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Poll evaluation “What we want from Panasonic and Olympus”
We closed our poll. We had over 2.100 unique voters. Every person had three votes. 29% of the voters came from US, 34% from Europe, 23% from Japan and 14% from other regions.
What do we learn from the poll results?
1) It came with no surprises that people needs prime lenses (and possibly fast lenses!). Almost half of the voters voted for it!
2) The first surprise came on position three: 28% of the voters wants a camera with built-in electronic viewfinder (rangefinder look!)
3) 26% of the voters wants Olympus and Panasonic to continue the “classic” FourThirds line development. And many people (26%) is wants a High-End camera model that includes all the best features (wheatersealed body, fast autofocus and all the gimmics you need inside a High-End model).
Duarte (a 43rumors reader) added the following conclusion “The interesting issue here is that both of these groups are probably 4/3 hardcore users. The conclusion is that half of them are on jump ship mode (4/3 -> m4/3).”
4) “Only” 14% needs a fullframe camera.
Feel free to add your considerations! Comment this post!
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P.S.: I voted for my “monochrome sensor camera” option, and only 2% voted for my idea 
The final results are here:
to be competitive in year 2010 Olympus and Panasonic should...(please check maximum three options)
- ...release more prime lenses! (possibly fast!) (48%, 1,042 Votes)
- ...improve the sensor (High-ISO + dynamic range improvements) (40%, 864 Votes)
- ...make a camera with built-in electronic viewfinder (rangefinder look) (28%, 600 Votes)
- ...make a top High-End model (fast autofocus, wheatersealed and well made body, and all the best features you can add) (27%, 575 Votes)
- ...also work to improve the "classic" FourThirds line (and release the E-5!) (26%, 573 Votes)
- ...improve autofocus (20%, 437 Votes)
- ...develop a second line with fullframe sensor ( Make a cheap Leica M9!) (14%, 306 Votes)
- ...go down with the prices (GH1, E-P1 are to expensive) (11%, 237 Votes)
- ...small lenses and small cameras (9%, 192 Votes)
- ...also enhance the video quality (with the release of special lenses, better codec, 1080 60p/50p, etc.) (9%, 189 Votes)
- ...use better screens (possibly using OLED's) (8%, 168 Votes)
- ...release a very cheap compact MicroFourThirds camera (7%, 160 Votes)
- ...swivel lcd on most models (7%, 157 Votes)
- ...more zoom lenses for travel photography (6%, 128 Votes)
- ...built-in flash! (4%, 82 Votes)
- ...make a m4/3 camera with monochrome sensor (2%, 49 Votes)
- ...simple fast menu (2%, 42 Votes)
- ...make better designed cameras (2%, 39 Votes)
- ...start big advertising campains (1%, 32 Votes)
- ...start competing! (Right now there is no competition between EP-1/2 and GF1). (1%, 13 Votes)
Total Voters: 2,167
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Quote:
“3) 26% of the voters wants Olympus and Panasonic to continue the “classic” FourThirds line development. And many people (26%) is wants a High-End camera model that includes all the best features (wheatersealed body, fast autofocus and all the gimmics you need inside a High-End model).”
The interesting issue here is that both of these groups are probably 4/3 hardcore users. The conclusion is that half of them are on jump ship mode (4/3 -> m4/3).
Hi Duarte!
You are right! That’s interesting!
I voted for swivel LCD. It’s a pity, only 7% voted for this.
Can’t you image, how much this boosts your creativity???!!
This is something that could finally set digital photography apart from analog photography just through the way you are able to look at something. Don’t you realize this?!!!
(I’m not even talking about the possibilities that one could go further and seperate the device that takes the picture and the one you see the picture on, it only needs cable and a clever design).
And it doesn’t matter if this is too far away from mainstream, this is something System stands for. It should be an add-on, a module, an accessory. It’s not just some nice addition, it’s about designing something more modular than they did previously. The same body can be used over a wide range, from amateur to pro, and with some relatively small primes it would still be something totally different from traditional SLR, because it could still be much smaller.
Especially together with video, for me a swivel-LCD is a must have.
I thought that Olympus would release a “top High-End model” with a tiltable LCD at the end of this year, now they’ve just upgraded/changed the EP-1
They should make something a bit larger than the EP-1 with a good design (not like GH-1), that is greatly customizable because of a modular Desing-Idea.
a better, full-frame sensor – something that can give the noise/quality of the canon 5d in a pocket size body with the weatherproofing of the old olympus stylus epic and manual focus of the olympus xa2
Something to note is that 20% of all respondents want autofocus improved.
Given that this is a combined Panasonic and Olympus poll and maybe half the respondents are responding from a Panasonic-centric perspective, one might conclude that a much higher percentage of Olympus users want Olympus to improve their autofocus system… maybe 40% if the poll was Olympus-centric.
That would put “improve autofocus” at number 2 on the poll. Are you listening Olympus?
I think they should go even smaller with designs, e.g. cramming in a 2/3″ inch sensor inside, and then the body will even fit in your pockets!!
Also 2/3″ is fairly enough for DoF, because for the most time you will not always want super shallow DoF. Sometimes these shallow dof shots look pretty bad..
In other words, you don’t always need shallow DoF – or FULL FRAME
So SONY: MAKE IT SMALLER pocketsized!!
“Improving repairing/customer service” is important too.
In my country, I think there’s only one place where I could get Oly camera fixed and I have no idea about Panny, since they got loads of products and dealers spreding across the country