This is one of the things I dislike most about our industry, the chicken little style of reporting and sensationalism. Just like the sky isn’t falling neither is Olympus imaging closing!  What IS happening is the division is being put up for sale and in principal a sale agreed.  What happens then is probably only known by 30 or so board members at this time.  No matter how much we speculate, second guess or wish, it’s all wasted effort. We will all just have to wait and see.

According to what I’ve read it appears JIP will restructure and continue R&D, that is good, Olympus always have some amazing things on the drawing board, their lenses are second to none and there is a large user fan base.

We will all have to wait and see.

What I do know is even if they ceased trading today the Olympus kit in my studio will work tomorrow and any business who just “sold up” and jumped to a new system “because” is being less than fiscally responsible.

If your Oly did what you wanted yesterday, it will do the same today and tomorrow, the sky isn’t falling Chicken Little!

Yes I didn’t agree with the form factor change in the EM-1X, that isn’t what Olympus is about to me.  Nobody ever bothered to stop and ask me “Whats your favourite camera Damian”, you’d just rock up watch the show and take home some edutainment.  If you’d asked my answer would have been succinct, the Pen F (stunning) or my “Workhorse” camera was the EM5 mk2.  Now this didn’t mean the “1” wasn’t a good camera personally just preferred others but it was frowned upon to say so.

I’m a professional photographer, the equipment helps me turn the images I have in my head into reality, you may hate this statement, but a camera is a tool.  I choose the right tool dependant on my needs.

I’ve heard many site “The BIG Dog is even shooting on Fuji” and guess what I am.  Throughout my career with Olympus I always had to have a medium format solution… REMEMBER I’m a pro photographer and some clients demand medium format, Olympus was ok with this, Pete Dudderidge had vision, knew the industry and knew, most importantly,  what I needed as a pro photographer and he always tried to deliver.  For years I happily shot on the amazing Pentax 645z along side my Oly and was very happy.  As my health failed I found the 645z literally too big to handle comfortably.  Then Fuji brought the GFX-R to market and I fell in love.

Now go back a few paragraphs and you’ll see correlation, my favourite Oly, the PEN-F and the GFX-R have something in common, they are both rangefinders!  Maybe that’s my preference in format.  I genuinely didn’t expect the GFX-R to be such an amazing camera, it’s a rangefinder, its simple and easy to use, you can drive it by old fashioned buttons and dials, the quality is superb and its small and light… it seduced me and I used it more and more because I LIKE it and it suits what I’m shooting at the moment.

The sky isn’t falling Chicken Little…

In this profession it’s horses for courses, you choose the tool dependant on the task, 90% of my work could be satisfactorily completed on the Oly, and it was.  Olympus make great cameras and even better lenses that won’t change.  If you are an Olympus user now you already own a camera far better, far more capable than those cameras used by the “names”, the “greats” who have gone before us, what would Parkinson or Cartier Bresson have created with a modern Olympus? Maybe you should ask are you a photographer or are you a technician, piloting the latest kit, can you take a picture or do you feel you need the latest technical crutch to survive?

It’s this sensationalism that will do the damage, its dumping the kit and swapping that will cause deep scars, yes I have problems in life but none of them are the result of Olympus cameras and lenses, the tools rock and more than do the job.

There is still and always will be a healthy supply of Olympus kit in my studio, a beautiful pair of PEN-F’s, my titanium EM-5 mk2, my gold EM-5 a dinky EM-10 mk2 my boys love and every lens made, I haven’t abandoned the faith despite being totally in love with the GFX-R and neither should you.  I will always be an ambassador for the equipment Olympus make, I was the first, I’ll be the last.

Olympus haven’t closed the doors, they are not bankrupt, they have simply sold the imaging division.  NOBODY knows what will happen with the exception of a few board members, so why speculate, why be negative, surely its better to show JIP that you LOVE the brand and will continue your support.  This could be the making of Olympus, this could finance all the things I believe need doing, but only time will tell.

Let’s not waste that time in speculation on things we cannot change and certainly have no insight into, surely our job is to just enjoy taking pictures and show off the capabilities of the kit you love.

We stress and worry about far too much, we chat and moan from frankly uneducated positions, where you happy with your shots yesterday? If you say yes then there is no reason not to be happy tomorrow.  I’m sure there are stories to come but this isn’t it.

My advice, hold your nerve, wait and see what the sale brings before doing anything, the infusion of cash may be the best thing that could ever happen, yes there will almost certainly be changes but changes don’t always need to be bad.

The simple fact is this, whatever happens, your camera and lenses will be as good tomorrow as they were yesterday.  You need to decide is it a tool to be used or jewellery to show off?

The sky isn’t falling Chicken Little, so please, stop trying to pull it down.