We were lucky at this time, but I believe it still killed 3 Japanese in Nagasaki pref. and 3 or 4 in South Korea.
IMHO, Typhoons are the scariest things we have on this earth and they are the biggest enemy of our civilization,
Now every where I go in this tiny island here, I saw many many EOS M cameras. After all, the BCN ranking here seems to be really correct. This time I met many many people using some sort of EOS M's here in Osaka castle area.
In Hokkaido, in the last winter, I met 19 SE Asian tourists shooting with a EOS M50. In Fukuoka,in this summer, I met 7 Taiwanese guys using one of those.
In Nagasaki and Osaka there were more people using that camera. And according to my Chinese and Thai friends the Canon is already no 1 in mirrorless there too.
So that EOS M50 camera seems to be a huge success for Canon, at least in Asia.
At Sapporo station, I also spotted a several Sony A7X cameras there this year. I saw 21 tourists using Nikon D-SLRs ,11 using Fuji XT100.
Maybe 2 or 3 with the Fuji GFX and Hasselbald X1D.
The biggest change in camera demographic here in the last couple of years or so, is now no one uses any m43 here(Olympus cameras are especially unpopular). I haven't spotted any of these tiny m43 cameras since about summer 2016.....
Since about the same time Sony and Fuji have increased their presence respectively. Since about summer 2017, Canon has rapidly increased its presence in the mirrorless market here.
Now, I see one or two of EOS M X every where, I cannot just ignore those cameras now. I have to assume the real loser here is the Olympus and Pentax and they will be the next Samsung NX?
Or is it still the Nikon D that is really doomed?
Now, I think it is the m43 duo(Panasonic may be not so doomed) and here's Why m43 is so doomed now 30(updated7):
I think a few weeks back I wrote about Sony's financial results and they did not look good.......actually horrible.
And to me, Nikon's results do look actually worse than a month ago. But still they seem to some how manage to beat the small sensor rivals such as Fuji, Olympus and Panasonic.
Fuji is actually fine, and their systems are growing in their specific segment of market.
And we are very sure their camera business is still in black.
m43, on the other hand, seems to be losing considerable amount of money every year, and really rapidly becoming an unpopular niche system, they seem to be the only one real loser here even beaten by the D-SLR duo that they and their fan base really despise.
Despite of all negative press against D-SLRs and especially against Nikon and calling them as prehistoric dinosaurs of the camera world, Nikon somehow still manages to outsell all mirrorless manufactures. It seems Nikon outsells m43 duo by 3-1 ratio, and it is striking.
So why do even Nikon D-SLRs from prehistoric time(according to m43 fans)comfortably outsell the m43 duo and m43 duo seems to be the only one real loser here while all other mirrorless guys including Canon, Fuji and Sony are successfully increasing their sales, at least by value?
Is a typical m43 kit too bad a value camera system? Oversized ? Overpriced ? or both?
Is a m43 kit considerably smaller than a budget FF kit as the duo promised, especially after equalizing the DOF and light gathering power of all the systems in question?
As an avid admirer (no longer a owner) of many fine Olympus FT and mFT lenses, I'm sure the Zuiko 25mm f1.2 Pro will perform as good as it is advertised. But that is not the issue here. The main issue is the issue of the value or perceived value of the system.
The main and direct competitor to this lens is not the Zony 55 f1.8 (which together with an older A7 will cost ~2000 dallors, neither weather sealed), but the newer Fuji 35mm f2 (which together with a 2016 X-T2 will cost ~1500 dollars, both weather sealed, and as such closely comparable to this lens + an E-M1 in most respects).
In such comparison, this Zuiko will not favorably compete at all. It is both bigger and heavier than the Fuji 35 f2, and is priced 4times as much. It is not possible to expect a mFT sensor plus this lens to perform 3 times better than an APC sensor (and for the people interested, the flexibility in DOF will be more or less comparable). Keep in mind that X-T2 is no slouch either (and the X-H1 is extremely well received, maybe arguably the current best seller ILC camera) under 2k camera market.
By this pricing, they have not only priced the lens out of the mainstream m43 market, but have opened the door to some of their users to take a good look at the Fuji's X system. Not a good marketing strategy, IMHO. Olympus seems to be repeating the same mistakes that led them to terminate their original 43 system.......
This means, we can expect the price to either rapidly drop under the 1000 US mark over the next year (which will depress the price of their other lenses), or the X system gain even more momentum.
Many avid m43 guys in m43 forums seem to have heavily invested in m43 already, and they have no other place to go, so raving about the EM1MK2 and the super expensive new 25mm f1.2 Pro prime regardless of the prices they asked for these. So for them it may not be the issue, but if they were in the market and were looking at a system, I know for sure that Fuji X would look much more attractive in both performance and value than any of these high-end 20mp m43 bodies.
I wished Olympus'd gone the route of making pro grade, weather sealed f1.8 primes instead.
Many m43 fans,especially Olympus guys chant" f1.2 is f1.2 is f1.2 and is always big and expensive regardless of the sensor format".
But it should not be so, really........
First of all, many of m43 lovers are confused *f*/1.2, with the number *1*/1.2. The latter is an aperture ratio. To obtain the aperture = effective opening diameter, you have to insert the focal length f, then divided by 1.2. Therefore the opening is simply larger with a f = 50 mm lens vs. 25 mm. And for isotropic sources (as most reflection), the larger diameter gathers quadratically more light.
So the m43 25mm f1.2 lens should be about the half the price of the Canon 50mm f1.2L. But in reality it is just as expensive, that is why many even avid m43 shooters complaining about it.
Many Olympus fans claim the "photon efficiency" on smaller sensors is generally higher, more efficient but it is not true.
Historically, there has been a generational lag, where techniques like BSI were introduced first with small sensors in smartphone market. However, with Sony now also building 35 mm full frame BSI sensors, and with 90% quantum efficiency (QE), this is meaningless nowadays - except maybe comparing medium format against A7, and don't forget even the much maligned Canon 5D4 sensor(by DR fanatics in many camera forums) is now able to get 86 percent QE value. So even the Canon sensor is no longer bad, in fact quite a good one.
You cannot possibly exceed 100% QE, no matter how small your sensor is. Furthermore, small BSI sensors also practically do not exceed 90% QE (simply because you have to maintain gaps between pixels). So m43 loses here again miserably.
A lot of m43 fans hate the equivalence and choose to be misguided to believe the only one purpose of using fast primes is to get super shallow DOF,"only one eye in focus" kind of look, and they say they can get it with m43 with the set of f1.2 primes.........yeah they can get shallow DOF with a m43 plus f1.2 primes...........but I'd say they can get it easier and cheaper with FF. There is no honest coherent point in m43 community. The reality is there are many FF lenses capable of super shallow DOF exist and they do not cost much more than m43 f1.2 primes.
And a f1.2 lens on m43 is just like a f2.4 on fullframe and therefore it should cost like a FF f2 or f2.8 lens, not like a f1.2 FF lens.
Plus, of course, shallow depth of field is not the only point of shooting a fast lens.....and for DOF and light gathering power, ff f2.8 is about the same as m43 f1.4, and therefore a FF set up actually much cheaper than m43. Think about how much the good f1.4 m43 primes like PL12mm f1.4 costs......and how much a lens like Sony FE35mm f2.8 or Nikon AF-S28mm f1.8G costs........now you see my point, I guess.
On top of the above point , for light gathering power, a 19 element retro-focus design performs poorly, vs. the prevalent, 6-8 element double Gaussian design for normal lens (look everywhere, whether it's Canon, Sony, M-mount Leica). A design like the Olympus 25 mm f/1.2 Pro is really for DoF and image quality, but with little regard on the transmission.
Current Olympus lenses average a transmission of 0.97-0.98 per lens element, therefore this lens likely will be around T/1.5, i.e. the amount of light of a double Gaussian f/1.4.
Again, this proves my original point m43 is not a cheap or any more affordable system than a FF..............for the same noise level it must need 2 times brighter lenses than a FF and they don't exist, but lets assume they were existing, they'd cost much more than fullframe f2 lenses........and in the end you would have been paying about 3 times more for just FF f2.8 performance with m43.
My argument is *light transmission*, not image quality. And I am not arguing for or against any particular lens. But trying to compare 'systems' performance per $ in fair manner.
And ,BTW, many fullframe systems have some normal perspective macro lens, where you want to sacrifice some transmission for resolution and they are all super cheap compared to m43 version of these. The Sony FE50mm f2.8 macro costs only 400 US and that on a A7R is much sharper than any lens on any m43 body. Canon also has a similar lens, Nikon also has a decent 60mm f2.8 G macro lens and they all cost much less than the Panasonic Leice branded macro lens. Also, if you do not mind using a thirdparty macro lens, there are two incredible offerings from Cosina and Sigma for Sony system:
1 Sigma AF70mm f2.8 Art Macro (comes in Sony E and Canon EF)
2 Voigtlander 110mm f2.5(the best macro lens ever made by any one, albeit its full manual design).
Another big mistake the Olympus fanboys make in many silly camera forums is that they call their beloved Oly as Olympus system. But there is no Olympus system, period. It is called m43 system. Without Panasonic lenses, there is no m43 lens advantage that many Olympus fans claim Olympus has over Sony and Fuji.
Now,what is rather clear here is that some people with a single brand system lack any solid understanding of other brand competing systems that they do never touch or try out side of a studio or a shop. In fact, many of them seem not even understand there are many different types of system camera users even in their own mount system:
(1) also own other mount systems
(2) be critical to their own equipment
(3) only partial to what they currently own but clearly understanding why they have chosen it over the other systems. however, having some respect to all other brand systems in someway(although they do not choose them).
Let me also give you another hint, that people may not having Fujifilm (X-mount) simply being put off by the X-Trans sensor/CFA, or the terrible classic camera controls,in spite not displeased with Fujinon optics (not just still photography, but also cine/broadcasting lenses).
They are superb, nothing Olympus makes positively challenges to the best Fujinon lenses, especially zooms. The Fujinon XF16-55mm f2.8 is the current absolute best standard zoom in any mount. It beats the CanonEF24-70mm f2.8LMK2, the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8VR E, the Sony 24-70mm f2.8GM, and of course the Olympus ZD12-40mm f2.8 Pro according to Tokyo university science lab studies of these lenses.
And the Fuji X-T2 or X-Pro2 is a lot cheaper than the Olympus EM1MK2........I think the Olympus will cost about 1799USD and the Fuji rivals costs about 1400US or 159800 yen here. In fact, the Sony A7MK2 is even cheaper with a much bigger better sensor than the Olympus.
So now it is the right time to back to my first question here, the problem is seemingly the worst value of the m43 system.
The Olympus EM1MK2 and Panasonic GH5 are fantastic cameras, no doubt about it, period. But considering the 4 times smaller 6 times cheaper sensor choice of the system, they should not be as expensive or more expensive than the Canon 6D, Nikon D610 or the Sony ORIGINAL A7, which costs only 980 US or 89800 yen these days.
On top of that, for quality to quality comparison, Olympus Panasonic lenses are usually more expensive than the fullframe or Fuji rivals.
The new Olympus 25mm f1.2 Pro is as I wrote above not even as bright as the Canon 50mm f1.2L or even not as bright as the Sony 50mm f1.4 Z, but costs just as much as the fullframe rivals do. What really matter here is not the f number but the actual opening size and that is why the m43 25mm f1.2 is not equivalent to the full frame 50mm f1.2 , even not f1.4, but worse f2.4. So no matter how sharp it might be, we have to conclude it is overpriced and oversized. I think, now, Olympus Panasonic are just making the same mistakes they did in legacy SLR 43 era.
I think they should not challenge the FF rivals in the same field but in overall system functionality and reach.
I think many many people actually prefer innately deeper DOF at any given f number of m43 system, powerful dust-reduction system, 2x reach,etc, but they are just ignoring the natural or coherent strengths of the format and working against them, just to challenge the FF and APS-C based system for sake of their silly pride..........
I think it is a huge mistake.
UPDATE: Now we know the actual sells numbers for this month and the last month at our shops and the rival shops here and the results are really surprising.
The no1 selling camera now is the D750 especially after the price for the Z7 announced. And the A7MK3 is selling better than before too, maybe because people got hugely disappointed with the new Nikon pricing strategy?
Another important trend I have write about here is that we have got so many A7R3 and A7R2 cheap from the people moving back to Canon or Nikon mirrorless for D-SLR system.
Also, now at the discounted price, the 5DMK4 is also doing very well.
After the last series of FF mirrorless announcements in last month, actually DSLR sells seems to be increasing quite a bit, and I think this is a sign of many people thought the Nikon Z7 and Canon R were a huge disappointment.
I do not think the camera itself was so bad , actually good, but the lens lineup is really lousy. And the Z7 is really overpriced. It is about 500 US more than the D850, and it has only 3 lenses currently. And the biggest issue with the Z7 as a system is the new adapter does not work well with many F mount lenses.
So how can Nikon expect to sell that body?
UPDATE2: Many people now know that both Panasonic and Olympus will go FF, but their approach to get there seems to be very different.
Olympus seems to be waiting a couple of years or so to see which one of the 4 current systems will survive. Then , they will finally decide what mount system to join or go their own- proprietary system. A big newspaper here reported that in last week. In their interview article,Olympus also says they do not know how it'll change after the dust settles, so they just wait to see how everything will change after the Leica Panasonic team work actually starts out in this winter.
And they also mentioned the new Panasonic sensor is actually more appealing to them than the Sony 45mp sensor used in the Nikon Z7 because the new Pana chip runs cooler and they think it is more power efficient. So they will have to wait to see which sensor team will win Pana or Sony or maybe Canon as they have been investing more money than any one else on sensor fabs recently. Canon has renewed their sensor fabs recently and they did many times already(at least a several times). So maybe Olympus is right, Canon may eventually win the sensor race. If that happens as many Sony fanboys and Olympus seems to be very much concerned about the Sony E mount will become the losers' system.
But even if Canon eventually wins the sensor race, Sony will always have more lenses, more flashes and more accessories of any kind since Sony has the big 5 year time advantage.
So I think both E mount and R mount will be fine for at least a few more years.
Panasonic's approach to this matter is clear they focus on a tough hybrid FF camera system and make the risk smallest possible by joining the already existing mount.
Panasonic also says they will also keep using EF mount for some pro video cameras. And everybody in Japan knows Pana and Canon are close friends and they are not close to Sony and Nikon. Olympus is close to both Panasonic and Sony. Actually, most of people here already knew that even before the news paper article. What many people do not know about Olympus is actually they are very close to Fuji and having run many joint projects in medical area.
So it is possible Olympus may work with Fuji, Pana-Leica team, Sony or Canon for their inevitable FF system.
One thing we all know for sure is they will never work with Nikon since Nikon always hates Olympus as it is the biggest rival in their scientific lab optics business.
As for the new FF mount sells, it is really clear a big loser seems to be Nikon. Honestly, after the Panasonic Leica Sigma announcement and Zeiss's new exciting camera launch, no one talks about the Z any more.
We've got many people canceling their preordered the Z7.
By contrast, the R is doing quite well, it is the current no 1 selling FF body world wide. But what really surprises me is that the majority of the R buyers are adding it in addition to their Canon EF system or Sony FE system. IOW, they seem to be going triple mount system to try to avoid the risk of becoming a victim of a loser's mount system.
I think it is the safest way to play the game for now,but I also think they should at least wait for the new Pana to be actually out in next Feb. I think the new Panasonic S1R will be amazing, and the Zeiss ZX1 is extraordinary, and it clearly shows us how anachronistic and wrongly designed all the current Japanese cameras are. These Japanese cameras really need a clean 21st century minded menu system.
So in any case m43 will survive for the foreseeable future, at least.
UPDATE3: Now we all know Thom Hogan is actually a avid Nikon fanboy at his heart. He seems to be strongly biased towards Nikon, I think his new articled called, 'The FF lens race' has just proved that.
In that article , he says Sony has just 26lenses and their lens lineup will grow to about 60 by 2021 or so, and it is including Zeiss Batis and Loxia line. In comparison he says Nikon will have the total 18 and they have the F mount catalog of total over 60 lenses that will work flawlessly on the Z. It is a huge lie, and not very fair to fair to Sony , Pana and Canon. Since the FTZ adapter does not work as well as Sigma or Metabones plus Canon EF on Sony. Or Canon's own ETR adapter, which really works well without any issue with their EF lens lineup, plus it has a drop-in filter.
He also says Canon will have 12 lenses or so by 2021, and it is what he is guessing. I think if Nikon can crank out an incredible set of 18 lenses in just a matter of a couple of years , then Canon will make more lenses than that since Canon is about 13 times larger than Nikon.
If anyone thinks otherwise, I think he/she cannot deny he is a Nikon fanboy, or fangirl, at least as with many famous camera commentators, he/she is strongly biased towards Nikon.
In addition to that, Mr. Hogan also says both the Canon R and the Nikon Z can just use their respective old mount existing lenses flawlessly.......it is not true.
Canon can do that, but Nikon Z needs new more sophisticated Sony A to E type adapter with SLT tech or something similar to fully utilize all the past Nikkor lenses with mechanical aperture lever in the mount.
And he really underestimates Panasonic Leica team, and he definitely thinks they will be a less interesting or less influential mount system than the Nikon Z.
I do not agree with him on that at all, the Panasonic has tremendous potential with the new organic sensor, which will come in their Pro body sometime in 2019 or 2020.
Plus, unlike Nikon, they have global shutter and 8k tech in- house and it is a huge edge over Nikon since Nikon is the only one in the FF mirrorless players not have it or have no access to it.
Global shutter is the next biggest thing in FF mirrorless game and Sony , Pana and Canon all have it in-house and Nikon does not. If he is honest, he should not call CN or CaNikon since Nikon is just too small to call a rival of Canon now.
If his 'the lens race' article had been written in the early 2009 or so, I would have understood why he used the term,'CN'.
Nikon was huge at in late 2009. But they have failed to keep that huge 32 percent market share they got with the D700/D7000 duo.
I mean Nikon's ILC share is just 23 percent globally today and Canon over 49.3, and they are about 13 times larger than Nikon in terms of revenue.
This CN or CaNikon notion Nikon fanboys push through over a decade or so is really an outdated term and should not use the term any more. It is now Sony vs Canon vs Panasonic L mount alliance, and it is really difficult for Nikon to compete well with those much bigger companies than they are.
Any even a bit rational person can see it. Of course, Thom knows it, he is not stupid. But he has chosen to dismiss it because most of his readers are Nikon fans and so is he himself.
When Sony was the only one in the game, he said no adapters or adapted lens solution would not do anything for any serious work, and all the adapted lens solutions for the E mount system. But now he is saying the Nikon Z already has over 60 plus lenses(at the very launch of it) because it can take all Nikkor S and E lenses. Isn't this logic very contradicting to what he has been preaching about Sony lens lineup? He has said, "Any one buying into the E mount eco system should focus on the native lenses, any adapted lens solution is just a temporal thing." But prizing the Nikon Z for its easy adaptability of the Nikkor legacy lenses.
If Sony or Canon or any one needs an adapter solution, he trashes it. But if it is a Nikon, then forgiven or even prized for it. It is really amazing how contradicting he has become and some other Nikon fanboy reviewers like Lloyd Chamber has also saying similar things over and over again.
They should be a bit more consistent and trying not to be contradicting.
UPDATE4: Now we all know that Canon Nikon new FF mirrorless cameras are both doing not that great , as many of us predicted. Nikon has already started discounting the Z7 price and now it is about 20 percent cheaper than it was in the second week of the last month October 2018.
Even after the usually fast huge discount, it is still not selling well here. The Canon EOS R is also not moving fast because most of potential EOS R buyers now know they will announce something bigger more interesting at CES or CP+ show next year. But at least the Canon is selling better than the Nikon Z7, as opposed to all those DPR spec sheet obsessed experts predicted.
And we think the main reasons for that are:
1 the EOS R is significantly cheaper , especially if you just use existing EF lenses with the perfectly designed EOS E to R adapter. The Canon adapter costs only about 9800 yen with the drop-in ND filter.
2 the Canon is more practical as a system. The R can take all the EF lenses since 1987 without any serious compatibility issue. The Nikon Z cannot say the same, it can only use the E line of the expensive Nikkor without any issue. It can take the G line too, but the AF functionality and speed of the Z will be severely compromised when used with the G or D line lenses. So there are not many lenses the Z can take without any usability related issue.
3 the Nikon F to Z adapter costs much more than the Canon EF to RF adapter. And the Canon adapter comes with a clever drop-in ND filter.
4 the initial lens lineup of the R is more practical for any CN based wedding or any event /documentary photogs.
5 In Nikon land the majority of people seem to still prefer the D850 since it is more matured with many more lenses and accessories available.
Many Nikon fanboys claim how good the Z7 and the D850 really is at base ISO(at least) and many of them trash the Canon R for having a bit worse sensor with respect to sheer resolution and DR at base ISO.
But all Nikon advantages they claim the Z7 has over the Canon R are borrowed techs from Sony or Panasonic.
There is not much Nikon about it in that body, or even in the D850 that all Nikon fanboys raved about before the Z7.
And even we admit the sensor of the Z7 is better than the Canon R sensor, the difference is really minor, it is more like an academic study case rather than a practical difference.
The DR of the R and 5DMK4 sensor is just about less than a stop worse than the Sony sensor in the Nikon Z7 at the very base ISO. And from ISO 200 or so they are all basically identical in terms of DR and color sensitivity.
Also, many people read Japanese camera industry news already know it but many Western camera medias decidedly dismiss is that Canon has renewed their CMOS plants(in 2017) and expanded their production capacity(in 2017) because they know they need more sensors for automobile and robotics business they own and also for security camera use.
In addition to that, some news papers here have reported they would sell many types of sensors for industrial use including car, security, robotics and airplane.
Panasonic has also announced their first mass production organic sensor based 8k cinema camera is coming very soon.
It will be very expensive, not affordable to most of potential FF mirrorless buyers for sure. But the point is the 8k and organic sensor tech will start trickling down to consumer grade bodies soon after the 2020 Olympics.
This means now Nikon is the only one still using the borrowed sensor tech and that will severely restrict them in many ways.
If the' Nikon will start using TPSCo sensors soon' rumor is true, then Nikon will be fine, but if they will keep depending every single core tech of their cameras on Sony , then they will have no future. Plus, many online camera sites never seem to realize this very fact but Nikon is the smallest camera company of all and least diversified one, it is a big concern for them.
I think the future of the Z system looks very bleak, and I am afraid it may be ending up to be another failed attempt from Nikon just like their Nikon One system.
.UPDATE 5:As I first wrote about the new Panasonic FF rumor in 2016, and I suggested Panasonic should do it, many people especially Nikon fans complained about the accuracy of the rumor and many said even if that would be really true, they would not be able to compete with the traditional camera companies like Nikon, Canon and Olympus.
Many of these people just condescendingly criticized Panasonic and its camera products unreliable or not durable enough(although they have never used any of Panasonic cameras). They said they would not trust Panasonic or Sony cameras as they feel so cheap, unreliable or probably not durable enough for serious field work even though most of those people had no real life experience with any of Panasonic camera products or Sony's.
Many traditional camera company fanboys try to tell us Sony or Panasonic cameras are much less reliable than traditional camera branded cameras.......and therefore they will never trust Pana Sony Samsung kind.. It is fine that they do not like Panasonic Sony or Samsung cameras, they do not want to use these, but please do not mislead the public.
I find the Panasonic cameras extremely durable and very incredibly reliable in real world use.
And their cameras have exceptional heat dissipation system and incredibly efficient power management system that allows the system run much cooler than the Nikon, Canon equivalents.
So even after 8 hours of a long video work session, they've never overheated, just worked and worked flawlessly.
Maybe surprisingly to some, but it has been the big name traditional camera brands - Olympus, Nikon , Canon and Fuji that have needed warranty support. New blow-ins to the camera world - Sony and Panasonic - those companies that've come from an electronic goods background are probably more sensitive to the costs of providing regular warranty care and do their utmost to make gear that outlasts their normal working life and not just the warranty period. I have appreciated this.
And therefore, I trust Panasonic cameras much more than anything from Nikon or Canon world, I have never had any Panasonic cameras that broke on me in the middle of a very important shooting session. And all my Sony A7RX cameras even the very original one from 2013 still work flawlessly.
I think those electronics camera companies' cameras are much more reliable than those from Nikon, Canon or Olympus. After all, all digital cameras are just pure computers with a shutter unit. But the global shutter tech will eventually eliminate the mechanical shutter too.
So no CN advantage over the rest and I think actually the electronics giants like Sony and Pana have the huge edge over them.
