Hmm, I guess you're right. Aside from us few faithful
the OM system has been relegated to the dustbin of
history. Still a lot of people I have talked to behind
the counter at my local camera stores still have nice
warm fuzzy feelings about the OM line. Interestingly
enough as well is the fact that many said they
would'nt have left the OM line if their cameras hadn't
been stolen and they could'nt find a replacement. This
was of course before e*ay was so popular. They think
its nice that Olympus still in theory supports the OM
line as a symbol (theory is a whole world away from
practice though) But I guess you are right that if
someone isn't currently using a camera system it
doesn't really matter what happens to said system.
Still the OM line has a little bit of uniqueness left
to it. The 24 shift is one of them. I have seen 2 of
these lenses now with the Canon EF mount and one with
the Nikon mount, a testament to how much better this
lens is than the offering by Canon. The photogs behind
the counter say that this lens is heads above the
Canon one and lament :) that they have to pay so much
to get the lens remounted with their own lens mount.
The guy who had the Nikon one also has access to a
metal lathe and he told me it took 6 days to get the
mount correctly aligned with an F-mount. A job which
would have cost around 300-500 dollars if he didn't
know metalworking.
Mark Lloyd
--- Skip Williams <skipwilliamsom@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Mark,
>
> I'm serious (and not upset) when I ask this
> question.
>
> Do you REALLY think that anyone cares that Olympus
> has the OM line still
> "alive"?
>
> When I was at PhotoPlus in NYC, I lurked a distance
> from the Olympus booth,
> and in 20 minutes late on Saturday morning, I didn't
> see ONE person ask a
> question about the OM cameras and lenses in the
> booth. But they were three
> deep to look at the E10 and E20.
>
> I doubt whether many people these days getting into
> photography know that
> the OM line exists. Except for being: "that little
> old camera that my Mom
> has in the closet or somewhere", why would anyone
> starting out think of an
> OM system as a viable camera to buy? They've become
> seduced by the dark
> side.
>
> And I sincerely don't understand your comment:
>
> >If Olympus discontinued their OM line completely
> they
> >would get eaten alive by the 'photo press' and by
> >Nikon, Canon, and Minolta, which would seriously
> wound
> >their digicam sales.
>
> Do you have first-hand knowledge of the mindset of
> the photo press that
> you'd like to share? I'd actually be surprised if
> anyone cared if it went
> away? How would Olympus' digital camera sales be
> affected by the
> discontinuance of a old, manual-focus,
> out-of-production, essentially
> out-of-support camera line?
>
> I keep hearing this rant that Olympus "needs" to
> have the OM line around to
> say that they still offer a "professional grade"
> camera line. What bearing
> does that have? Is is true? or just an urban
> legend?
>
> Skip
>
>
>
>
>
> >From: "M. Royer" <royer007@xxxxxxxxx>
> >Reply-To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >To: olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >Subject: Re: [OM] Digital Camera that takes OM
> lenses (READ!)
> >Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2001 13:13:36 -0800 (PST)
> >
> >If Olympus discontinued their OM line completely
> they
> >would get eaten alive by the 'photo press' and by
> >Nikon, Canon, and Minolta, which would seriously
> wound
> >their digicam sales. It's kind of sad, but the
> Olympus
> >of today is more and industrial and laboratory
> company
> >than a consumer oriented company. Still they have
> nice
> >robust sales in the P&S and digital camera sales
> while
> >the OM system is more of a prestige and symbolic
> >system today. Olympus doesn't make much money off
> of
> >it, but it doesn't lose much money either. Kind of
> a
> >'why not?' situation. God I wish that was
> otherwise,
> >but it is'nt. Still I love my Zuikos :)
> >
> >Mark Lloyd
> >
>
>
>
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