Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

[mercalia]

It matters nothing in the great scheme of things.

We had cameras that took film, and you handed the roll over in the local chemist and waited a week to see your prints. The best of them went into an album. They were black and white, and only latterly in colour.

Then we had digital cameras and had to connect up to a computer or whatever with the right software, and see them on a screen and save them as you wished ...... or not. Five mega pixels or even ten.

Now we have a mobile phone with twelve mega pixels and selfies and movies and all sorts of effects, all in a small pocket phone.
iCloud or whatever, no physical connection to anything, the pictures etc can be texted, emailed, messengered, facebooked, published ............... the list is endless.

So what?

you are a kill joy.

[Mick F]

Yep!
That's me!

Cameras are old fashioned.
We have grown out of them.

What does the word "camera" mean and when did it first appear?

ORIGIN
late 17th century (denoting a council or legislative chamber in Italy or Spain): from Latin, ‘vault, arched chamber’, from Greek kamara ‘object with an arched cover.

[philg]

Yep!

What does the word "camera" mean and when did it first appear?

ORIGIN
late 17th century (denoting a council or legislative chamber in Italy or Spain): from Latin, ‘vault, arched chamber’, from Greek kamara ‘object with an arched cover.

Much earlier than that - camera in Latin means room, as in the legal term 'in camera' and the camera obscura (dark room) which has existed in some form since the 4th century BC.
The term was attributed first to Johannes Kepler in the 1604 book Ad Vitellionem Paralipomena

[Mick F]

Thanks!
Nice to know.

Olympus cameras as well as Yashica and Pentax and Cannon etc etc etc etc are things of the past.

We have clockwork clocks. I like the ticking, and we have three of them in the livingroom ticking away as I type here.
Absolutely no point in a clockwork clock nowadays.
Battery clocks took over, then what?

Who needs to know the time now?
Most people have a mobile phone or a computer screen that shows the time of day as soon as you look at the screen.
The radio - or the telly if you have one - tell you constantly.
Get into the car, and it tells you the time.
Who needs a wrist watch now?

Time has moved on, and Olympus have moved on too.

[Bonefishblues]

It matters nothing in the great scheme of things.

We had cameras that took film, and you handed the roll over in the local chemist and waited a week to see your prints. The best of them went into an album. They were black and white, and only latterly in colour.

Then we had digital cameras and had to connect up to a computer or whatever with the right software, and see them on a screen and save them as you wished ...... or not. Five mega pixels or even ten.

Now we have a mobile phone with twelve mega pixels and selfies and movies and all sorts of effects, all in a small pocket phone.
iCloud or whatever, no physical connection to anything, the pictures etc can be texted, emailed, messengered, facebooked, published ............... the list is endless.

So what?

You need to upgrade, Daddy-O, 12 mp doesn't cut it on the mean streets of Cornwallcestershire nowadays.

(Me too, btw)

[mercalia]

It matters nothing in the great scheme of things.

We had cameras that took film, and you handed the roll over in the local chemist and waited a week to see your prints. The best of them went into an album. They were black and white, and only latterly in colour.

Then we had digital cameras and had to connect up to a computer or whatever with the right software, and see them on a screen and save them as you wished ...... or not. Five mega pixels or even ten.

Now we have a mobile phone with twelve mega pixels and selfies and movies and all sorts of effects, all in a small pocket phone.
iCloud or whatever, no physical connection to anything, the pictures etc can be texted, emailed, messengered, facebooked, published ............... the list is endless.

So what?

You need to upgrade, Daddy-O, 12 mp doesn't cut it on the mean streets of Cornwallcestershire nowadays.

(Me too, btw)

it is if you dont use ( digital ) zoom. You only need those super-duper mp cameras for zooming? In fact 5-8 mp fine otherwise. It seems that smart phones with genuine optical zoom maybe be making a come back ( there was one in the past I understand )

http://allaboutwindowsphone.com/news/item/23909_Continuous_zoom_to_make_a_come.php

[simonineaston]

phones with genuine optical zoom

Given that the market seems obsessed by phone thickness, a traditional optical zoom lens ie where the user can move between the limits of two focal lengths, without steps, seems to require a bending of the laws of physics. I read that the latest developments fit the phone's camera with two lenses, one at either end of the range and then digitally manage images between the two... Yikes!

[philg]

Designed in conjunction with Leica - currently 5x optical but I believe the P40 has 10x
https://www.clove.co.uk/blogs/news/how- ... 0-pro-work

[pwa]

Who needs a wrist watch now?

I need one at work. For a quick glance at the time without having to dig a phone out of my pocket.

And I still take a better pic with a good camera than with a phone.

[fausto copy]

Slightly OT...

There was an article recently about how many museums rely on photographs, many from house clearances or donated by the relatives of someone who is deceased. They are a vitl record of history, fashion and social history

Those same photos now would be sat on a hard drive that will be thrown away, wiped or simply wiped.

Ironic that when more pictures are being taken than ever, their chances of being shared as a historical record are at their lowest

Even more OT - anyone remember this excellent film Shooting the Past?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0184157/

One of the best things on TV EVER

[fausto copy]

Aside from my Panasonic G7 camera I picked up an Olympus OMD-E10 Mkiii with 14-42mm zoom lens at a great price.
Since then, I've bought Olympus 17mm, 45mm, 60mm Macro and 9mm fisheye lenses.
I'm with them for the long term and don't believe they're dead yet.
Look at Vinyl!

fausto.

Oh forgot, my Olympus OM 50mm f3.5 Macro lens with extensions tubes too.

[mercalia]

makes you feel olde?

[simonineaston]

I'm a big fan of Zuiko lenses - Mr Maitani started the trend that remained with Olympus, that of making things a little bit smaller than the competition. Obvious examples are the Pen - so-called 'cos you could keep it in a shirt pocket, like a pen... (not strictly true but Hey - whoever let a triviliality like truth come between the product & a good motto?!), the XA and the OM series. Nearly all the Zuiko lenses are both really good and noticably smaller than their major competitors, like Canon and Nikon. Bargains abound! And they're readily useable on digital cameras, 'specially APS-c format mirror-less bodies, although the knock-effect on the price of the most sort-after Zuiko lenses is less welcome - several of the Zuiko Pen range are going for £400-600 these days!

[simonineaston]

Here's one of my favourite Pen lenses from the late '60s, the 50-90 zoom, on a Fuji X series camera, ironically still named "Fujifilm". Back then, the zoom was still a fairly new idea. Coincidentaly, the APS-c sensor is almost exactly the same size as the 35mm half-frame, making the Pen lenses a great match for these modern cameras. As an aside, compare this sort of technology with what they are now putting into phone cameras (see up-thread).

Zuiko 50-90 f3.5 zoom...

[fausto copy]

Coincidentaly, the APS-c sensor is almost exactly the same size as the 35mm half-frame, making the Pen lenses a great match for these modern cameras.

Not quite true Simon, with a crop factor of 1.5, but a lot closer than the Micro four-thirds crop factor of 2.

Interesting lens you have there though; I don't think I've ever seen a 50 to 90 zoom.