If you haven’t already taken the survey, please do.
There are only ten questions and they are all multiply choice.
I plan to interview a few people from Olympus Japan, after I get a few thousand responses I will let them know what the people want.
Even at this early stage, interesting things are starting to appear.
Nearly 80% of all respondents own an Olympus, with 55% of people completing the survey saying that Olympus makes the best cameras.
In my experience I find Olympus owners to be some of the most loyal, having own different cameras like pen F, XA, OM series camera as well as MJU film compacts they stick with what has served them well for year as they change to digital.
Interestingly Leica and Nikon were equal and highly rated in second place with Canon coming in a distant third.
Nikon was also rated second to Olympus for value for money.
In ease of use second place to Olympus was Panasonic. maybe because some of the Olympus and Panasonic 4/3 DSLRs have be developed in collaboration. It was funny how NIkon and Canon didn’t really rate. As more and more features appear on all camera the user interface and experience need to be kept clean and easy to use.
Canon did come first for the brand that is most recommended by friends almost 50% of the time, closely followed by Nikon and distant third by Olympus.
Now moving on to questions relating specifically to the Olympus E-620. The things that are attracting people to the new camera are firstly: It’s small size, then the Olympus lenses followed by the flippy screen, Art filters, double cross focusing point and the back lit buttons.
Olympus did extensive research before designing the E-620 and this is almost exactly what they found as well. I don’t know how much they spent, you could ask any one and they would tell you that the benefit of a small sensor should be a small camera. It’s not rocket surgery.
Although Olympus keep talking up their lens road map, I keep joking that it’s a crap map and their going the wrong way. Your answers to question eight show me that I am not alone.
Clear winner and new proposed lens for our improved lens road map is a fast wide prime with 40% of the votes followed with a fast standard prime 20% them equally in third place was a wide tilt shift lens and an inexpensive wide angle prime. None of theses lenses are on Olympus’s road map, who do they think they are making lenses for? This is the main thing I want to take to Olympus.
With features not on the Olympus E-620, the one people would most like to see is weather sealing, followed by video then 100% viewfinder, built in HDR, two command dials and larger buffer.
Now if Olympus can have the market for weather resistant and water proof digital compact s sown up, adding weather seals to the E-620 should only strengthened their brand in the market segment so would suit everyone.
Video, I suspect will be a key feature on the upcoming Micro Four Thirds camera.
Many of the feature people wanted to see, I suspect will be kept for higher priced models. It’s not about making the best camera, it about making a slightly better camera then the competition at a certain price.
This is why you see most manufactures with over five different SLR models. This is why you will see Olympus continuing with the E-420 and E-520. Olympus will then have five models evenly spaced at different pricing points.
I often wonder why Olympus don’t make a killer camera, to get them on the map. The E-620 is so close. I really feel it is going to be a big camera for Olympus. But with a few tweaks it could be a Canon and Nikon killer.
I think the proof of this lies in your answers to the last question on how likely are you to buy the new Olympus E-620. Even with the fact that the first people to do the survey are Olympus fans only 10% of people are planing to buy an E-620 with over 50% feeling that they probably won’t
Now if this camera was made as well as it could be, what would happen? Even if Olympus had to sell the camera at cost, You would get very loyal people into the system, who would then buy lenses (If they make the ones you want)
and we could see a big change it the brand of camera that is recommended by friends.
Anyway this is a very early look at the survey responses, If any one visits other forums could you post the link so we can get some responses from some not so one sided Olympus fans.
I hope you find this as interesting as I do. Thanks once again for you participation.
E-620.com 