Moose-Mount wrote:
> Canon ditched an awkward, not ready for AF, mount long before digital.
> Doesn't seem to have hurt them. And Pentax's retention of the P/K mount
> hasn't propelled them to great success, only survival by acquisition.
The change actually did hurt Canon for a while. But it was long
evident that the previous mount was a brain-dead development and kept
Canon out of a lot of pro kits as a result. I just got rid of a couple
of Canon AE1 kits that I had acquired through $5 mystery box sales.
The lens mount really is a thing of horror. Glad to be rid of them.
When Canon changed the mount, effectively abandoning the old system
overnight, it was Canon's "betting the farm". The fact was that they
rode that worthless mount design for as long as they could (far
longer, really), and reached a dead-end on development as well as
market-share. They couldn't survive much longer without a new lens
mount before the house of cards fell.
Canon did something with the EOS that was brilliant. They went modular
in design and development. Instead of building one uber-camera for the
next 10 years, they built 20 different models over those same 10
years. Each model had some incremental improvement in some area.
Instead of building all-new cameras each time, they upgraded what they
could when they could (to shorten the time-to-market cycle), and kept
fresh cameras in the pipeline and in the hands of the magazine
reviewers. Standardizing on a "soft interface" (button-wheel-LCD)
allowed them to put major changes and features into "software" that
didn't need major camera redesigns. While there was a slow evolution
to the user-interface, it's mostly a fine-tuning approach and, again,
it is modular.
It took a LONG time for the other camera manufacturers to catch on.
Olympus has probably perfected this better than anybody, by also
incorporating body changes as one aspect of the modular design. They
are able to put the exact same camera into three different body styles
and get away with it. I think the first camera of this new modular
design was the E-30. The internals and basic sub-chassis were used in
no less than three cameras.
Nobody was more disappointed than me when it came to Olympus
abandoning the OM lens mount and then the E-system lens mount. I still
feel that it was a massive mistake (both times). While you can say
that in the end it has worked out OK, what it did do is cause a 10
year period of time where Olympus' very survival was in question. Had
it not been for the extreme work and lobbying by certain individuals
within Olympus to learn the lessons of the OM System and stop
floundering around trying to out-Canon Canon, they would have failed.
Honestly, they could have gone back to the OM mount instead of m43 and
been just as successful. It's worked out pretty well for Sony with the
A7 series.
Nikon has held on to their venerable lens mount because the mount was
JUST good enough to survive long-term. While not perfect, it does the
job. There certainly was a point where they outgrew the camera-focus
drive mechanism, but as with everybody else, they've been able to put
all the electronics and motors in the lenses now themselves and with
major replacements of metal with plastics, have been able to reduce
weight back down to what the old lenses were and even lighter. Had
Canon been able to build lenses back in the '80s like they can today,
they too would have been able to get away with the old lens mount.
Maybe.
The OM system lens mount is really quite good. There are two flaws
that needed to be addressed, though. The lens lock mechanism needed to
be beefed up a little more and the aperture stop-down mechanism needed
to be redesigned. With time, both would have been addressed. The lens
lock did get better with some lenses, and electronic actuators in
newer lenses would addressed the second.
The OM system lens mount is actually good enough that Olympus did
actually keep a variation of it in the E-system and the m43 system.
Both are direct descendants of the design, but Olympus failed to keep
backward/forward compatibility.
I'm not going to bash Olympus, though. That was last decade. I feel
that the direction they are on right now is great and they've been
rewarded with impressive sales and glowing reviews. They are the
happening company right now.
It's good to see Olympus turn the ship around and one hidden
side-benefit is the resurgent interest in the OM System. I've got
stories to tell...
OM Schnozz
--
_________________________________________________________________
Options: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/listinfo/olympus
Archives: http://lists.thomasclausen.net/mailman/private/olympus/
Themed Olympus Photo Exhibition: http://www.tope.nl/
|