The beginning of the end (for digital cameras?) - Olympus to sell digital camera business

[williamcll]

Long running camera company Olympus has announced that it will be selling off their camera business, meaning that they will only be working on enterprise and industrial imaging technologies in the future.

Quote

In huge news within the camera industry, it has been announced that Olympus Corporation will be divesting its imaging business to a Japanese private equity fund. Olympus' camera division will be owned by Japan Industrial Partners (JIP), with an agreement expected to be finalized by 30 September 2020. According to 43 Rumors, JIP specializes in restructuring loss-making businesses to make them profitable before reselling them to "corporate acquirers" (such as purchasing Sony’s PC business, Vaio).

 

We spoke to Olympus, which is eager to stress to customers that it is very much business as usual, and that "this is the right step to preserve our brand’s legacy, the products, and the value of our technology". The company issued a full statement:

"Today the Olympus Imaging Business has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Japan Industrial Partners, Inc. (JIP). According to the MOU, both companies are entering into further discussions about the potential transfer of Olympus’ long-standing imaging business to JIP by the end of 2020. JIP is a strong investment fund with a track record of success and has maximized the growth of many brands. JIP will use the innovative technologies and solid brand position of Olympus within the market, while also improving the profit structure of Olympus’ imaging business.

 

We understand you may have many questions, all of which we will work to answer in the upcoming weeks. We ask for your patience: we believe this is the right step to preserve our brand’s legacy, the products, and the value of our technology. Olympus sees this potential transfer as an opportunity to enable our imaging business to grow and delight both longtime and new photography enthusiasts. Olympus and JIP will continue discussions, and we are committed to providing full transparency about our intentions as the plans solidify.

 

We are grateful to all our customers for their loyalty and support for our products, and their passion for photography. During the ongoing discussions, Olympus Imaging will operate with business as usual: we will continue to work on innovative initiatives for our customers and we will launch new products as planned."

Source: https://www.olympus-global.com/ir/data/announcement/2020/contents/ir00013.pdf

https://www.olympus-global.com/news/2020/nr01695.html

https://www.digitalcameraworld.com/au/news/breaking-olympus-sells-camera-division

Thoughts: This seems like a big victory for Sony if viewed at a more pessimistic look. It also shows that other companies like Canon and Nikon could be vulnerable as well. I should really check of my PEN is still working after being in the cupboard for so many years.

[Roswell]

What about this has anything to do with the "beginning of the end" for digital cameras? 

[Commodus]

20 minutes ago, Vitamanic said:

What about this has anything to do with the "beginning of the end" for digital cameras? 

I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I think the argument is that dedicated digital cameras may be on trouble.  There's a degree of truth in that computational photography lets phone cameras achieve things that previously required a good mirrorless or DSLR to achieve (in some cases, even better), but there are still some advantages to having a stand-alone camera with a giant sensor.

[RejZoR]

I've had a lot of Olympus cameras, I mostly got hooked into Olympus coz my sister had Olympus DSLR and I went for compact pocket versions because of practicality and they captured some of the best moments. Smartphones were not really a thing yet back then. I'm not surprised tho. Dedicated cameras are super niche now. Besides, Olympus is very strong in professional imaging field. Electronic microscopes, Xray imaging, EMR imaging etc. It's strange that Olympus didn't focus on mobile camera optics like Leica has.

[Zodiark1593]

9 hours ago, Commodus said:

I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I think the argument is that dedicated digital cameras may be on trouble.  There's a degree of truth in that computational photography lets phone cameras achieve things that previously required a good mirrorless or DSLR to achieve (in some cases, even better), but there are still some advantages to having a stand-alone camera with a giant sensor.

“Some”?

 

An older (2016) 1” format sensor wallops my iPhone 11 in quality. Doesn’t require a full frame sensor to flatten phones on image quality. 
 

Think the thing is most people simply don’t care about the quality metric (within reason). 

[Commodus]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

“Some”?

 

An older (2016) 1” format sensor wallops my iPhone 11 in quality. Doesn’t require a full frame sensor to flatten phones on image quality. 
 

Think the thong is most people simply don’t care about the quality metric (within reason). 

Quality, true, but I'm thinking of things like portrait mode (portraits look better on dedicated cameras, but you need a pricey lens), night modes, other compositional tricks that dedicated cameras often don't do.  There's also the simple matter of having a device that can produce good pictures and share them directly to the internet instead of having to use something else as a go-between.

[Mihle]

Olympus cameras haven't been that good really, they have had some things they have been good at, but overall they haven't been that good. So not really surprised.

[spartaman64]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I think the argument is that dedicated digital cameras may be on trouble.  There's a degree of truth in that computational photography lets phone cameras achieve things that previously required a good mirrorless or DSLR to achieve (in some cases, even better), but there are still some advantages to having a stand-alone camera with a giant sensor.

i mean dedicated cameras are already pretty much out of use for normal every day people and I don't see phones replacing dedicated cameras for professional use anytime soon.

[Zodiark1593]

1 hour ago, Commodus said:

Quality, true, but I'm thinking of things like portrait mode (portraits look better on dedicated cameras, but you need a pricey lens), night modes, other compositional tricks that dedicated cameras often don't do.  There's also the simple matter of having a device that can produce good pictures and share them directly to the internet instead of having to use something else as a go-between.

Honestly, while somewhat interesting to mess with, I find I don’t really like the Portrait Mode on my iPhone for photos I plan to keep. The edge detection is lacking, (especially for people with bushy hair), leading to inconsistent results, and it seems entirely incapable of blurring out the foreground. 
 

My own camera, at least, while quite subtle compared to FF cameras with large aperture lenses, looks far more natural to my eye. 
 

That isn’t to say the iPhone camera is bad. For practical applications, it’s quite good. 

[divito]

They never really got the same kind of love compared to the Big 3 (4 for the Fuji die-hards). I always had a soft spot for Olympus based on some of their models and felt they never got enough credit. That being said, I moved on to an RX100 for my non-phone camera. 

I think the other manufacturers are still on solid footing despite what is happening with Olympus. 

[Roswell]

2 hours ago, divito said:

They never really got the same kind of love compared to the Big 3 (4 for the Fuji die-hards). I always had a soft spot for Olympus based on some of their models and felt they never got enough credit. That being said, I moved on to an RX100 for my non-phone camera. 

I think the other manufacturers are still on solid footing despite what is happening with Olympus. 

I think they muddied their image too much with the junky economy models they released in the early 2000s, contributing to their lack of recognition, like you said.

 

I think Sharp faced the same issue in the TV space for the same reason.

[spartaman64]

4 hours ago, divito said:

They never really got the same kind of love compared to the Big 3 (4 for the Fuji die-hards). I always had a soft spot for Olympus based on some of their models and felt they never got enough credit. That being said, I moved on to an RX100 for my non-phone camera. 

I think the other manufacturers are still on solid footing despite what is happening with Olympus. 

i had an olympus om2 slr camera and it was amazing

[DeScruff]

7 hours ago, Zodiark1593 said:

“Some”?

 

An older (2016) 1” format sensor wallops my iPhone 11 in quality. Doesn’t require a full frame sensor to flatten phones on image quality. 
 

Think the thong is most people simply don’t care about the quality metric (within reason). 

Or another way of saying it:
For most people the increase in quality is not worth the inconvenience of carrying, and keeping charged a second device.
Along with the process of uploading a photo from a camera to social media/cloud storage/where ever.

Heck my mother who has no interests in using apps or any sorta thing that makes her phone a smartphone, and has trouble uploading photos to her PC, gave up on using her camera. Mostly because whenever she wanted to use it, the battery was always low and charging the thing is a hassle since you can't just plug in a USB charging cable, you gotta take the battery out, put it into a bulky wall wart, let it charge for however long, remember to actually put the battery back into the camera. (Shes left the battery home in the charger a fair number of times over the years)

[poochyena]

9 hours ago, Commodus said:

I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I think the argument is that dedicated digital cameras may be on trouble.  There's a degree of truth in that computational photography lets phone cameras achieve things that previously required a good mirrorless or DSLR to achieve (in some cases, even better), but there are still some advantages to having a stand-alone camera with a giant sensor.

The ONLY advantage phone cameras have is convenience.

[Mihle]

58 minutes ago, DeScruff said:

Or another way of saying it:
For most people the increase in quality is not worth the inconvenience of carrying, and keeping charged a second device.
Along with the process of uploading a photo from a camera to social media/cloud storage/where ever.

Heck my mother who has no interests in using apps or any sorta thing that makes her phone a smartphone, and has trouble uploading photos to her PC, gave up on using her camera. Mostly because whenever she wanted to use it, the battery was always low and charging the thing is a hassle since you can't just plug in a USB charging cable, you gotta take the battery out, put it into a bulky wall wart, let it charge for however long, remember to actually put the battery back into the camera. (Shes left the battery home in the charger a fair number of times over the years)

Many newer cameras can now charge via USB.

I like having two batteries tho because even if I go out and one battery is only 1/3 left or whatever, I have another one

[Bombastinator]

My mom had an Olympus om-1 film camera.  Had a not very good internal light meter which made it revolutionary.  Major tech breakthrough. The amazing bit was they brought a non consumer feature into the consumer space because they did it cheap. It was the 70’s.  Olympus is a not a new company. It wasn’t a new company in the 70’s. Back then it was the new hotness though.  Before the om-1 Olympus wasn’t in the consumer camera space.  They haven’t had a breakthrough in a while and they’re getting out of it again.  I don’t see this as a death of the dedicated camera though it may be happening in the consumer space.

[Zodiark1593]

6 minutes ago, VegetableStu said:

more specifically: pocket automatic photoshop. that's all computational photography is good for right now

 

the step to actually sway my opinion would be depth mapping of a photo, which would vastly improve edge detection, but that'll be talk for when it actually arrives

Automatic exposure bracketing and merging are quite powerful in reducing noise and improving dynamic range. So long as lighting conditions allow for a fast enough shutter, compute photography can turn out some decent results. 
 

Low light shooting at a high ISO is pretty lousy on even good phones though. I despise the splotchy noise reduction the phone attempts. Rather just have well defined graininess vs splotches. 

[Mihle]

5 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Automatic exposure bracketing and merging are quite powerful in reducing noise and improving dynamic range. So long as lighting conditions allow for a fast enough shutter, compute photography can turn out some decent results. 
 

Low light shooting at a high ISO is pretty lousy on even good phones though. I despise the splotchy noise reduction the phone attempts. Rather just have well defined graininess vs splotches. 

Also a note, a phone camera without exposure bracketing and merging do have quite a bit lower dynamic range than a camera without it.

 

I also agree, with your noise thing. I prefer sharp noise to just the hole photo becoming blurry ish because strong noise reduction. Some noise reduction is fine but there comes a line where it's just too much, many phones cross that line for me.

[Sauron]

20 hours ago, Commodus said:

I wouldn't necessarily agree, but I think the argument is that dedicated digital cameras may be on trouble.  There's a degree of truth in that computational photography lets phone cameras achieve things that previously required a good mirrorless or DSLR to achieve (in some cases, even better), but there are still some advantages to having a stand-alone camera with a giant sensor.

Nobody who was previously on the market for a mirrorless or DSLR camera will ever be ok with just letting a phone decide what the picture should look like.

 

And I disagree that even current phone image quality is anywhere near that of a decent camera.

[exetras]

The DSLR market has been shrinking for a while now and is going to keep shrinking.

 

From 2014: https://www.eoshd.com/photo/market-dslrs-shrinking-dramatically-canon-nikon-blame/

 

The fact that most people are happy with the good enough camera's that are on phones is one of the factors shrinking this market. I don't think its going to kill it tho. Its going to become a specialized market instead of a general consumer market. Hell think of the last time you went to a tourist spot, most of them are using their phones, not a point and shoot or a DSLR.

 

My Pentax K series still kills it compared to an Iphone 11 or Oneplus 8.

[Zodiark1593]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Nobody who was previously on the market for a mirrorless or DSLR camera will ever be ok with just letting a phone decide what the picture should look like.

 

And I disagree that even current phone image quality is anywhere near that of a decent camera.

I sometimes get flak from friends about being picky about my photos, but if I wasn’t shooting for perfection, I wouldn’t have bothered to have bought my Canon. 

[Bombastinator]

3 hours ago, Sauron said:

Nobody who was previously on the market for a mirrorless or DSLR camera will ever be ok with just letting a phone decide what the picture should look like.

 

And I disagree that even current phone image quality is anywhere near that of a decent camera.

A quibble:

“Nobody” is a big word.  I don’t know what the percentage is though I suspect someone does. It’s the kind of thing marketing people do research on.  I doubt it’s actually zero.  things rarely are just in general.

 

The question is what defines “decent”.  that om-1 took “decent” pictures for its day but my smartphone beats it stupid. (In everything except one feature I personally find critical)  I have no doubt that a equivalently new dedicated camera would cream it though. 
 

 

 

[Sauron]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

“Nobody” is a big word.  I don’t know what the percentage is though I suspect someone does. It’s the kind of thing marketing people do research on.  I doubt it’s actually zero.  things rarely are just in general.

DSLRs and mirrorless cameras have always been fairly niche products and that has allowed them to remain strong while point-and-shoot cameras have not. Obviously "nobody" is a hyperbole but still, I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage was very close to 0.

 

If you actually read the article here Olympus cameras aren't even going away, the division is just being sold to another company - this happens fairly often in every market. It's just business as usual.

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

The question is what defines “decent”.  that om-1 took “decent” pictures for its day but my smartphone beats it stupid. (In everything except one feature I personally find critical)  I have no doubt that a equivalently new dedicated camera would cream it though. 

The OM-1 wasn't a digital camera, it's not really comparable to anything we're talking about here. Besides phone cameras didn't become a thing until over 30 years later and it took almost another decade for the quality to reach a level where you could consider printing out a picture taken with them. But that's not really the point anyway - the point is that on a smartphone you're giving up control to the computer on almost everything. This is great for situations where you just want to take a good-enough shot of something that may not be there for long or when you want to post what you ate on instagram or whatever... but if you have an interest in photography it's going to leave you hanging soon enough.

 

As for what counts as "decent", considering high end phones can cost you $800+ I'd say a $350 mirrorless is a fair point of comparison...

[Bombastinator]

17 minutes ago, Sauron said:

DSLRs and mirrorless cameras have always been fairly niche products and that has allowed them to remain strong while point-and-shoot cameras have not. Obviously "nobody" is a hyperbole but still, I wouldn't be surprised if the percentage was very close to 0.

 

If you actually read the article here Olympus cameras aren't even going away, the division is just being sold to another company - this happens fairly often in every market. It's just business as usual.

The OM-1 wasn't a digital camera, it's not really comparable to anything we're talking about here. Besides phone cameras didn't become a thing until over 30 years later and it took almost another decade for the quality to reach a level where you could consider printing out a picture taken with them. But that's not really the point anyway - the point is that on a smartphone you're giving up control to the computer on almost everything. This is great for situations where you just want to take a good-enough shot of something that may not be there for long or when you want to post what you ate on instagram or whatever... but if you have an interest in photography it's going to leave you hanging soon enough.

 

As for what counts as "decent", considering high end phones can cost you $800+ I'd say a $350 mirrorless is a fair point of comparison...

nice accusing me of not doing something I clearly did do.
 

 

fairly niche but still inside the consumer space though.  I did read it and that’s pretty much what I said.  Before the Om-1 they weren’t in the consumer space in a meaningful way, and now they’re getting out of it again.
I agree and disagree about lack of relevance.  Sure the technology was different but the users weren’t.  Olympus  took an expensive used only-by-hardcore-professionals feature and mainstreamed it thus entering consumer space.  My mom was a house wife.  She bought one though and used it for family snaps.  Pros that couldn’t afford rolliflexes also used them.  The market segments haven’t changed much. There’s government and satalite stuff (where Olympus was before the OM-1)  hardcore high end professionals that drop multiple grand on a piece of equipment, low end pros that wants to but can’t so they drop 3-5 hundred for high end consumer gear and do pro work with it, and consumers that want to take pictures of their children and pets.  Consumer space is wide and deep.  It seems to be filled with smartphones atm. Sure there are lots more people taking snaps simply because they can.   It was always wide and deep though.

[Sauron]

22 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

nice accusing me of not doing something I clearly did do.

What did I accuse you of?