Olympus is strong in the medical field apparently and they probably do scientific instruments as well. I heard they make a beautiful zero backlash focus rack and they make microscopes too.
http://olympusaustralia.com.au/Product/ ... Microscopy
I don’t think Oly as a corporation is in imminent danger as a whole, they probably trade on the stock market themselves like Sony does with their financial arm so they could be quite ok in some parts of their business.
It would be a shame to see the camera division go but even that might not happen in one fell swoop, the compacts might but I can’t see the ILC’s disappearing quickly.
I heard Panasonic wasn’t in wonderful shape either, but at least they have the same mount interface as Oly, as far as I know, I have no idea how well an Olympus lens would work though.
I see that arch enemy Samsung just got a huge fine for transgressing on an Apple patent, they’ll probably appeal and it’ll drag on for years.
Then there is the anti-Japanese sentiment in China at the moment too, the government there ordered that Nikon stop selling the D600 camera a while ago, maybe that was one of the reasons why Nikon brought the D610 to market and offered a fix for the previous model, which might all have been for the best anyway, for Nikon.
Greg
Ps I have no doubt Henry you would have done a fine job ruffling a few feathers with that Pentax Q suggestion, I guess they wouldn’t pick up right away they were getting their leg pulled well and truly.
I suppose those taking photos with tablets are kind of cutting out the middle man, no downloading from camera to computer involved just take the computer with you and take the photos with it directly.
Actually it could make a good funny video if there was a tour group with tablets and someone recorded their antics with a go-pro or such.
I know it’s popular to say that Minolta abandoned their MF customers when they brought out the AF camera mount, but in reality it was the customers who abandoned the MF mount, Minolta kept making SR mount cameras right up until 2001 so there was always a new body for the lenses if anyone needed one.
It was rather strange behavior actually, AF lenses didn’t have an f-stop ring so they were very propriety but that didn’t keep many Minolta customers away from the allure of new AF mount, some of whom later complained that Minolta had dumped their former MF mount…funny that.
Minolta lost the plot after they introduced the first digital A-mount camera the RD175 in 1995 by deviating off with the non A-mount RD3000 then they got back on track with the 7D and 5D before finally throwing the towel in…maybe they had a good crystal ball after all…the camera industry isn’t in very good shape right now.