It's been four years since Olympus spun out their camera group to a hedge fund in Japan and created OM Digital Systems. In that time, the group has continued to lose money—though the past year's loss is their smallest—and continued to pop out cameras. Or have they?
- OM-1 and OM-5 are basically rebranding of an existing camera.
- E-P7 was already about to be launched at the time of the spin out.
- Tough TG-7 doesn't seem to have any significant changes.
- OM-1 Mark II appears to be a hardware/firmware tuning of the existing model.
Still missing are any signs of an OM-10, let alone any truly new camera (by new, that would be sensor/processor change and more than just adding memory and new firmware).
The whole camera industry has slowed its introduction pace, and OMDS had the pandemic to deal with upon its forming, but I still wonder just how the company gets back to relevance as tech marches relentlessly onward.
