WHATS NEXT FOR M43, after Olympus, what future is left?

[ricohflex]

They say, not I say. The OM System branded cameras/lenses seem absent in pie chart for 2020 digital camera market share. Is it very few or none?
Well at least they have the cow sense NOT to insist that going back in ancient history as far back as 2008, OM System branded cameras were sold.
They did NOT falsely claim that somehow OM System branded camera is in 3rd place in 2021.

Credit: fujirumors.com

 

[JW73]

Please don’t use half cooked info. There are companies didn’t provide data to the survey.
from https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/

 

[ricohflex]

First of all, why is this relevant to the Thread topic? It is relevant because the statistics will reveal the future of M43 as at August 2022.
Previous pie chart shown in this thread was for 2020. This is an Update.
This is Digital Camera Global Market Share for 2021.

It is
Canon 47.9%
Sony 22.1%
Nikon 13.7%
Fuji 5.6%
Panasonic 4.4%
Other 6.3%

Global share

Panasonic 4.4% will include M43 and L mount full frame.

OMDS is not separately mentioned and presumably is included in "Other 6.3%".
That would include Pentax, Leica, Hasselblad, Ricoh, DJI, GoPro and OMDS.

M43 represents a miniscule global market share. Is it possible for M43 to sustain big factories & a very large work force/employees for extended period?

If the brand is very expensive, like Leica or Hasselblad they may survive even with small market share, since the $ per unit sold is very high.

 

[one eye jack]

Ricohflex, don't you get tired of getting on OMDS and M43 case? I mean quoting statistics is just that, numbers. Life and business is not static but in constant flux or change, anything can happen like the Ukraine war. Experts predicted Russia will walkover Ukraine by 3 days given the statistical numbers but to everyone's surprise it is not so.

How about this survey done in Japan. OMDS is 4th. ahead of Sony by the Japanese public on their favourite camera brand.

https://pentaxrumors.com/2022/04/25/pentax-ricoh-ranked-as-favorite-digital-camera-manufacturer-in-japanese-survey-nikon-is-at-the-2-spot/

How Japanese people perceive camera brands is important barometer for camera companies.
It is how a company market it's product given the changes that are taking place at the moment.

Given the reality Pentax although it has believed and stuck to DSLR it has tried the mirrorless route and failed twice but they have made changes nevertheless.

Ricoh Pentax: The Beginning of the End or the Start of a Bright Future?

A defining moment.

petapixel.com

 

[skf]

Hi Moderators

This thread is no more relevant - Olympus has moved while OM Systems has come on line. As of today M43 is alive while certain anti fan(s) may beg to differ or debate its demise.

Can we close this thread for good? Thanks

 

[Pitachu]

@ricohflex , it is now obvious that you are just blindly lifting the news from everythere to shoot at M43.

You should go and research on the business model of JIP, the company which took over the imaging division from Olympus and formed OMDS.
JIP do NOT have factories. Their strength is in contract manufacturing, they manufacture based on market demand.
There is nothing wrong with this model. HP and Epson have been outsourcing their manufacturing of printers for decades with one of the factories located in Singapore (Venture Manufacturing). So JIP / OMDS is never going to be saddled down with a very large workforce or factory.

After making the first batch of OM-1 and finish selling it, they are manufacturing the next batch of OM-1 (because dealers assured us stock is coming and taking orders again). They will be manufacturing the OM-5 after this, batch by batch, depending on Market Demand.

JIP / OMDS are not going to be deperate like Fujifilm trying to get rid of their digital compact cameras, I remembered at an IT show in Singapore. Big 1 get 1 free etc. Because they are not going to have huge excess stock like other manufacturers. One of the dealers told me sometime back Canon forced them to swallow $500k worth of cameras in order to retain their dealership! Just to meet their target and clear stock.

First of all, why is this relevant to the Thread topic? It is relevant because the statistics will reveal the future of M43 as at August 2022.
Previous pie chart shown in this thread was for 2020. This is an Update.
This is Digital Camera Global Market Share for 2021.

It is
Canon 47.9%
Sony 22.1%
Nikon 13.7%
Fuji 5.6%
Panasonic 4.4%
Other 6.3%

Global share

Panasonic 4.4% will include M43 and L mount full frame.

OMDS is not separately mentioned and presumably is included in "Other 6.3%".
That would include Pentax, Leica, Hasselblad, Ricoh, DJI, GoPro and OMDS.

M43 represents a miniscule global market share. Is it possible for M43 to sustain big factories & a very large work force/employees for extended period?

If the brand is very expensive, like Leica or Hasselblad they may survive even with small market share, since the $ per unit sold is very high.

 

[Octarine]

Hi Moderators

This thread is no more relevant - Olympus has moved while OM Systems has come on line. As of today M43 is alive while certain anti fan(s) may beg to differ or debate its demise.

Can we close this thread for good? Thanks

The thread starter (@tommyk ) should be able to do this, using the thread functions (upper right hand, the three dots).

 

[JW73]

Actually this thread sparked my interest with M43 again in 2020….and I switched from FF to M43 realising the advantage of this system thru some of your sharing and pointers.

The negative ones who wish the system to die actually made me do more research on this system and found some of the advantages that really suit my way of shooting. (NO need the 3-legged tripod for birding!) Thanks anyway! I enjoyed this system and make more nice ones compared to last time.

 

[tommyk]

A thread like this in this forum can be a place where opinions are exchange that sometimes result in disagreements. Disagreements does not need to lead to animosities and name callings, at least in civilize societies.
This thread has collected many useful and insightful facts and of course projections and forecast, some could be true in time to come, some would not.
Participation is non-mandatory, but voluntary.
Because of these reasons, this thread could live a little longer. Or die a natural and voluntary death.
All your comments have made this thread alive, at least a little longer.

 

[ricohflex]

Just telling the situation from a business market share point of view.
Some like a M43 brand so much, that if anyone says anything negative about its sales figures, they start to call names.

No one starts a business so that they can lose big amounts of money continuously over a long period of time.
There are factories to pay for and many employees' payroll to finance.

In both cases, Panasonic Lumix and the former Olympus camera division, they had their own separate Fairy God Mother (aka Parent company) that was making money elsewhere, and rich enough to continue supporting a failing M43 camera business for some time.

In the case of Olympus camera division, the Parent Company (a world leader in endoscopy products) drew a red line and said enough.
The Olympus Parent company lost its patience and wisely cut its losses.

 

[Pitachu]

@ricohflex , your point on business market is correct that no brand can sustain a huge factory and huge labour force.
But when you ask " Is it possible for M43 to sustain big factories & a very large work force/employees for extended period? "

But I need to correct is because it no longers apply to Olympus after it was sold to JIP.
Because that is the reason for the sale. It is for Olympus not having to face the workforce issue when face with declining demand for its Imaging division product.

In the case of Panasonic, I have not come across any articles yet, but my guess is that Panasonic already has a strong foothold on Professional Video Cameras (those very large ones) and it want to have a side offering for DSLRs for videos so that their customers have some smaller tools to work with when it is not practical to use those large video cameras. Otherwise, if their customers start using eg. Sony S-series DSLRs, they may be poisoned to later upgrade to Sony Professional Video Cameras later.

Anyway.M43 has some cool lenses for videos which one friend told me why he use the GH series for videos. The PanaLeica 10mm -25mm F1.7. He love to use this lenses for his indoor videos. It is wide and bright enough for indoors and can zoom in to half body for interviews I don't think FF has a 20-50mm F1.7 equivalent. Anyway I am not a video expert. Just sharing what someone told me

Just telling the situation from a business market share point of view.
Some like a M43 brand so much, that if anyone says anything negative about its sales figures, they start to call names.

No one starts a business so that they can lose big amounts of money continuously over a long period of time.
There are factories to pay for and many employees' payroll to finance.

In both cases, Panasonic Lumix and the former Olympus camera division, they had their own separate Fairy God Mother (aka Parent company) that was making money elsewhere, and rich enough to continue supporting a failing M43 camera business for some time.

In the case of Olympus camera division, the Parent Company (a world leader in endoscopy products) drew a red line and said enough.
The Olympus Parent company lost its patience and wisely cut its losses.

 

[one eye jack]

Ok folks, here is the reality. I happen to watch some YouTube video about economic matters with regards the world and came across startling info. There are people who study demographics which is the study of populations, people across generations and their impact on economic and business affairs. There are cycles of life, business and of countries.

From the data it appears camera sales ( my unexpert analysis ) will not be like previous boom period simply because there were huge population especially America where people were born after WW2, your grand parents or people in their 60s now. They had good salaries and therefore spending power and camera sales hit the millions mark. That said from now on because of population decline the numbers will be small relatively. One known fact is people who are financially well off tend to have fewer children or none at all. We are already seeing this in sg and garmen solution is to import people whether you like it or not citing the excuse we do not have the talent or skill sets but now you know the truth.

America despite this will still be an economic power nonetheless but the camera sales will now largely be driven by Asian consumers. Yes countries like China, India, Indonesia, Korea and southeast Asia. So stop the ding ding back and forth of this argument. The market will be more segmented by the professionals and the enthusiast camera buffs who can spend on expensive product offerings. Of course there will be lower price cameras but overall the masses will use their mobile phones as their defacto cameras. Expect some industry shakeup or consolidation. I suspect the familiar brands you are familiar now will see some coming to their end, unfortunately.


EDIT : As a side note I think there is an unreported phenomena in the sense that traditional photography has changed because of technology, by that I mean drone photography. This is where some money has been diverted from traditional photography. People have bought cheap drones to take along for their holidays to take selfies and explore ariel views and vistas other than ground level. Now please check the relevant rules for each country you plan to visit before deciding to fly a drone as they vary across places.

Before you get excited , there are people who have crashed and lost their drones due to lack of knowledge and technicalities of drone rather quad copter flying.
Like elsewhere you can easily buy a drone under 250 grams ( take off weight ) which do not require registering with the authorities here as sg assume you have common sense but not so in other countries like UK and USA where there is controversy over their drone laws. In general you are supposed to fly within your line of sight but as you know people cross these safety boundaries. In sg drone flying is rather difficult as it is highly built up with buildings and roads everywhere. I caution being reckless as you might get yourself in trouble and endangering other people and property.

This is just like photography but you can just point and shoot...

 

[Pitachu]

I fully agree. I belong to the generation, that as a teenager, I keep yearning for a camera and save all my pocket money for one. After that, when I started work, I use part of my annual bonus to upgrade my camera gear almost every year. Now that I have children and nephews and nieces, their most wanted item is a mobile phone, which they always want to upgrade.

Even with my hiking kakis (all about same age as me.... 50+), all the 15 of us has stopped using our cameras and used only our mobile phone for our hiking trips. I am the only exception, where I will bring my small EM5 along on trips with my family where the pace is slower and I can take time to compose the shots or I am on some photographic interest groups (eg. birding or insects shooting etc).

 

[Pitachu]

Looks like OMDS is doing well after JIP took over the Imaging Division from Olympus as it continues to expand the line to OM-5 (coming in october) and even develop a new Macro Lenses. Macro Lenses is a niche market and Most manufacturers will not come up with a Macro lenses unless there is a significant market demand for it. Oluympus already has 2 Macro Lenses and OMDS is introducing a 3rd one.

Looks like M43 is here to stay for a couple of years more because JIP is a venture investment company and will not throw money into new lines of products if it is not making money.

OM System announced the development of the new M.Zuiko 90mm f/3.5 Macro IS – 43 Rumors

www.43rumors.com

 

[one eye jack]

Why does DJI not put a full frame sensor on it's high end drone but use M43 instead? Lens and software by Hasselblad in Mavic 3.

DJI Mavic 3 has M4/3 sensor, 46 minute flight time and 5.1K video capture

Mavic 3 Cine brings a 1TB SSD and Apple ProRes support. DJI's long-awaited Mavic 3 is finally here and it's everything the leaks made us expect. However,...

www.gsmarena.com

Also it's professional cinema grade camera use m43 sensor. It's because fullframe lenses are heavy. There is future for m43. Flying a big drone even if it can lift a heavy load takes skill.

Zenmuse X5S - DJI

Die DJI Zenmuse X5 ist eine professionelle Luftbildkamera für die Inspire 2. Die Zenmuse X5S nimmt Videos mit einer maximalen Auflösung von 5,2K/30 in CinemaDNG auf, sowie 12 bit 5,2K 30 fps Apple ProRes 422 HQ und 4K 30 fps Apple ProRes.

www.dji.com

 

[one eye jack]

This is a recent interview with Panasonic decision makers from DP review. I hear the smart Alecs will say yeah, yeah, I already know this. I don't think so. My take away is for one, and this is major is that Panasonic listens to it's customers so much so that it visits content creator's sites and even anticipates their desires like features or lenses they wish they have.

Their collaboration with Leica does not mean Panasonic wants to look like Leica image wise. They have their own philosophy so people who think they will get the Leica look when they get a pana Leica lens are mistaken.

Panasonic because they have a short history does not blindly follow lens /photography standards in terms of lens offerings or design instead they go crazy or rather have unorthodox ideas with regards to photographic ideas and technology.

Although it is stated by Panasonic that m43 is a stepping stone to fullframe and the fact that it's fullframe cameras are selling well , the truth of the matter is m43 is going to be here for a long time simply because panasonic has this group of customers which is significant numbering past 50 million content creator's that their GH series of camera's is catered for.

Gh6 and S series fullframe cameras are specifically designed for professional and commercial photographers so their main subject is human to mean portrait photography which means Panasonic emphasis on IS ( image stabilization) is most geared for human face and body which it does it's best to control accuracy. So it AI algorithms are not particularly robust or best for other types of shapes or situations. Nevertheless what Panasonic does for m43 technology wise trickles into their fullframe cameras.

That said , this is where OMDS ( Olympus ) specialised in fast image detection of autofocus and IS makes it stand out from Panasonic and create a niche for itself. There is a large segment of photographers who want to shoot animal/ wildlife and sports action.

OMDS aka JIP , the investor company that aquired Olympus has made a calculated decision towards this "failed" camera company knowing the potential it has.

Be warned this report is a long one but insightful .About the philosophy of Panasonic's original founder.

Our new brand slogan is based on Konosuke Matsushita's words, "Only when there is spiritual peace of mind and a limitless supply of material goods will happiness be stable in life. This must be our true mission as an industrialist." Stabilizing happiness in life has been our company mission since those words were spoken at that ceremony 90 years ago. The phrase can be understood to mean "sustainable happiness" or "sustaining well-being" in English. The Panasonic Group has always been a company that strives to achieve this goal, and with our firm resolve to help individuals achieve sustainable well-being, we have decided to use this phrase to return to our roots and incorporated this concept in Live Your Best.

From Panasonic group CEO interview .

Interview with Group CEO Kusumi: Panasonic Group's Medium- to Long-Term Strategy | Business Strategy/Policy | Company | Feature Story

Archive of Panasonic Feature Stories: Enjoy a series of featured topics of Panasonic including its CSR activities, SNS initiatives and more.

news.panasonic.com

Read here for the main report about Panasonic photography division.

Panasonic Q&A July 2022: What’s up with L-Mount, how DR Boost works, autofocus, lenses & more!

This is the second article I’m posting from meetings I had with photo-business executives and engineers when I was in Japan the second half of July, 2022. (My previous article covered my interview with Fujifilm in Omiya,…

www.imaging-resource.com

 

[Pitachu]

Thanks Jack for the article on Panasonic GH and S-series and the summary of it as I really do not have the time to go thru the long article.
I did met a few videographers who sworn by the GH series and I believe it meet their needs very well despite some of the short comings like no phase detection. They probably have no need for it or found a work around.

What I am seeing now as a hobbyist photographer is a diversion of capturing images compared to 20 or 30 years ago (yes, I am getting old).
Besides the basic SLR camera which I have grown up with, we now have a choice of using our mobile phone especially when we did not or choose not to bring along our SLR with us eg. Family or Friends gathring.

I remember my first White Water Rafting trip I brought along my SLR with some protecive gear or engage a guide who use a SLR with underwater housing to take photos for us. We would now just get a GoPro for some of our extreme sports.

And more recently, I started exploring using my Mobile phone with a Gimbal to document some of my trekking trips instead of a SLR.

It is time for SLR manufacturers to think out of the box and innovate. OMDS and Panasonic and probably all the rest like Sony, Nikon and Canon have tried, but from what I see they are all incremental updates eg. Olympus OM-1.

I am not thinking of something out of the world, I am just using Mobile phones as a bench mark. The images and videos taken with a tiny sensor but Apple, Google Pixel and Samsung corrected and improved automatically is pretty amazing actually. SLR manufacturers, with a larger camera body and lenses, should be able to do much more, but sadly they are just not innovating. It is time they start to look for other improvements besides higher and higher resolution for photos and videos.

 

[Blu-By-U]

The size is still the limitation on portability. Went on a recent trip, I carried the 12-200 and 17 but I only took the camera out only once to complete my monthly assignment. The rest, sad to say, all phone shots and selfies.

I have seen the latest Samsung doing a fantastic tele shot of the moon. There are a few Android sporting the 1"sensor.

In the past, we say Phones cannot take detail shots of the moon, but that's coming to and end. Tele shots of sports. Panning, motorsports, underwater and astro just to name a few that are not available to the phones yet.

So if these camera/imaging dedicated companies don't come up with come thing really innovative, they all may see their days numbered.

 

[one eye jack]

So if these camera/imaging dedicated companies don't come up with something really innovative, they all may see their days numbered.

Let's hope Panasonic and OMDS is reading this..haha. I'm optimistic m43 will prevail.

In the past, we say Phones cannot take detail shots of the moon, but that's coming to and end. Tele shots of sports. Panning, motorsports, underwater and astro just to name a few that are not available to the phones yet.

Want a red dot camera ( Leica ) on your phone? Redmi 12S ultra Pro is the camera to beat. Reviewer compared a shot to his full frame cameras, never thought a smart phone camera can do it which is impressive. At about 30minute and his conclusion. Note only available in China at the moment?

You can also try out the Leica camera app on the redmi 11 or other compatible phone but do so at your own risk. Of course it depends on the camera hardware you have. The feel of a flagship app. You can uninstall it after you try it out and go back to original camera app.

 

[one eye jack]

I thought it might be interesting and insightful to understand how a smartphone camera works. Powerful processors, more importantly how ways of getting around the disadvantage of tiny image sensors like resolution, noise and optical problems that normal size mirrorless cameras and lenses take for granted. AI computational work arounds in manipulating the image actually is an artificially generated image that is far from reality what the human eye perceive. To think that more computational photography techniques are employed in modern cameras you wonder if it is a good thing. Are we letting technology fool our eyes and is it real photography as conventionally or traditionally envisaged? Food for thought.