Clarification of pre-order deals for the OM-1

[Ian]

From the horse's mouth, you get a second battery and an extension of the warranty to 5 years - here in the UK.

In Australia, the deal is for a charger.

So in the UK if you don't like the idea of charging your batteries inside the camera, which, of course, you can, you will need the optional charger.

Ian

[kpmg]

Thanks Ian for the clarification. The UK OM1 presentation attracted a lot of criticism about the omission of a battery charger. Many people felt that this is a mistake as the option to charge all spare batteries one after the other in the camera is not practical if preparing for a day out. The responses from OM focused on power delivery accessories - yet more expense and not particularly convenient. In my opinion this was a cost saving omission and not very helpful for a lot of users. Having said that the camera looks promising and real world testing will be informative.

[antpitta]

If that's what they felt they had to do to keep the headline price under £2k then I'm OK with it. Guess we'd all like to get as much as much bang for the buck (pound/euro etc) but overall seems a good balance/deal.

[Greytop]

From the horse's mouth, you get a second battery and an extension of the warranty to 5 years - here in the UK.

In Australia, the deal is for a charger.

So in the UK if you don't like the idea of charging your batteries inside the camera, which, of course, you can, you will need the optional charger.

Ian

Thanks for clarifying the point regarding the battery charger Ian.

[Box Brownie]

Bearing in the target(?) market, I am further surprised that the dual charger has not been included. But in common with others it has not stopped me placing a pre-order. NB but will have to part-exchange something to defray the costs..........................darn no charger

[drmarkf]

I bet a lot of people (well, me anyway) will try to manage with in-body charging until JJC, ExPro or similar produce a compatible USB charger.

Several reviewers have said that 1 battery is enough to get through the average wildlife shooting day, with a second only being needed for something very prolonged, and then only for an hour or two.

Packing a big power bank and a long USB-C cable sounds like a good idea for anyone going anywhere a bit remote, however, but I have stayed at a couple of safari lodges where power is routinely available for only a few hours a day and power cuts were quite common. Under those circumstances extra batteries and multiple charging methods are pretty much essential to avoid range anxiety - if the photo trip’s costing thousands of quid it’s daft to risk not being able to shoot as much as you want.
I’ve got a Kenya trip booked in October, and if there isn’t an economical USB solution available by then I’ll cough up for the Oly charger. I’m going with Wild-Eye and they regularly have over 8 hours of game drives per day, plus plenty of other shooting opportunities around the lodge/camp in the middle of the day.

[Paul Graber]

Can anyone recommend a suitable power bank?

[rustyarrow]

I have had my 1x since release and have never used the separate chargers , USB at home in the car and with a power bank , I have ordered the OM1 with the free battery and happy that will do me.

[SJB1956]

Yesterday I uploaded a post about UK dealers appearing to have different offers available and used Park Camera and LCE as examples. In particular I mentioned an additional £200.00 Trade In Bonus if you decided to part fund a purchase by trading in any interchangeable lens camera against the OM-1. I fear I may have unintentionally introduced unnecessary confusion into the thread and wish to apologise.

The £200 additional incentive is available but only to their VIP customers. I noticed this when very early yesterday morning when I received a mail from Park announcing the new camera and lenses etc and therein there was a banner mentioning the promotion. Stupidly, I assumed it applied to everyone.

Interestingly, I have not in the past purchased that many products from Park, but when I am clearly on their mailing list and I assume it is this which resulted in my being included in the VIP list.

For anyone who might not live close to a Park store or fancy buying a product like this on line, or who feel a particular loyalty to a particular retailer, and who have received the same kind of e-mail, I wonder if the margins on the camera are sufficient for other retailers to match this? Or if not go some way to do so. Perhaps in the form of items thrown in for free or at discount. Filters and batteries come to mind or a discount on the HLD-Grip?

When Olympus announced the transfer to OMD-Solutions I was concerned it might represent the end or a significant cheapening of the brand and so I took the opportunity to rationalise kit and as my wife was starting to get more interested in photography, I took the opportunity to trade in my older four thirds E3 / 12-20 / 50-200 and her original OMD EM5 and its kit lens and two part grip to fund an OMD EM1 Mk 3 and the 12-100 F4 Pro. The original plan was that my wife would use my OMD EM1 Mk 2 and the 12-100 and I would use the new MK3. Subsequently, Olympus ran what we thought was a "too good to ignore" offer on the OMD EM1 Mk2 which include a free 1.2 Prime and so we decided to trade in the MK2 for new MK2 to get the lens and what we saw as three years additional peace of mind with the new camera so we both have relatively new cameras, albeit that one of them is now looking a bit old in terms of spec and the other ( MK3) does not integrate at all well with our existing HLD-9 Grip and to my mind the joy stick is not best located. One if not both of these issues plus a lot more important things appear to be addressed by the new camera.

I watched a lot of the promotional content yesterday and I am very tempted by the OM1 indeed, so I expect a good few days of soul searching as to whether to go for to or wait a while longer. For the type of photography I am increasingly drawn too, I think the HLD-10 would be a help and whilst my wife enjoys the 12-100 and I see it as the ideal lens for a day out at somewhere like Oulton Park or a heritage railway day etc she is finding more of her photography is at the shorter end of the reach and she struggles when taking images of say birds in the park to throw a busy background sufficiently out of focus for it not to be a distraction, so a second 12-40 might be on the cards too. Bottom line ( and my late father warned me about this when I bought my Pentax in 1982.....photography is an expensive past time son.....your hand will never out of your pocket! In those dates I think he was referring to the processing costs. These days it's the equipment. Same book, different cover !

[Bikie John]

Your late father sounds like a wise man!