Image Resource interviewed Aki Murata the new VP of sales and marketing for Olympus America during the Photo Plus show. Below are excerpts from the interview:
- Olympus has no plans to go full frame
- They have been focused on small camera bodies for 50 years
- Olympus focuses on compactness, lightweight, and “ultimate reliability” due to a mandate by Yoshihisa Maitani
- m43 fits this philosophy perfectly
- The OM in OM-1 stands for Olympus-Maitani
- Nature and wildlife photography has the most variation and is a huge market for them.
- m43 is ideal for shooting long because you save a lot of weight and size
- The companies moving towards full frame are leaving behind the photographers that care about size/weight.
- Olympus weather sealing is a cut above the rest
- They subject the E-M1 Mark II to 2.5 inches per hour for 10 minutes per side, they test 6 sides which equal 60 minutes of water exposure in all.
- After the testing, they disassemble the camera to see if it passed their testing, which requires the camera to have no water inside.
- If they find any water inside they figure out where it came from and test it again.
- Olympus is happy that the competition left them with the huge compact high-quality market virtually to themselves.
- m43 has the most expansive mirrorless lens selection so it should be fine going forward.
- Panasonic will likely slow their m43 development while Olympus continues to invest heavily.
- Olympus has the clearest strategy and arguably the most security going forward.
via Image Resource
