>
>
>
> Denton Taylor wrote:
>
> > There's Contax, of course :-). No, Leica hasn't thrown in the towel. How
> > many R bodies has Leica introduced since the OM4T? They continue to
> > introduce new products at a furious pace. The R8 is pretty new. Last year,
> > the Leica M6 .85. At Photokina, an M6 with TTL flash. _Several_ lenses a
> > year. This year, the M-series vario-Elmar, a 90 Summicron-M Asph, etc., etc.
> >
> > Of course, Leica doesn't have a huge business in other areas. They have to
> > innovate or perish.
Leica has a big business in other areas. They, like Olympus, are a major
manufacturer of research and medical microscopes, including electron
microscopes, which I don't believe Oly does. They are big in surveying
instruments, and do navigation equipment also. Also military equipment
(the geovid binoculars are a spinoff from that). I'm sure a lot of other stuff,
too.
I'm sure Leicaphiles probably imagine their treasures being tweakishly
built by Nibelungs deep in the Black Forest (of Portugal?), but Leica
is, in fact, a big, modern, high-tech company like Nikon or Zeiss, for
which cameras are a small, but presumably highly profitable, sideline.
Just about all of the major camera companies have some other business
that is bigger, often much bigger, than their camera business. Some,
like Topcon and Ricoh, simply abandoned their camera business to
concentrate on the moneymakers. (Although Ricoh sells relabeled Cosinas.)
> >
> > Wouldn't we like it if Oly introduced even one lousy SLR product a year?
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Denton Taylor
>
> No lousy ones, please! <g>
>
> I am not sure which side I'm on here. I agree that Oly equipment is niche and
> is
> well-made. But no new bodies and 1 new lens in the past, what, 6 years
> (obviously the 2000 and it's lenses don't count) sure is a sign of apathy or
> worse on the part of Olympus. I was hoping for something at Photokina.
> Anything
> to show they still care ....
>
> george
It's funny how Olympus still trumpets the OMs as the top of their line in
much of their literature. (But not magazine ads, oddly.) They want it
around as a flagship, but they don't seem to care too much if anyone
actually buys it! It just looks impressive in the front of the camera
brochures.
I'm thinking about diverting my OM-5 kitty to an Xpan.
Paul Farrar
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