The Online Photographer

Olympus Disappearing: Thom Responds

Thom Hogan was linked to and quoted (by reader Globules) in the Comments to our post "Olympus Disappearing" yesterday. Today he responds to clarify:

Since I'm being quoted all over the place on this, I need to set a few things straight.

First, while Olympus CEO has said they'll post a profit next year, immediately after he publicly stated that, Olympus executives went around to analysts and said "no, we won't." If true, this would be the fourth year in a row that Olympus has said they'll post a profit in cameras yet lost money. Significant money.

As for why Olympus is at risk, it all has to do with that corruption scandal. We haven't seen the end of it yet, as there are lawsuits still pending and being filed. No one knows how much cash will eventually drain out of Olympus because of it. And despite the Sony investment, the company is still undercapitalized. They simply can't keep losing money in large amounts in imaging without it impacting the firm overall.

But here's the story you're not hearing: virtually all of the camera operations in Japan outside of Canon and Nikon (and maybe Sony) would be essentially bankrupt if we used Western accounting methods. The good news is that all but Nikon have other healthy businesses that can absorb losses. However, Panasonic has woken up to the fact that these negative ROI appendages are killing the overall company slowly. I suspect that Panasonic will fold their independent camera group, get out of the P&S business, and merge the remaining Micro 4/3 stuff into the pro video group as a temporary solution.

Note that Sony did that recently, and Samsung has merged cameras into the smartphone group. The problem with this is that long-term it means that camera groups don't act independently any more, and it's more likely that failures would get folded completely.

The bottom line is the bottom line. With no growth visible in the camera market, none of the Japanese camera companies can sustain their overbuilt structure and inventories, not even Canon or Nikon. They built for continued growth above 20%. Now they're paying the price.

I know Pentax folk are still mad at me for writing way back at the turn of the century that Pentax was dead in the water and non-viable. As it turned out, I was right. Hoya bought and stripped the company, then later sold the camera remains to Ricoh. If you add up all the losses Pentax made, all the costs of acquisitions, Pentax has no chance of ever making all that lost cash back up, even under perfect Ricoh guidance.

What we're really seeing is the Japanese business culture, where you can't really lay anyone off, you can't close down unprofitable businesses, and where banks arrange marriages to preserve entities. I don't know that this environment is long-term sustainable in a country that has over 200% to GDP debt, is trying to reinstate inflation in the market, and is actively devaluing its currency. Something's going to eventually give.

That said, short term we're not going to see any real changes, I think. It's business status quo in Japan at the moment, which means that money-losing businesses stay afloat by various propped-up means.

Thom

Camera industry analyst Thom Hogan's portfolio of websites—Gearophile, Sansmirror, DSLRbodies, and Filmbodies—are gated at ByThom.com.

©2014 by Thom Hogan, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Bob: "Thank you for posting this! As a financial analyst myself, Thom is the only photography market commentator that I read who actually 'gets it' about Japanese camera/electronics companies. Financially, Japan vs. the U.S. is night and day—it's why big banks and brokerage houses have separate teams just for Japan. And yes, it's really that bad over there...."

jean-louis salvignol: Thom has certainly properly identified the problem for all these small businesses in the photo industry. But whether it's widespread throughout Japan is questionable to say the least. Look at Toyota with and its mountain of cash. More generally, the future of Japan—Abenomics—is very well analyzed by Barry Eichengreen."

Thom replies to jean-louis: You caught me. I meant widespread through the consumer electronics industry in Japan. Sony's a great example of that: the half of the company that is involved in consumer electronics is a terrible performer (except perhaps for sensor sales), while the other half that is in non-tech businesses is doing fine.

Eichengreen's article is a good one, but it mostly raises questions, not actually offering a projection on how things will proceed. That's a problem. There seems to be a growing belief amongst analysts that Japan may have gone well over the top of the debt hill given their demographics, so getting back may be very difficult and very painful. Moreover, Eichengreen doesn't get to some fundamental issues that are still unresolved, such as how Japan plans to actually generate power at reasonable cost and impact in the future or whether it would be able to sustain another large quake.

Olympus Disappearing?

The financial news website 24/7 Wall Street has included the maker of our "Camera of the Year" in its annual prediction of brands it expects to go belly-up in the coming year. "Olympus, which only has 7% market share, has failed to generate a profit from its imaging business in any of the past three years," notes the site, probably failing to take into account the effects of the accounting scandal. The last three years have indeed been tough on Olympus. In any event, get that E-M1 while you can!

Note that I do have a disturbing habit of buying cameras from companies that go bust. I shot Contax for years (and loved them), and my first DSLR was a Konica-Minolta 7D (also a lovely camera). I owned several Bronicas. 247wallst.com's list also includes Barnes & Noble's Nook (we sell Kindles! We sell Kindles!), the WNBA, and retailer J.C. Penney, which has survived past appearances on the list. (I think Mitsubishi has been on the list before, too.) [UPDATE: In the Comments, Nathan points out that 24/7 Wall Street went zero for 10 in their predictions in 2012 for brands that would expire in 2013.]

Meanwhile, Olympus predicts that 24/7 Wall Street itself will bite the dust during the coming year, prey to increasing competition on the Web. (No, it didn't. Just kidding.)

Meanwhile, I got a really cool new photographic toy for The-Holiday-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named. Wow. I can't tell you what it is yet, but I'll definitely write about it sometime this month.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Bernd: "Funny...Olympus themselves expect to post a profit for their 2014 book year. We'll see."

Steve Biro: "Mike, your tongue-in-cheek line about Olympus predicting the demise of 24/7 Wall Street reminds me of one of my favorite t-shirt slogans: 'God is Dead. —Nietzsche, 1882. Nietzsche is Dead. —God, 1900.'"

Mike replies: Steve, great minds think alike. I almost included that in the post. :-)

Kenneth Tanaka: "No, I wouldn't pay much attention to that site's 'predictions.' Olympus's fortunes are looking up thanks to the E-M models. On the other hand Phase One and Hasselblad are brands that should be nervous, most especially Hassy. Their raison d'etre sure seems to be evaporating in the wake of the latest crop of high-performance consumer cameras."

Jason: "Interesting you posted this as I was about ready to pull the trigger on an E-M1. I saw an article on Phoblographer where a Credit Suisse analysis was also stating Canon, Nilon and Sony would be the only ones left standing. It gives me some pause, but I'm ready to trade out my aging D80 and mediocre zooms against the new Olympus and good glass."

Mike replies: See, different people have very different reactions to this sort of thing. I can definitely see your point of view, but knowing that a product might be endangered makes me want to buy it more, not less—because it makes me want to enjoy and appreciate it while I still can. If Olympus went out of business today, I would buy a second E-M1 immediately. I'm not kidding; I would.

My favorite quote on this topic, which I love to trot out:

In fifteen years, the electrolytic power-supply capacitors will get old. Depending on usage, you will begin to have semiconductor and other failures between 10 and 50 years after date of manufacture. Later, the sun will cool to a white dwarf, and after that, the universe will experience heat death.

—Nelson Pass, from the Pass Aleph 0 User's Manual, explaining the life expectancy of the product

In other words, everything ends; carpe diem.

New Product Category: The Phonedocker Camera

Okay, I made that name up—which means it's not the name that will stick, because no name I ever dream up for anything ever sticks. Whatever.

But the rumors are flying that Sony is developing a "phone module" camera that clips on to your smartphone, communicates with it wirelessly, and uses the phone's viewing screen as a viewfinder. Brave new world.

The docker camera has its own lens, sensor, and processor. But no viewfinder and no "body."

You can use it clipped to your phone, or separately, handheld or attached to something else.

Better yet, one of the docker cameras  said to be on the way (not the one shown above) uses a Zeiss lens and a 1" sensor like the one in the Sony RX100 II that we like so much. Which means the quality will likely be "enthusiast worthy" and a noticeable improvement on the ever-improving cameras already in the smartphones.

I dunno. I'm not the market. But I'm interested in industry developments as an observer, and as those go, seems like this idea is more thought-provoking—and has more market-changing potential—than the usual.

Mike
(Thanks to thomas janik)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Renaud: "Since the thing doesn't seem to have a name yet, may I suggest 'Sony GXR'?"

Mike replies: Ooh, ouch!

Martin Doonan: "I think this is a nice line in innovation, along with what Samsung are doing with Android devices and Ricoh have been doing with modules. It seems that device makers have come to the realisation that you can't predict what users will do with the products and so testing the consumer waters in forms and formats is an important part of the innovation process. Even if it's a flop, I'm sure it'll flag some really useful concepts that push developments usefully forward."

The Rain of Blows

I have to admit I'm uncertain what this means. The article in the Guardian says, "Eastman Kodak has agreed to hand over its photography and other businesses to its own UK pension fund...." Does that mean its U.K. photography business or all its photography businesses? Yr. Hmbl. Reporter hasn't read a good enough explanation at a basic enough level for him to understand. Kodak did have manufacturing facilities in the U.K. at one point, and probably still. And what exactly would Kodak's U.K. pensioners do with all that once they have it? Aren't they, um, retired...by definition? (I'm being a bit facetious. You could have stopped reading at "I'm uncertain.")

In any event it appears to be one more falling brick in the demolition of the once magnificent edifice that George built.

On the other hand, the company posted its first quarter in the black since 2010, according to this article in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

Mike
(Thanks to Earl Dunbar and Matt)

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

T Hill: "The article from WSJ explains it pretty well." [We can't link to it, but you can get to the article if you're not a subscriber by copying and pasting or typing "( Kodak Gives Assets to U.K. Retirees site:wsj.com )" into Google. And I hope there is nothing unethical about telling you that.... —Ed.]

Jeff: "This USA Today article addresses your questions, I think."

MarkR: "'In the black': $200+M profit, which includes about $500M from a one-time patent sale. So, profitable, but not sustainable.  :-( "

Tim Bradshaw: "A pension fund is basically an investment vehicle: individuals pay money into it, it invests the money on their behalf somehow, and then when they retire it pays their pension.

"In the U.K. (I don't know the situation in the U.S.), pension funds are/were often run by companies: so when you went to work for company X you would have the option of joining the company pension fund (and I think, looking back far enough, you might essentially have been forced to join it). It then took some percentage of your salary, invested it, and then when you retired gave you an income.

"So the pension fund is not the pensioners, it's an investment vehicle run on their behalf.

"There are (at least!) two things that go wrong with all pension funds. Firstly people now live an annoyingly long time, which means the pension fund has to pay out more than it expected, and hence can run into trouble. Secondly the return on the investments made by the fund may not be as great as it hoped, meaning it has less money to pay out than it expected, with resulting problems. Both of these things are common to all pension funds and happen because financial people are both stupid and dishonest (setting unrealistic estimates for returns, not understanding the trend for people to live longer).

"An additional thing can go wrong with pension funds run by a company: the company may be tempted to borrow money from its own pension fund, especially if it is in financial trouble. Essentially this is borrowing from its employees, and it is also very often 'borrowing' in the sense of 'stealing': abusing its privileged position with regards to its own pension fund to cause the pension fund, essentially, to make a bad investment in the company.

"Presumably something like this is what has happened here, leaving Kodak owing its own pension fund a lot of money. And they've now settled this debt by giving the pension fund a great chunk of their business, presumably to avoid being sued by the fund."

Goodbye Kodak T-Max P3200

Kodak is discontinuing Kodak T-Max P3200, the super-high-speed black-and-white film created by Sylvia Zawadski and Dick Dickerson of Eastman Kodak. (The two of them used to have a website; is it gone?)

Its passing makes me think yet again that I'm living the perfect lifespan for a photographer...something like a railfan living in the transition era between steam and diesel, with one foot planted firmly in each. The years of my interest in photography have spanned so much. I really am grateful to have seen and done the things I've seen and done.

Mike Johnston, Mary and Liz at Squilley's Funeral

When P3200 came out, I was shooting Tri-X at E.I. 200, the fastest film I'd shot till then. P3200 tested for me at E.I. 1000, more than two stops faster. (3200 was a "push" speed, hence the "P" in the name; 3200 was never an actual ISO rating.) It was a revelation, and tremendously energizing. I put it immediately into use, and it was just in time so that I could document my grandmother's funeral and my best friend's wedding, among other things. I took so many great pictures (I mean: pictures I like) with that film. I have virtually none of it scanned, but above is one exception.

I found only one paper that it printed on correctly, and that too is long gone.

The promise and excitement of P3200 is of course completely lost on photographers now, who complain when they can see noise in actual ISO 3200 pictures.

As with so many things from the film era, there is no more need for it. But it was a big deal in its day.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren)

Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Today's P3200 and more:

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Featured Comments from:

Matt Weber: "I remember when it came out too...I think it was in 1988 and it was incredible. I was able to shoot at night with usable shutter speeds and still managed to get decent work done during the day. I'm sad because this film really mattered to me and enabled me to take many of my best pictures. Kodak has let us down so many times it's almost funny. I realize the company is in ruins now, so this time I'm not going to take it personally...Oh well."

Softie: "I knew this day would come, and find myself mourning a good friend's passing. I shot piles of this stuff, and used it as my standard film for years at E.I. 800. Lovely big rough grain."

Matt Mills: "Man, the memories...this was literally one of two films I used for black-and-white all through my early days in photography (the other being T-Max 400—judge if you will, but I loved the stuff in D-76). This was the film that made it possible to shoot inside and get handheld photos, really crucial if you're a people-in-their-habitat photographer. I miss it just thinking about it. Of course, right before I switch to digital, I learned to use sodium sulfite in the developer and borax solution after, which was amazingly rich."

Mike Plews: "I'm still pouting over the loss of TXP 120, but I tend to hold a grudge. DuPont is still getting stink eye from me over Velour Black #2 and Varigam. Gotta get over this stuff."

Crabby Umbo: "Plus One for Mike Plews! You're killing me—I'm still mad about DuPont papers as well! Bah!"

Mike adds: And for me, it's Verichrome Pan and Medalist paper. (I really wish Ilford or Fuji would make a genuinely retro emulsion or two.)

It's another thing we're losing: the fact that in every era, old timers grumped and moaned about the lovely old materials that had faded and gone. Michael A. Smith loved Azo so much that he started manufacturing a replacement after it was discontinued. Ansel Adams waxed elegiac about the passing of Dassonville Charcoal Black (did anyone know Will Dassonville had a book?! Me neither), and of course Frederick H. Evans, in England, quit photography altogether when they stopped making the papers he liked...in the nineteen-teens. I'm sure there were photographers decrying the passage of albumen printing ("it just had something special"), and others in the 1860s grousing bitterly about how tintypes didn't look nearly as good as Daguerreotypes, and who cares if they're cheaper and the fumes don't give you heavy metal poisoning?

I make light, but I really am going to miss the feeling of continuity in the craft and the sense of community it engendered with our "friends who went before."

They're Getting Closer

The other day I wrote, "I've been so insufferable about it ["it" being a C/Y 35mm ƒ/2], such a broken record, such a pain in the ass, that if I don't buy the RX1, I fully expect a ragtag band of former Contax reps and Zeiss lens designers and Kyocera product planners to show up on my doorstep and beat the crap out of me."

Well, this morning I heard from a retired former Contax marketing manager, who, I was surprised to learn, reads TOP. "I was delighted to read something of my own history in your column," he said. "I was the one on the receiving end of your nagging and pleading over that Carl Zeiss T* 35mm ƒ/2 lens."

He said he passed along the request at Contax R&D meetings, but to no avail.

I was a little worried that he didn't disavow the impulse to show up at my door and beat me up! (I remember him as a great guy, so I'm sure he wouldn't.) I was also pleased that he said my post "was true in every respect."

Nice to hear from old acquaintances.

Mike

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Google Buys Nik Software

Both Google and Nik Software have announced that the former has acquired the latter. Nik Software is the developer of Capture NX, the image editor optimized for Nikon users; Silver Efex, a leading B&W conversion program; Sharpener; and the photo app Snapseed, among other products.

Mike
(Thanks to Kevin Purcell)

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Photo Industry World Righting Itself Again

As most of you know, the biggest event in the photo industry calendar is Photokina, which takes place in Cologne (Köln) Germany every two years. Photokina is the world's biggest photographic trade show. This being an even-numbered year, it's a Photokina year, and we're in the runup to this year's event right now—it takes place from September 18th through the 23rd.

It's open to the public. I would go, but I'm quite sure I would get lost, and not make it out of Germany again for many months. And even then I would probably find myself in some remote corner of Luxembourg. (At least with my leg chained to the leg of the desk, I know where I am.)

Photographic industry companies used to reserve their biggest and splashiest introductions for Photokina. It got all the coverage, and woe to the poor passed-over company that had nothing new to show.

Then, for a few years in there, companies were no longer tying their introductions to Photokina or any other scheduled trade show. The reason was that the pace of digital development was just too fast and furious: the "window" of currency (and profitability) for any particular new product was bitterly, crazily short, so the product had to be rushed on the market just as soon as it was ready. (And sometimes just a little before.) Some products missed that narrow window altogether—by the time their product was out of development and ready to be marketed, the rest of the industry had passed it by (whether technologically or in terms of selling price) and it was too late.

Well, things are calming down. Despite the intense flurry of new products cascading on to the market these days, the pace of digital progress has slowed sufficiently that many companies actually can time new introductions to coincide with the major trade shows once again, just like they used to. Consequently, we're beginning to see more important new introductions reserved for or timed around Photokina.

I say "around" because few introductions will be saved for the actual show...most, like the bevy of new Pentax products (and presumably all those rumored new Sonys), will make their appearances in the days just prior.

If you go to the show, of course, then it's the big event—but viewed from afar, just looking at what's new, the show days can seem a bit anticlimactic...all the new stuff has already been announced, and the days of the actual show bring relatively little news.

Usually.

Mike

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Newsstand Watch

I really don't know if my area is representative or not, but I've been noticing that several stores that have traditionally included newsstands have recently reduced their sales areas devoted to magazines. My nearby drugstores have cut the overall size of the magazine sales racks in half, more or less.

Tonight I was in a local grocery store that still had a full-sized newsstand, and I noticed something else. I found a wide variety of titles: there was Acoustic Guitar; Mad magazine (I didn't know that one was still around); the ever-popular Canning and Preserving, and two bow-hunting titles (it's Wisconsin, after all, although we're not going to have a lot of crop to can and preserve this year, what with the drought); I think five magazines about something called "Fantasy Football" (I've heard of that, but I don't know what that is), and five more about motorcycles; SewNews; Scrap & Stamp (the initial "S" was covered up by another magazine, so I thought at first glance it was called "Crap & Stamp"); Yoga for Weight Loss; Combat Aircraft magazine; something called Geek (I didn't look to see what that one's about); a magazine called Rat Rod which of course no self-respecting newsstand should lack; and, for inquiring minds, Reality Stars / Where Are They Now? (I wasn't sure if the second line was part of the book's title or if it was the lead blurb. It took me a while to search my brain to see if I knew the name of one reality star—I came up with "Snooky" and "The Situation," although I don't know if I'm right about that or not. Are those reality stars? In any event, I don't care where they are, although I bear them no ill will.)

But not one photography magazine. Not a single one.

I seem to remember when this happened with stereo magazines, which were easy to find on most general newsstands twenty years ago. In that case I think it signalled a pretty distinct decline in the hobby and in the status of those types of products; in this case it might have to do less with the decline of the hobby and more with the rise of the Web.

Of course at full service bookstores (Barnes & Noble seems to be the only one of those left around here) we have a generous range of photo titles.

I've been away from the publishing business for several years now (I think I wrote my last magazine column in 2009—maybe 2008—and it's been since 2001 that I was an editor). It would be interesting to know the circulation figures in the photography category now.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Tony Collins: My favourite (UK) magazine title is Total Carp."

Featured Comment by Michael T.: "LensWork still exists in print, still true to its beginnings (no adverts). It has also an indepth and greatly expanded (over print) web presence. I tip my hat to Brooks Jensen and the rest of LensWork publishing team! They have adapted (and adopted) to the web and technology well!"

Featured Comment by Tom Swoboda: "Between 1971 and 2010 I lived in a small town that had a storefront newsstand down on main street. Every week on my day off I would spend at least an hour there paging through magazines and leaving with two to four of various types. I now live in an even more rural area and don't have a full service newsstand to visit anymore and I have found, like you, the supermarket and drugstore magazines have shrunk in size but I don't browse them. The WWW has pretty much eliminated my reading of newspapers and magazines."

Featured Comment by Mark Lacey: "We still have heaps in Australia, get most of the English and American rags too. In the long run they will be doomed by the net, like most things I'm interested in. Must say I miss your writing in the U.K. Black & White Photography magazine."

Featured Comment by Macrothemovie: "First: at first glance, it looks like a newsstand in Great Britain. Second: photography magazines are very rare, everywhere. You only find them in art galleries and little else. Perhaps you mean what I call 'camera magazines' which, indeed, are usually very popular."

Featured Comment by Geoff Wittig: "Yes indeed, the photography magazine market is cratering. Their advertising base is either disappearing or moving to the web. Cell phone cameras are wiping out the digicam market that dominated the field in recent years. Just look at Popular Photography circa 1990, and today. It had three times as many pages, with far more editorial content as well as ads. It's gradually wasting away. There are a goodly number of gear-head magazines, but they seem to arise and fold almost overnight. American Photo has turned itself into People magazine, photo edition, with a repellent (well, to me at least) emphasis on celebrity/sports/fashion photography. It's twilight for photo magazines."

Featured Comment by Kirk Tuck: "I'm surprised that no one has mentioned PDN (Photo District News). Of all the print stuff out there it's still the one I get every month in paper and my local Barnes & Noble always carries copies as well. It's aimed much more at the industry and to more advanced users. After hearing about the demise of print for the better part of the decade it warms my heart to go into a big bricks and mortar bookstore and still see an enormous wall of magazines. Even happier when the magazines feel thicker than they did a year or two ago...."

Featured Comment by Jan: "Not a comprehensive datapoint, but just came across this post called 'Magazines Suffer a Brutal First Half' after reading yours. Might create a chicken/egg situation. If the newsstand shrinks, so do sales and vice versa."

'Superzoom' Sales Soar

Sales of fixed-lens compacts (a.k.a. digicams or digital point-and-shoots) began to decline in 2009 after years of growth, and fell 11% in the U.K. last year alone, according to a new study by GfK Retail and Technology. This is attributed mainly to inroads being made at the low end of the market by smartphones. However, according to the study, the decline has been accompanied by a 50% surge in U.K. sales of "superzoom" compacts—cameras with small sensors and lenses with zoom ratios than exceed 10X.

Examples: the Nikon Coolpix L810 (above) or the Panasonic Lumix ZS20, which have 26X and 20X lenses respectively. Fixed lenses with such extreme zoom ranges are only possible on cameras that have tiny digicam sensors—the Nikon's in this case is a 1/2.3" (4.55x6.17mm) and the Panasonic's is similar, a 1/2.33" (4.56x6.08mm).

Superzoom compacts are most useful for those who do a lot of their shooting in daylight—especially those who like to shoot typical "long lens" subjects such as animals, or sports from the sidelines.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Marc Probst: "I always thought the main market for superzooms were men who wanted to photograph semi-naked women on the beach from afar...."

Featured [partial] Comment by Marc Rochkind: "Not too hard to see why this makes sense...these cameras do what phone cameras can't."

Featured Comment by Polo: "Olympic Games?"

Featured Comment by Ray Anderson: "I'm an artist (in very realistic watercolor), and I use my camera as a 'sketchbook.' My camera of coice has been a 'superzoom,' because it gives me flexibility of image capture without the neck-breaking weight of a DSLR system. The model I use, and that is still coveted by some people (look at the present price at Amazon!!), is the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ35. Very good image quality for a small sensor camera!"

The Echo Box

In a rather annoying trend, discrepancy seems sometimes to be widening into direct contradiction in the news. In our recent gubernatorial recall election, one side was trumpeting that Wisconsin had added 30,000 jobs, and the other side was advertising that Wisconsin had lost 30,000 jobs. Which was it? The "traditional" media, which is growing increasingly scarce here and increasingly biased, were not much help.

So here's the news: either Panasonic will be investing 30 to 50 billion yen in Olympus, or it won't be!

Isn't that exciting?

Of course, I don't know. I haven't done any original reporting, personally. I'm just a guy sitting in a little house in Wisconsin. I don't speak Japanese, and I don't have the phone numbers of the CEOs of Olympus or Panasonic in my "Rolodex" (I assume "Rolodex" is now a vestigial term, like "dialing" a phone). As we usually do with such industry news, I reported a report, namely, I parrotted what the Japan Times said. Imaging-Resource repeated a different report, from the subscription-only Kyodo News Agency. Well, I think it's a different report, unless the the Japan Times got the report from Kyodo News Agency too, which might be what the word "Kyodo" in small type under the title of the article indicates. So who's echoing whom? Who got the news, and from where, and who (else) is just repeating something they heard?

Olympus immediately issued a very vaguely-worded denial, which might or might not be referring to the reports about Panasonic. But then, they're doing that a lot these days. If someone issued a report that clear skies above Tokyo appear blue, Olympus would issue a statement that said "Certain sections of the media have reported today that the skies over Olympus Corporation (the 'Company') are blue. This is not announced by the Company. The Company will immediately disclose any further important information when it comes to light."*

Reuters, which seconded the "yes" side on Tuesday, yesterday contradicted the report, saying the President of Panasonic was overheard by a waiter at dinner saying nope, 'tain't true (except in Japanese). Okay, not at dinner, and it wasn't a waiter:

"I don't know where that information came from, not from us," [Panasonic President Fumio] Ohtsubo said on the sidelines of a meeting of the Japan Electrical Manufacturers' Association. "There isn't any," he said when asked if Panasonic had a plan to invest in Olympus.

So there you have it. Might be news, might not be; might be true, might not be; might be announced later this week, when Olympus issues an expected report; might prove to have been a rumor. The world continues to need more reporters and fewer echo boxes, and I'm not chuffed that I'm part of the problem. At least when I want to know what color the clear sky is, I can look out the window and give my own report. (Blue.)

Mike

*Note that that last sentence actually means, "The Company will not disclose any further important information when it comes to light." I'm just sayin'.

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Featured Comment by Francis Harrison: "I'm in Tokyo and yes, the story is accepted as fact here. Remember also that Fuji was at one point considering buying either Leica or Olympus. (Outright...?) Heady times. The takeaway for me: in spite of some horrendous corporate behavior going back at least two decades, Olympus technology and products, whether they be consumer cameras or endoscopes, are highly regarded, making Olympus a very valuable entity regardless...."

Panasonic to Bankroll Olympus

The two major Micro 4/3 partners will soon become much closer, reports The Japan Times.

Pansonic will bolster sagging TV-set earnings by providing between 30 and 50 billion yen (approx. US$378–631 million) to Olympus, in return for shares issued in a private offering.

Some Olympus executives had wanted the company to remain independent, but that proved not to be feasible. Panasonic was evidently selected because Olympus is eager to partner with it on business and product initiatives, apart from the infusion of capital. Spurned suitors include both Sony and Fujifilm, both of which made offers to form business alliances with Olympus.

Mike
(Thanks to Mike Hagburg)

UPDATE June 7th: Or, maybe not (thanks to NikoJorj for this).

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Fujifilm Confirms It Considered Buying Leica, Then Olympus

Shigetaka Komori (right), President and Chief Executive Officer of Fujifilm, in a frank and revealing interview in the German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (a.k.a. the FAZ), confirmed that Fuji considered buying Leica when it was for sale; however, that would have resulted in putting the guts of Fuji cameras into Leica shells, so he thinks it was an honest decision not to go in that direction.

He also confirmed that Fujifilm made an offer to purchase or partner with Olympus in the wake of the latter company's recent difficulties, but it appears that Olympus prefers to remain independent. He spoke about how the high yen is making it difficult for export-oriented Japanese companies such as Sony, Matsushita and Olympus (and by extension, his own company). He said Fujifilm would have found it easier to buy Olympus if it had not been a publicly traded company with two large Tokyo banks behind it (Tokyo Mitsubishi and Mitsui Sumitomo). Had Olympus been delisted from the stock exchange, things might also have gone differently.

Fujifilm has had a run of great success in the camera market of late, with the X100, X10, and X-Pro1 all greatly exceeding expectations. Fujifilm is also expanding into cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.

Mike
(Thanks to Gerry Morgan)

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Olympus Shareholders Approve All-New Board

Photo: Olympus

An angry, tense, and sometimes contentious shareholders' meeting, convened in the common room of a Tokyo hotel Friday (yesterday in Japan), began with Olympus officials and board members bowing deeply to the shareholders in the traditional Japanese gesture of apology.

All 11 current board members resigned, and were replaced with successors they had picked. Hiroyuki Sasa, 56, is the company's new president. Yasuyuki Kimoto, 63, takes over as Chairman. Kimoto is a former executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Olympus's main investor. Another banker became a director. Foreign investors feel this is a conflict of interest, worried that the new management will make decisions advantageous to Japanese creditors at the expense of the recovery and long-term viability of the company. Olympus rejected these criticisms, noting that six of the new directors have no connections to the banks.

Former CEO and whistleblower Michael Woodford, who was in attendance, demanded to know why he had been fired. Officials failed to give a substantive answer. Some shareholders still wanted him to resume leadership of the company, but that effort was rebuffed. It is believed that the priority for most shareholders is to see the share price recover.

Three former Olympus officials have been arrested and charged in connection with the scandal, which alleges massive accounting fraud.

Despite the highly unusual tenor of the meeting, described by one newspaper as "raucous," Olympus shares rose 6.4% in the aftermath.

Mike

Disclaimer: Yr. Hmbl. Ed. is a former OM-4T user and has plans to buy an OM-D.

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Does Photofinishing Have a Future?

By Ctein

Last summer I wrote "Minority Report," in which I observed that it was tougher these days to figure out exactly what kind of photographs people were making and what they were doing with them. Not impossible, not in the least, just that we had lost the easy tracking that film provided.

I didn't really get into it at the time, but if you had asked me what I thought was happening to printmaking, I would've guessed that it was probably on the decline. Nothing precipitous, just that the huge increase in the number of photographs that people were making digitally wouldn't compensate for the declining percentage that were being turned into prints. The conventional wisdom, after all, is that digital pictures are the e-slides of our era, photographs that are made to be viewed but hardly ever made to be handled.

About a year back, in fact, there was a widely cited article that described the photofinishing industry as being one of 10 industries that was on "life support." From one business perspective, it was true. The number of people working in photofinishing labs has steadily declined starting in the second half of the 1990s, long before the digital revolution ate film's lunch. One-hour minilabs popping up in every chain supermarket and drugstore eroded the dedicated photofinishing businesses. Come the digiterati and the rise of the online printing services, the big-box stores' in-house photofinishing, and home printing (not that important, dollar wise, but it takes its bite), and employment in the industry is down by 50% from its peak and will continue to drop.

That's bad news if you're a photofinishing employee or own a lab. It turns out, though, that it leads you to the wrong conclusion about printing in general. It's not dying.

It's on the rise.

In fact, it's risen every single year, with the exception of 2009-10, where there was a modest drop which more than got made up in 2011. It's a mixture of services and products: online printing services, self-service kiosks in supermarkets and drugstores, traditional photofinishers, and new products like calendars, greeting and personal note cards (those are really big growth items), online-printed albums and small books. As well as your usual small prints.

Today that's all part of photofinishing, as the purely digital printing processes, almost entirely inkjet, supplant the traditional RA-4 wet papers. Those are still major items, but the chromogenic print volume will decline and fade into insignificance. (Honestly, photofinishers have been looking to replace it for more than a third of a century, I can tell you from first-hand knowledge.)

Photofinishing as a whole is currently a growth industry, especially the totally digital side of it. Whodathunk?

When Kodak announced that they were going to continue to deemphasize and discontinue traditional photo materials and processes in favor of inkjet materials and printers, it was much decried as an act of foolish desperation by a dying company that would only hasten their demise.

I do think it was an act of desperation, and I am not remotely convinced that Kodak has either the resources or the managerial smarts to get themselves out of the rather deep hole they find themselves in. Foolish, though? I think Kodak identified one of the few industry segments where they have a realistic chance of making real money. At least over the rest of this decade. (Beyond that, who knows? The digital revolution is still far too much a work in progress for us to have any idea what the long-term looks like.)

Let us not forget that Kodak has always been mostly a photofinishing company. That was its initial model for success. "You press the button, we do the rest." Think about it. Most of its product expansion throughout the twentieth century was in an effort to establish horizontal and vertical monopolies around that business.

Be that as it may, the counterintuitive situation in the photofinishing world demonstrates how trusting one's instincts and hunches in the absence of concrete knowledge is a perilous endeavor. Often that's all we have to go on. Doesn't mean we'll be right.

Ctein

Ctein has reported on the photo industry for numerous publications over several decades. His regular weekly column on TOP appears on Wednesdays.

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Focus on Imaging: Show Report

The crowds at the Canon booth are constant....

...And at the Nikon booth too.

By Robert D. Phillips

For any U.K. readers eager to get their hands on some of the new camera releases, Focus on Imaging at the NEC in Birmingham is running until 5 p.m. this Wednesday, March 7th.

Canon are* using the show to launch their brand shining new and eagerly awaited 5D Mark III, and the stand is crowded from the 10 a.m. opening till the end of each day with people playing with the five or so examples they have on show. People seem to like it. I overheard the fashion photographer Perou, who has some photographs on show at the Focus Gallery at the hub of the hall, tell the CPS** rep, "You don't need to sell it to me—I will definitely be getting one." Or at least it was something very similar to that....

Nikon are finding it hard to keep up with demand to play around with their D800 as they only have one example in the country. The queues to try it out are daunting, like being at a crowded bar trying to get the eye of the barman. They are making up for it by having what is apparently the largest LCD in Europe serving as their theatre screen.

The Olympus stand is a small catwalk which is OM-D branded, and has been showing an alternating schedule of dancers, models, and photographers talking about the new miracle camera. As was mentioned in TOP, the actual camera is a lot smaller than it appears in the product shots, but it feels good in the hand and makes a very satisfying old-school shutter noise/feel when used. There are only two OM-Ds here, but again, people seem to be liking the camera.

Similar story over on the Fuji stand, where there is only one version of the lovely new X-Pro1. This is a piece of retro art—it looks and feels in the hand like a "proper" camera of old, and Fuji seem very proud of it, rightly so in my opinion.

Sigma are being even more coy with their new 19mm and 30mm ƒ/2.8 4/3 lenses—the sole examples of each are pre-production mock ups which stay firmly in the cabinet. Certainly tempting the desire though.

It is nice to see a pretty strong presence from Ilford at the show. Pushing mainly the new InkJet papers, they also have a strong film presence which is nice to see. Any visitors to the show can have their photo taken with an 8x10 camera loaded with an Ilford paper negative, which is then contact printed into a positive and is yours to take away after 20 minutes.

The Nova Chrome stand even has an enlarger on show!

All I want for Christmas....

I would say that the show is a must for any serious gearheads finding themselves near Birmingham, England over the next few days. Everything you can imagine, from the awesome Phase One 80MP outfit, right down to the eyecups and LCD loupes being sold by brothers Lou and Bob over all the way from L.A. CA. "We all but sold out by the end of day one" said Lou, with a big California smile. "So now we are just taking orders."

All the way from L.A.: Lou and Bob from Hoodman

Focus On Imaging is in Halls 9 and 10 at the NEC Birmingham until 5 p.m. Wednesday, March 7th.

www.focus-on-imaging.co.uk
@FocusOnImaging

Robert

TOP reader Robert Phillips, who you've encountered before in these environs, is filling in at the Focus on Imaging press office this week.

[*Company names are treated as plural in British English. A U.S. writer would say "Canon is." I've left the author's native Britishisms in place because it seems appropriate—in the way that Ailsa McWhinnie used to leave my Americanisms alone in my U.K. Black & White Photography magazine column. —MJ]

**Canon Professional Services, Canon's limited-membership support organization for Canon-using professionals.

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Featured Comment by Mark Cotter: "I was at Focus on Imaging on Sunday and managed to get my hands on all of the new cameras that interested me—Canon's 5D Mark III and the 1Dx, the Olympus OM-D, and the new Fuji X-Pro1. Being a Canon user, the new models are very nice but didn't wow me. The OM-D was a disappointment. Yes, it's a very nice camera but it's too small for my liking: it needs the two grips to make it useable. Perhaps, being an OM-1 user for my film work, I just prefer the size of the original. The Fuji line was outstanding. I'm in love with the new Fuji X-Pro1. Possibly, the nicest camera I have handled in quite some time."

Right Back to the Bad Old Days for Olympus?

It's the eternal problem with takeovers: who takes over? And, as George Orwell so tellingly observed in his tale about the pigs (his famous critique of Stalinism), what if the new regime becomes as bad as the old...or worse?

It's a problem Egypt is struggling with right now. Mubarak is gone; long live...?

Here's an article that synopsizes succinctly what some of Olympus's non-Japanese investors fear might be happening with the "clean sweep" of the Olympus board of directors slated to happen in April. They're worried it won't be so clean. Large Japanese banks, wielding power as both creditors and investors, are allegedly trying to stack the board with officers loyal to them. "As far as we're concerned, the Olympus board would then be de-facto creditor-controlled," the principal of Southeastern Asset Management, one of the two largest non-Japanese shareholders of Olympus, told Reuters.

I just found this curious because it's exactly what Greece is worried about, if you've been following that crisis—that it's going to lose its autonomy and become creditor-controlled.

So far, Olympus's camera division is steaming along happily just as if the financial scandal and leadership crisis wasn't happening. But a creditor takeover would make its future even more vulnerable than it already is.

(Makes me more eager to eventually get an E-M5. I'm all about enjoying good things while you still can.)

Michael Woodford, the fired whistleblower CEO who had to give up his bid for a triumphal return when it became clear the big Japanese banks wouldn't support it, told Reuters, "if it is true...then we are going back to the bad old days."

Back to the bad old days. Same old same old. Sweep out the bad...and, possibly, make way for the worse.

Mike

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Former Olympus Executives Arrested

The New York Times is reporting this morning that three former leaders of Olympus Corp. were arrested by prosecutors yesterday in Tokyo, "on suspicion of violating the Financial Instruments and Exchange Law." Taken into custody were Tsuyoshi Kikukawa,  Hisashi Mori, and Hideo Yamada. Although all three have resigned, Kikukawa was the President and Chairman, Mori Executive VP, and Yamada the coporate auditor when the scandal, which has had repercussions nationally in Japan, broke sensationally last October. Also arrested were several bankers implicated in the complex cover-up of large losses dating back decades.

We haven't reported every development of the Olympus case here, because I haven't wanted to turn TOP into "the Olympus scandal blog." However it looks like the new beginning is slated for a shareholders meeting on April 20th, when a number of Board members will step down and a new Chairman will be named.

...Unfortunately it also looks like the endoscope side of Olympus's business is sound, whereas it's the camera division that's being blamed for corporate losses. That means the camera side is exposed to possible, er, changes during restructuring. We'll keep an eye on the company's progress and plans in the months to come.

Mike
(Thanks to Rob Atkins)

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Priceless Memories

I've heard, read, or received some wonderful Kodak stories in the past 32 hours or so, many positive, a few negative, and some just so "Kodak" they're funny. One that made me laugh came in as a comment from Hugh Crawford:

I spent two days trying to buy some Kodak film, 70mm Pan-X. I got shuttled around between the Pro Sales, Industrial, Government, and Aerial Photography departments. The only people who could sell the film were in Aerial Photography Sales or Government Sales, but Government Sales had to have a government purchase order (cash was no good), and Aerial Photography Sales couldn't sell me film unless I had a some sort of FAA certification, because, in theory, the camera the film was for was part of an airplane and, if you were installing the film in the camera, you were doing maintenance work on the plane and had to be a pilot or an aviation mechanic.

Heh. That's Kodak, all right.

I had a trick that worked for me when it came to prying information out of Kodak employees—I'd wait until about 4:45 Rochester time on Friday afternoons to call. People were ready to go home, anticipating the weekend, feeling relaxed, and sometimes they'd let their guard down and let slip a little tidbit of information. Nothing major, mind you—just a little more than they would have told me any other day of the week. I got one or two nice nuggets that way.

I remember once I had a certain technical question for Kodak that was a bit delicate because it glanced obliquely at proprietary secrets. Again, nothing big—just something about an ingredient in a print developer or something like that.

I placed several calls and no one knew the answer. Rather than get frustrated, I just decided that just that one time, entirely as an experiment, I would dispassionately pursue the answer as diligently as I could—just to see how much work it actually took to pry the information out of Kodak corporate culture, which was, truly, very formidable in its time.

A number of calls and a day later, the glimmer turned to a glow that yes, there was one person who did know indeed the answer. A few more calls lead me to that person's actual name (victory after victory). It took several more calls over several days before I finally got to talk to him. My heart was beating a little harder than normal as his assistant put me through.

He was very polite and mild, but clearly being cautious. He explained that he hardly ever talked to anyone outside of Kodak. I posed the question to him, and he qualified the state of his knowledge of the answer. Eventually we decided that, yes, he did indeed know what I wanted to know. And, yes, he could tell me.

But then—right as he was beginning to spill the beans—he stopped short. "I'm not entirely sure I have the authority to tell you this or not. I don't know that I don't. But I don't explicitly know that I do." Or words to that effect.

We spent several more minutes discussing whether there was anyone with the authority to give him permission to tell me the answer, and, if there was, who that person might be. After considerably more thought, he decided he didn't know who that person was, but he had some ideas. I couldn't get him to give me names so I could continue on my quest from my end, but he promised he'd look in to it and get back to me.

Never heard back, of course. Game, set, and match, old Kodak.

Mike

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Tokyo and Tel Aviv

With new 35mm-form-factor cameras about to be nipping at their heels more ferociously than ever, Tokyo-based medium-format cameramaker Mamiya and Tel Aviv-based digital medium-format back maker Leaf have joined forces to form a new brand.

The beginning of the press release says pretty much everything you need to know:

New "Mamiya Leaf" Brand Delivers Strong Worldwide Synergy

Companies Integrate Products, Consolidate Worldwide Support, Service and R&D

TOKYO and TEL AVIV, January 16, 2012—Mamiya Digital Imaging, a trusted manufacturer and developer of medium-format cameras and optics, and Leaf Imaging Ltd., a leading manufacturer and developer of digital backs for the medium and large-format photography markets, today announced that they have created a new, worldwide Mamiya Leaf brand that integrates both companies’ product lines into one complete medium-format digital camera system offering, streamlines new product development and establishes more efficient customer sales and support.

The new Mamiya Leaf brand represents a synergy of the best that these two companies can offer as highly competent suppliers of comprehensive, fully-integrated high-end digital photography systems comprising digital camera backs, bodies and lenses. Together, the companies are focusing on delivering new Mamiya Leaf camera systems. Unified support from worldwide Mamiya Leaf partners/distributors is also expected to be a major advantage for photographers; they will now be able to enjoy one-stop expert service for all of the various components of a Mamiya Leaf medium format digital camera system.

Naturally, there's a website.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Oren Grad: "At least in the United States, this announcement raises more questions than it answers. Phase One, which controls both Mamiya and Leaf, has been grappling for many months with the problem of how to position the two brands. This is at least the third different branding/marketing identity for Mamiya in the U.S. over the past year.

"Now they've redirected the mamiya.com website to the existing, partially-baked Leaf website. All the information about legacy products—including all film cameras—is gone. Are they dropping them? Is there still support of any kind? No way to tell.

"The Leaf website is designed to channel all inquiries via email or the existing Phase One support forum—I can't find a phone number any more. Is the intent to sell high-end products while forcing all direct support to go through dealers? That's a possible strategy, but, if so, they need to be clear about it.

"And so on. Until they explain more, this feels like a big step backward."

Featured Comment by Will: "Mamiya's backs have, for at least two years, been nothing more than rebadged Leaf Aptus II backs. Meanwhile, PhaseOne's cameras have been nothing more than rebadged Mamiya cameras. And PhaseOne has a (controlling?) stake in both firms. There really doesn't seem to be any 'there' here, just a reshuffling of the corporate deck as lines blur and things become ever slightly more confusing for the consumer."

Featured Comment by Brian Woolf: "As a commercial studio/still life photographer, I have used a Leaf Valeo 17wi(17 megapixels) medium-format digital back (MFDB) since 2005. The quality, detail and sharpness is incredible in a studio environment with studio strobes, on a 4x5 Sinar p with film-era lenses. Last week I tried to get away with a Nikon D300 (12 megapixels) and an 85mm PC Nikon lens and was so disappointed with the quality, compared to what I was used to, that I switched back to the Leaf back. If you have only used a 35mm system, you would be amazed at the difference of any MFDB. The only 'catch' with these MFDBs is that you get the best out of them with strobes.

"Another important thing to consider, as  a pro, you are selling your work and handing over your image files to a client, art director, retoucher or pre-press people that sooner or later see everything in the industry. You are being graded by them on the technical quality of your work, how sharp, how much detail, the tonal range, etc., against other photographers' work that they have seen. You really should be doing the best you can, not just 'good enough,' if you want to get the next job."