Dpreview had a chat with Olympus. Once more they confirm they have no plan to move to Full Frame, that the E-M5III successor is coming and that more high quality lenses woll be announced before the 150-400mm lens launch in 2020:

E-M1X sales:
“E-M1X Pre-sales orders are at expected levels and we have had a good start worldwide.”

Professional MFT photographers:
“Actually, we are seeing that there are many photographers who started using the Micro Four Thirds as their second camera, are going on to use it as their main camera.”

Lens roadmap:
“We plan to launch several lenses every year and, of course, there will be releases of lenses before the 150-400mm PRO launch in 2020. So, please look out for a more information about our forthcoming product releases.”

Technology vs Marketing:
“As you know, we are a very R&D-orientated company: we focus on the technology which is necessary. We’re not from the marketing world, so we can look at these technologies solely from the perspective of whether they’re valuable for photographers.”

E-M5II successor:
“The E-M5 line is important: we can reassure users we are planning a successor model.”

No surprise to hear that :)

The past few weeks Olympus made it clear that they ruled out both possibilites: Full Frame and Medium Format. MFT it is!

DPreview shared their tour story within Panasonic’s Yamagata lens factory:

The move to making fewer, but more challenging lenses has prompted a lot of investment in new machinery. Where previously the factory had a few machines performing the same process thousands of times, it now has large numbers of machines designed to create fewer elements but with even higher precision. Interestingly, although the factory can manufacture most of the components for a complete lens, not all of the company’s lenses are built in Yamagata.

Having been rushed through the factory, there was one area we weren’t allowed to visit. This is essentially a mirror-image of the areas I was shown, but all working for another, unspecified client. Something to consider, next time you see the phrase ‘Made in Japan’ on a lens you weren’t expecting to see it on.

Matt Holland
Burnham-on-sea low lighthouse.
Olympus OM-D EM-5 mkII with M.12-40mm pro
one minute, f/16 ISO 100
https://mihollandphoto.com/
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