Olympus FY2019 Q1 Report: Revenues Are Down 8% Due to Increased Competition

By Louis Ferreira | Published: August 10, 2018


2018 has been an exciting year for mirrorless camera fans, but m43 seems to be hurting from the competition. The release of cameras like the Fujifilm X-T2, Sony a7III, and a7RIII have put the squeeze on smaller sensor cameras and it might get worse if the rumored price reductions come to fruition with Nikon and Canon entering the mirrorless market. 2019 might be a make or break year for Olympus so let’s hope they release something exciting before the X-T3 and Nikon/Canon mirrorless cameras are released so m43 remains strong.

Consolidated revenue in the Imaging Business amounted to ¥13,891 million (down 8.2% year on year), while operating loss amounted to ¥5,785 million (compared with an operating profit of ¥886 million in the same period of the previous fiscal year).

The Imaging Business’s revenue declined due partly to the impact of constraints on supplies of certain products in conjunction with restructuring of manufacturing locations.

As a result of a decrease in revenues and the recording of costs associated with the restructuring of manufacturing locations, operating loss was recognized in the Imaging Business.

via Olympus

Posted in Financial results, Olympus| 1 Comment

Lensbaby Sol 22 f/3.5 Tilt-Shift Lenses Available For m43

By Louis Ferreira | Published: August 7, 2018


Lensbaby is a good inexpensive option if you’re looking to learn about tilt-shift photography. Lensbaby even released a step by step guide which you can read here about how to do tilt-shift photography. You can find the Lensbaby Sol 22 f/3.5 Tilt-Shift at B&H Photo.

Posted in 3rd Party Lens| Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Panasonic GH5 and Lenses Discounted

By Louis Ferreira | Published: August 6, 2018


The Panasonic GH5 is currently discounted $300 along with some m43 lenses at B&H Photo and Adorama. The Panasonic GH5 is also discounted on B&H Photo, Amazon, and Adorama.

Posted in Panasonic| Tagged , | 4 Comments

New Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III TP Leather Case

By Louis Ferreira | Published: August 2, 2018

TP Leather Case released 8 handmade cases for the Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark III. You can find them on Amazon.

Posted in Olympus| Tagged , | 5 Comments

Iridient O-Transformer 1.0 Beta 1

By Louis Ferreira | Published: July 29, 2018


It looks like Iridient Digital is expanding their transformer product to as many camera manufacturers as possible from their origin which is tightly tied to Fujifilm’s X-Tran sensor. You can read more about what this product does below, but many Fujifilm photographer swear by Iridient Digital’s processing algorithms.

Iridient O-Transformer is a utility that can be used to convert Olympus ORF/ORI images to DNG format using Iridient Digital’s high quality RAW processing algorithms. Much of the core RAW processing, sharpening, noise reduction and lens corrections featured in this program are shared with Iridient Developer a more full-featured RAW processor that is available only for macOS.

The Iridient RAW processing routines have been in active development for over 14 years for use in Iridient Developer and have been optimized and refined over the years for the best possible image quality. Iridient Developer is widely regarded as one of the highest quality RAW processors available.

This program converts Olympus’ proprietary ORF and ORI image data to the openly specified DNG image format. The DNG format was created and is publicly documented by Adobe. They have detailed information regarding the format on their website here:
Adobe DNG information

The key RAW processing stages that can be applied by Iridient O-Transformer during conversion to DNG include:

    • Interpolation or demosaic processing. This transforms the camera sensor’s Bayer color filter information or associated pixel shift frames to produce a full color RGB image. This processing is always applied by Iridient O-Transformer and cannot be disabled or undone. There are two interpolation options, one for a more detailed rendering and a second smoother, lower artifact version. The algorithms are identical to the latest “detail+” and “smooth” options in Iridient Developer 3.2.2.
    • Sharpening. Iridient O-Transformer features advanced sharpening based on the very highly regarded “Iridient Reveal” sharpening algorithms featured in Iridient Developer. Sharpening is optional and can be adjusted (low/med/high) or disabled.
    • Automatic lens corrections for distortion, chromatic aberration and vignetting. Corrections are based on native Olympus lens information specified in their ORF/ORI metadata. The lens correction stage is optional and lens correction information can also be passed on through DNG opcode metadata and left to later processing stages or ignored altogether. The lens correction processing in Iridient O-Transformer uses the same high quality resampling algorithms as Iridient Developer.
    • Color and luminance noise reduction. The noise reduction processing in Iridient O-Transformer shares much in common with the latest noise reduction available in Iridient Developer and is specifically optimized for RAW image processing. Noise reduction is optional and can be adjusted (low/med/high) or disabled.

Supported Cameras

Iridient O-Transformer 1.0 beta 1 — Olympus ORF/ORI to DNG processing for macOS and Windows: http://www.iridientdigital.com/products/otransformer_download.html

Posted in Olympus, Software| 2 Comments