpy that I’m having to window shop for a D7000 or 7D or 60D or perhaps take a risk and go to Pan GH2 and keep some m43 advantage. Pan seem to be having a great time and their m43 lens line-up is getting interesting all the time.
SkyZ
2 years ago |For Nikon, as long as you’ve an in body motor camera (D80, 90, 7000… etc), there’re tons of great (some are extraordinary) AF/AF-D zoom/prime lenses, not to mention those from 3rd party like Sigma, Tamron, Tokina… etc.
chris
2 years ago |lol.. if you dont want 4/3 to die you guys should have board more 4/3 cameras haha
Inge - M.
2 years ago |If Olympus wild stop 43, and go to M43,
wild they not start produce Pro camera and Pro lens?
Daemonius
2 years ago |I hope they will, cause Panasonic already had chance after whole G1 series and they just made.. ehm, downgrade?
G2 = G1 with few added features
G10 = cutdown G2
GF2 = competition for NEX, especially in terms of ergonomy and stupidity
GH2 = more mpix, less everything else
That happens when money is only priority.. Though, not exactly sure whats priority for Olympus. They look bit suicidal lately..
Robert
2 years ago |I totally agree, I only hope that Panasonic bring out a proper upgrade to a GF1 soon
cL
2 years ago |I hope they would, if they would like to stay competitive, IFF (if and only if) they discontinued 4/3 and move to m4/3 that is. Pro lens is Olympus’s strategic advantage. They wandered into consumer-friendly m4/3 territory, and remember they claimed to be surprised by its success. Consumer-friendly m4/3 is clearly Panasonic’s territory. I had a G1 for a brief moment, I know how well the interface is, but short on features that professionals care, because those are difficult to marketing stuff.
So far we’ve only see one proven move from Olympus (the one with empirical evidence). They’ll keep E-5 as pro end, and intend to replace everything else with m4/3. Panasonic ditched 4/3 early on and focused on m4/3 only so they had a head start (major strategic advantage). Given their expertise at technical stuff (but lackluster at marketing), Olympus should NOT compete head-on with Panasonic but going high-end. In Michael Porter’s terms, they should go niche rather than low-cost leadership. Panasonic is the maker of the sensor technology, so they have the economy of scale and going low-cost leadership is natural for them, but not for Olympus. Panasonic has proven to be an unreliable partner by holding off major part to their own strategic advantage (because they know they can’t compete on other parts of the hardware, so they had to compete on “soft” end).
While Panasonic has been wise with their business strategy, Olympus is not. Let’s face it, Olympus makes good lenses in the leagues of real Leica (not Panny made m4/3 variant) and super high-end Nikon. Without good marketing strategy, people couldn’t realize that (how can they unless they have used one?). Low-end Canonikon are terrible, optical defects everywhere, and yet their users think they’re the best things in the world. It’s all confidence issue. Marketing gives these non-pro users some degree of confidence that their equipments are worthy of their purchase. It’s not wrong for them to do so. It’s merely a different business model. I’m only arguing Olympus should play their only major strategic card well, which is the optics (and you can’t compete high production cost optics on low-cost leadership end, without sacrificing profit margin). On marketing end, Panasonic is holding way too many trump cards over them, not to mention Oly still has to compete with better placed giants like Nikon and Canon. Even Sony has trump card over Olympus.
Mike
2 years ago |What exactly, does the GH2 have less of than the GH1? I’m a GH1 owner and see nothing but positive reviews and a slew of new features, upgraded sensor, upgraded processor, upgraded touch screen, upgraded video specs, upgraded functonality.
The world want’s to hear where the GH2 took a step back from the GH1, please educate us.
david
2 years ago |He’s presumably bummed about the DxO results, which indicate that at the RAW level (and ignoring possible GH1 issues like banding, which DxO doesn’t quantify), the GH2 sensor has essentially the same performance.
Oh, and the GH2 costs more.
Daemonius
2 years ago |Exactly, sure I dont trust DxO 100%, but few times I learned that they actually write truth. I was fighting with noise in my G1 and fact that GH2 is even worse, doesnt make me exactly happy. Its like if D700 was worse in noise terms than D5000.
Its flagship, or at least its supposed to be. But its more victim of mpix race. They should make 1:1 sensor with 14 mpix, put some high-end (expensive) electronics into that and make everything possible to get at least base ISO clean.
I mean, I can buy Pentax K-X and I will have almost totaly clean ISO 100. And APS-C isnt that much bigger, especially not vs GH2, cause their sensor is almost same size (or at least same ammount of surface). Point is, output performace is going down, probably thx to mpix race. I dont think its good.. Especially not at this price point.
bilgy_no1
2 years ago |A petition will not help. These people should have bought more 4/3 themselves or advised more people around them to do so. Olympus is a business; they’re working to make money for their shareholders. They saw an oppo0rtunity with 4/3, gave it a go, and now with much better m4/3 sales, they need to rethink their product line-up.
The thing is, Olympus originally wanted to replace their E-4xx series with m4/3. Maybe they were afraid to cannibalise the E-620/E-30 sales with a more upmarket model. But I think their E-620 sales were much lower than expected (great camera, but no video vs. Canon/Nikon models in the same price bracket). And now technology for m4/3 has advanced in such a way that they can replace the E-620 with an E-m630. Something which they have stated to be working on.
Panasonic had less difficulty going full-on into m4/3 with no real 4/3 line-up at the time of launch.
palmerino
2 years ago |Are d ‘agreement that the petition is not much …. probably nothing.
Need more incentive ‘s purchase of the new E-5 with good to excellent optics.
But the petition has a positive side, in my humble opinion: to bring together the many fans of the 4 / 3 System and also in the micro 4 / 3, after all.
That an Italian would be nice to go to Portugal or the USA … other person knowing of amateurs who love the system.
And of course to know the ‘Italy (I’m Italian) to a foreigner.
After all those who love photography is attracted by a beautiful landscape, the ‘architecture, history and even the costumes that different countries have.
Who better than those who live there can serve as companion?
Sign the petition to end it matters little to me, but it could be an opportunity to create a network of contacts between us.
Complicated?
E3user
2 years ago |What about using a Foveon X3 sensor with the 4/3 system? Would that triple the resolution to keep up with larger sensors? Of course, the full frame sensors could do the same if it works?