Olympus financial report: Company doing well but Camera business in loss.

Olympus disclosed the full financial report for the year 2013. You can find plenty of documents here: http://www.olympus-global.com/en/ir/. The most important file is that pdf (download here).

While the good news is that the company as a whole is doing just fine the main problem is their Imaging Business. They failed to achieve their goals and showed a new loss in 2013. Furthermore Olympus now expects a loss for 2014 too. A great analysis has also been posted by Thom Hogan at Sansmirror. Here are a couple of key points:

– Olympus main loss is due the decreasing compact camera market. Also mirrorless system camera sales weren’t as high as expected.
– Olympus plans to reduce investment in the compact camera business (V-line is dead for example). They will focus on high-end mirrorless system cameras.
– Focus is on OMD models rather than PEN
– Olympus expects a small growth in mirrorless camera sales this year.
– Good news: Olympus didn’t make major cuts in Research and Development. It means they keep pushing MFT! Olympus also says that resources from the compact camera division will be used for the MFT system development.
– Olympus wants to streamline their sales line too (more direct sales and focus on cities).

So it’s not a surprise that we will get one new PEN “Only” (the E-Pl7). And I expect some high end MFT products at Photokina.

Here is the full report:

Read more

a little bit of everything…(make prints from 4K footage, new Oly workshop in Ireland)


AF during video comparison, GH4 vs GH3

Interview by David Lebovitz of food photographer Michael Lamotte, who uses a GX7 (Davidlebovitz).
Shooting 4K for 2K on the Panasonic GH4 plus my pre-review short film (EosHD).
GH4 review at Sherifmokbel.
Video performance analysis of the GH4 at Cameras.Reviewed.
Olympus SH-1 Sample Images (Photographyblog).
Pictorial 75 f/1.8 long term review at Betterfamiliyphotos.
E-PL6 double kit announcement at Olympus Japan.
Review: Panasonic DMC-GH4 Micro Four Thirds HD/4K Camera (Dvinfo).
40-150 to 35-100 comparision on Youtube.

Adam: “I would be grateful if you checked out some of my latest black and white work! http://www.adamthirtle.com/tagged/bwpage”

Ben: “I mentioned that I’m running a 2-day workshop for photographers to try out all the latest Olympus OM-D gear, in West Cork, Ireland. It runs during the weekend of the Baltimore Wooden Boat and Seafood festivals, May 24-25.
Following a request, I’m now offering a one-day option now as well. People may come for the Saturday only and the fee is £90.
I’ll have OM-D E-M1s, E-M10s and E-M5s, and all the top Olympus primes and zooms, also Sigma m4/3 lenses and a couple of the new Manfrotto tripods. The program includes a boat trip, to photograph boats under sail and the coastal landscape and sea-life; a pass for the castle, whose roof terrace gives the best view across the harbour; a hosted visit to an exhibition of superb local photography; and plenty of time for photography and to enjoy the bustle of the festival. It promises to be a great weekend.
The cost for the two-day workshop is €215, and Olympus are giving everyone a €60 cash-back voucher for OM-D/PEN camera or lens purchases.
Links:
http://www.olympus-imagespace.co.uk/index.php/whats-on/venue/94
https://www.facebook.com/events/580452062052221/”

свадьбография.рф: “new hacked GH2 work on vimeo“.

Joe: “This is Joe Farace from MirrorlessPhotoTips.com: Many of our readers liked our post about making a 60-inch wide print from a frame grab from 4K video from a Lumix GH4. Maybe your readers will find it interesting too. Here is the link:
http://bit.ly/1gv8qpc“

Olympus “Black Magic” patent: AF system that predicts object moving directions!

Egami spotted a new Olympus patent that falls under the category “Black Magic”:)

As you know it’s a big challenge for any camera to keep moving objects in focus while they are moving through your frame. Well Olympus seems to have found a way to analyze the image so that it can “predict” where the objects will move. An example is a train on rails:

Quite easy in this case. We will have to see how this could work when you try to predict the track of crazy running kids!

Sony A7s gets a pricing. Costs $900 more than the GH4.

The first real Panasonic GH4 competitor is the Sony A7s. And today Sony unveiled the pricing which is $2499 at Amazon. So let’s just take a short look about the advantages and disadvantages of each camera:

Sony A7s advantages:
Super clean High ISO. ISO range goes up to 409,600.
Full Frame look (that for some people is an advantage).
Big pixels likely means Higher Dynamic range and Color fidelity.
Superior Stills Image Quality (but with a bit less Megapixels)

Panasonic GH4 advantages:
4K recording on SD cards (A7s needs an external 4K recorder and can record XAVC-s 50Mbit/s at best)
10 bit output (A7s has 8bit output)
Autofocus is much faster (A7s autofocus pretty much sucks)
More available native lenses and cheaper. A7 system only has five (mostly expensive) FE lenses right now.
Powerzoom lenses (A7s has one on roadmap but price and release still have to be defined).
$900 cheaper.
Actually it’s $2900 cheaper if you want 4K because the A7s “forces” you to buy the Atomos Shogun (here at BHphoto)

In short:
Let me know if I forgot to mention som major differences. But so far it looks like that overall the GH4 has the edge. I am sure at photokina we will get more and likely also cheaper 4K cameras. And we have to see by then if Panasonic managed to sell plenty of GH4 cameras…

a little bit of everything…


“BELIEF” – a Panasonic GH4 video review from Johnnie Behiri on Vimeo.

Worse image quality with E-shutter? (M43photo).
Japanese GH4 test at Asahi.
GH4 in Stock in Holland at FotoHansKeuzekamp.
Free Olympus Event With Professional Photographer Mick Hutson (ePhotozine).
Journées portes-ouvertes Olympus (Lepidi).
Photographer takes Panasonic GH4 on test shoot around Seattle (Dpreview).
The Panasonic GM1 – My camera of the year!!! (Soundimagesplus).
Thoughts on Panasonic GH4 and GH4 Video Quality vs Sony A7s (Diglloyd)

Jahawi: “It’s not a rumour, and it may seem a bit out dated with all the talk of the GH4 but this is a trailer of an upcoming documentary i’ve been working on in the North coast of Kenya. All the underwater footage and most of the topside stuff was shot on a Panasonic GH3. Thought it may be something different for the m43 readers! The full documentary will be going to the Smithsonian Museum Of Natural Histroy in Wahsington this summer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee1bcP9FXVc.”

Eric: “I took my GH4 for a test shoot around Seattle, including a helicopter ride over this beautiful city with fantastic results (Watch the video at Vimeo). I think this camera is going to be very popular for aerial video.  The sharpness and dynamic range are unlike anything I’ve ever seen from a DSLR before.  I also tested the time lapse mode in the camera and absolutely love it.  The cameras ability to create 4K videos from the time lapses in-camera is a luxury that saves hours of post production.“

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