Imaging resources interviewed Senior Manager of Global Marketing Strategy for Olympus Imaging Division Masanori Sako about the new Olympus E-M1II and more. You can read a summary below of the lengthy full interview here.
- Olympus has no plans to sell their photo business
- The imagining division leads technological development for the company
- The official position is that it is not for sale, but it isn’t possible to guarantee anything forever
- The factory transition to Vietnam slowed them down, but now that is complete
- COVID-19 has caused the supply issue, but demand is also down so they do not have shortages at this point
- Olympus will continue to introduce new products at a time of their choosing
- Wouldnt be specific about how badly demand has been affected
- Olympus intends to continue the E-M1 II alongside the E-M1 III in most countries to provide a more affordable camera option
- The Olympus E-M1 III has an all-new AF algorithm that improves performance overall
- The new AF can recognize eyes at 1/5th the size they previously could and faces 2/3 the size
- There is also human recognition and pattern recognition
- Olympus Starry Sky AF works by utilizing several defocused images, and by using estimated values from those, the camera finds the image that has the highest brightness
- Starry Sky AF is a unique new AF system
- It looks at, Maximum brightness value, Number of pixels above the threshold, Pixel integration value above the threshold, and Average pixel luminance value above the threshold
- Can’t give details about swapping in and out smart subjects AI AF for the E-M1X
- Olympus is studying what additional smart subjects users might want
- The E-M1X requires two quad-core processors for its AI AF
- Olympus still needs two chips for AI AF, but they are working to reduce it to one
- The new TruePic IX processor can do some of the things that the dual TruePic VIII chips could do like LiveND
- No comment about when the Olympus 150-400mm f/4.5 Pro is coming beyond hopefully 2020, but they announced it very early because all the attention is on full-frame instead of what smaller sensors can do
- The TC in the 150-400mm provides 300-1000mm of coverage
- They are making more Pro lenses like the 12-45mm PRO that are more compact and lightweight
- There are plans to do a 12-45mm f/4 PRO EM1 III bundle
- The Olympus E-M5 III is doing well and is almost perfectly matching expectations
- Olympus prioritizes Compact, lightweight, IBIS, and great glass
- Olympus wants to grow its customer base, which is why they are trying to make their stuff more affordable and competitors are aggressively pricing their cameras and lenses
- It is hard to get value across to consumers and some feel small sensor cameras should be cheap, but Olympus wants to stick to its values
- Olympus cameras are good for bird, wildlife, mountain photography and more
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