Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/03/02

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Subject: [Leica] Re: Leica participation in 4/3rds format
From: don.dory at gmail.com (Don Dory)
Date: Thu Mar 2 17:05:47 2006
References: <20060227000311.19736.qmail@web36605.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <C027B1D7.CED7%bdcolen@comcast.net>

To tag along B.D. comments, there is now a race to the bottom for DSLR's.
Both Nikon and Pentax are heavily marketing a kit lensed 6mp dSLR at $599.
They are doing this as the digital P&S market is actually shrinking, less
units sold in 2005 than in 2004.  What is going up in sales volume are
camera phones.

Olympus, by offering the continuous viewing is differentiating themselves
from all the other DSLR's out there.  Also, they hope to have the familiar
use patterns for someone moving up from a P&S.  In this market, size, ease
of use, price, then picture quality are what matters.

The Olympus reps just about told me that an E-2 was on the way with a 10mp
sensor.  When is the issue.  As to surviving in the market, with a two lens
outfit at $899 Olympus moved up to 11% of the dSLR market for December.  The
Nikon and Canon reps vowed that this would be a one time event.

Look for a pretty attractive price war in the near future.  Who will be left
standing is probably a foregone conclusion: Canon, Pentax(very low cost
structure), and then either Olympus, Panasonic, or Sony.  My bet is that the
Sony offering will be still born as they do not know how to sell to the
specialist and their offering will be months late and no bettter than the
Nikon offering.  I am not betting on Nikon as they are hostage to Sony at
this point for CMOS sensors and all the D200 sensors are going into the Sony
offering. (Rumor)

Don
don.dory@gmail.com


On 2/26/06, B. D. Colen <bdcolen@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> IF the various folks involved with the 4/3 system can increase the pixel
> counts and reduce the noise - and the new Oly330/Panasonic whatever
> suggests
> just maybe they can, 4/3 will indeed prove to be viable. If they can't -
> it
> won't. Period.
>
>
> On 2/26/06 7:03 PM, "Colin J" <smcj35@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > Steven A. Melnyk" wrote:
> > <snip>
> >> In short, I am not convinced of the long term
> >> validity of the 4/3
> >> standard.  I am not sure that Leica does itself
> >> any benefit by
> >> aligning itself with this standard.  Past
> >> history tells us that when
> >> there are several standards, only one or two
> >> will emerge as the
> >> dominate standard.  In a world dominated by
> >> Canon and Nikon, I am not
> >> sure of the long term viability of this
> >> standard.  I may be wrong but
> >> history would argue against the 4/3 standard.
> >
> >
> > About 80 years ago, when the "standard" was 4x5
> > inches or larger, along came an innovator who
> > proposed a much smaller format, using a film that
> > was a mere 35mm wide.
> >
> > In a world dominated by larger formats, a great
> > many people were not sure of the long term
> > viability of this new 35mm standard.  They also
> > probably thought that history would argue against
> > 35mm.
> >
> > Like Steven, I am a "4/3 skeptic", to the extent
> > that I sold my Olympus E-1 and three lenses and
> > bought a Canon EOS 5D and some EF glass.  12.8 MP
> > and low noise was too hard to resist, and 5 MP
> > and a lot of noise was too hard to keep.
> >
> > However, the lesson of history is surely that it
> > is too soon to write the epitaph of the 4/3
> > standard just yet.  We should wait and see. 4/3
> > may yet be "the new 35mm", and it is good to see
> > that Leica will be involved.
> >
> > Colin
> >
> >
> >
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In reply to: Message from smcj35 at yahoo.com (Colin J) ([Leica] Re: Leica participation in 4/3rds format)
Message from bdcolen at comcast.net (B. D. Colen) ([Leica] Re: Leica participation in 4/3rds format)