The brand is moving away from everything I bought into, to focus instead (ha!) on genres I don't shoot
I paid the full price for my Olympus PEN E-P7 – but only when I found out I could get a free M.Zuiko 45mm f/1.8 with it.
(Image credit: OM Digital Solutions)
I have lost track of how many Olympus PEN and OM cameras I have reviewed, owned and included in Digital Camera World buying guides. I still use mine almost daily, for everything from travel to product shots to personal photography projects. But I wonder if I should just draw a line.
Nothing has changed for me. I still value all those things that the Olympus brand brought to photography – compactness, style, value and a wide range of affordable, portable, quality lenses. I’ve included Olympus cameras in guides to the best camera for beginners, best camera for travel, best cheap cameras and many more.
And yes, I know I can’t call it Olympus any more. The new name is OM System. The fact is, though, that all the best things about these cameras – for me – belonged to the ‘old’ brand.
Who could resist these looks? OM System, apparently. (Image credit: James Artaius / Digital Camera World)
Anyone remember the glorious PEN-F? If ever a camera was needed today. (Image credit: Olympus)
The PEN range in particular epitomized style, simplicity, portability and effectiveness. These were cameras small enough to fit in in a jacket pocket or a handbag and had a bit of style and elegance about them. Now, of course, they’re gone.
Under OM System, the range has thinned to concentrate on a much smaller adventure/outdoor/wildlife market, and that’s just not what I’m into. I use a camera to record life as a whole, not just some particular parts of it. That’s what the PEN did. It was a camera for everyone – discreet but smart, unassuming but powerful.
So it looks like I bought the last one. It was a PEN E-P7 bundled with the excellent little EZ 14-42mm pancake lens, one of the best pancake lenses ever made (IMHO). It was an Amazon special well below the original asking price and worth every penny.
The E-P7 has flaws, for sure. The lack of an EVF is a permanent pain point, and that EZ lens, beautiful as it is, has a sluggish electronic zoom that always seems to turn in the wrong direction for my brain. But it’s a beautiful little camera that I love to hold, to shoot with and just to look at.
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I bought an OM-D E-M1 Mark III and it's a terrific workhorse camera, but then I stopped. The OM-1 and OM-1 II are incrementally better again but only for specialized genres I don't work in. (Image credit: James Artaius)
My other ‘working’ OM System camera is an OM-D E-M1 III, which is bigger, better to handle with bigger lenses and has heaps of features that the E-P7 does not have.
So why didn’t I upgrade to the OM-1 or the new OM-1 Mark II? It’s because these cameras are only better in areas that aren't really relevant for me. It all goes back again to OM Systems’ steadily narrowing customer profile. I’m not in it.
I'll carry on shooting with the Olympus/OM System cameras and lenses I already have because they do the jobs I chose them for brilliantly, but I'm not sure there's going to be anything I'll want to upgrade to in the future. I was in a livestream the other day where somebody commented in the chat that “I didn’t leave Olympus, Olympus left me.” I'm afraid that sums it up perfectly.
Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com
