Designers/ Market people loosing the plot?

[Cussy]

When I bought my first digital camera in 99 there was very little to choose from; mainly Olympus, Fuji and Sony. Canon and Nikon were a bit late on the scene, but I went for an Olympus C1000 - which was actually an SLR and also sub-megapixel, but with great results.

when I came to replace the C1000 I wanted a camera to go diving with, and at the time everyone was either Olympus, Fuji or Nikon; so I stuck with Oly and had a C4000z and then the brilliant C7070z.

When digigreen was setup almost all of us had Olympus - because at the time they ruled our world and most of us couldn't even dream of a DSLR. With the 4000, 5000, 5050, 5060, 7070 and 8080 Olympus made cameras absolutely suited to underwater.

The marketeers then decided to ditch what was a great line of cameras and produce DSLRs, a bit late in the game IMHO. I have nothing against their DSLR range, that's not where I'm taking this point.

So this month my copy of Practical Photography magazine arrives with a review of the new Pen E-P2 (Olympus PEN E-P2 digital camera specifications: Digital Photography Review). On the face of it this seems a good idea, the good old Pen system of changeable lenses on a small, almost compact, body. But this baby has a street price of about £900 for a small micro 4/3rds chip, bridge camera performance and NO flash.

I even had a play with a Pen E-P1 in an airport when bored and was thoroughly underwealmed!

So have Olympus lost the plot?

Aparently not as much as Ricoh! They've launched the GXR, which is a bridge camera with interchangeable lenses - yet the interchangeable bit is a lens and chip in itself!! (Ricoh launches GXR interchangeable lens system) and the lenses as a result aren't cheap.

Now I know you have to do something slightly different to get noticed, but why won't these clever people just put their resources into developing something useful?

Back to my original digital camera, it was a time of great design. The shackles were off and the camera was no longer constrained by the restrictions of having to load a 35mm canister on one side and have it wind to the other side of the shutter. Designers were clever, yet within a few years almost all digital camera resembled their traditional 35mm ones.

So am I the only one that thinks Olympus has lost the plot and is sad that, DSLR apart, they've ditched a great range that served us so well for a number of years?

Rant over,
Rob

[KenByrne]

I think Olympus lost the plot years ago. I had an Olympus OM10 and then an OM4 which was a brilliant camera. Then then ditched SLR cameras with interchangable lenses and went for a range of SLRs with fixed zoom lenses. Not sure about their digital compacts but they were late into the DSLR field, used a smaller chip and produced some ugly cameras IMHO. The pen sounds like a great idea but from what you say poorly executed. I like the idea of having something smaller to lug around with SLR performance and features. My problem is I'm tied into Nikon now as I can't afford to ditch and replace all my lenses.