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Interesting interviews with Olympus
  • In 2012, the total shipment quantity was 20 million units.

    DE: 20 million total interchangeable lens cameras?

    Ogawa: Yes, including mirrors. [Ed. note - that is, including both mirrorless and DSLRs] Now, the average age is mid-40s and the percentage of females went up to 30%. This is thanks to, we believe, Olympus introducing the Olympus Pen. That contributed to the significant change in the demographics. (By the way, out of 20 million units, four million units were mirrorless or CSC.)

    DE: Four million, out of 20?

    Ogawa: Yes.

    DE: Ah, so about 20%.

    Ogawa: Yes, the rest, over 16 million units, were mainly SLR.

    ........

    Ogawa: With the development of output devices like 4K TVs, we probably could say the same thing about movies as well, for the future. We are also preparing for that future as well, specifically movies. I believe that the TruePic VII processor we’ve newly developed for the E-M1 will have much better quality and performance than the competition.

    Now we’re working on the next generation engine as well. For that next generation engine, we are expecting that movie sharing will be the new demand coming. So we are prepared for that.

    When we look at today’s movie sharing, social networking or websites like YouTube and some others, perhaps today's OM-D movie quality is good enough. So I believe that movie quality will matter more when 4K TV penetration becomes really high. Then we have to have our device ready for it.

    DE: Mr. Ogawa mentioned that contrast detect is more accurate than phase detect. That’s certainly the case when you have a separate phase detect sensor, and the PD sensor might be out of position. But I was surprised that when you have phase detect elements on chip, PD is actually still less accurate than contrast detect even though they’re right on the same chip as the imaging pixels.

    Shirota: Yes, comparing contrast auto focus and phase detection auto focus with a separate sensor, the phase detection is inferior in terms of accuracy. However, with on-chip phase detection, that inferiority will go away. It’s better in terms of accuracy compared to this conventional way.

    Check the rest at http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/10/24/qa-with-olympus-president-haruo-ogawa-and-planning-manager-eiji-shirota-as

  • 6 Replies sorted by
  • I'm surprised Olympus only had 20% mirrorless! Didn't expect Olympus SLRs to be the remaining 80%??

  • I had read the stereotype that the average SLR user was a Japanese mother wanting to take 'perfect' photos of her children. These numbers put the lie to that stereotype...

  • 4K? Gimme a break. All I need is my 25p. If it's there - I'll buy tomorrow.

  • @zigizigi

    It is business. And 4K is very good from business side, except of few chip changes you do not need anything.