Most enthusiast are well aware that "cloning" or "badge-engineering" is common in many industries as well as electronics. It's been around for many years in the automotive industry: as in small Ford are pretty much Mazdas, and Escalades are rebadged Suburbans with uglier sheet-metal. In consumer electronics, the practice is often much more blatant, with HP simply putting on a different logo onto the iPods they were selling, although it can be much more sophisticated such as the different electronics and mechanicals used on the Canon laser engines at the heart of most HP LaserJets.
In this case, the device of interest is the Olympus E-330 that I started talking about several weeks ago which I'm interest in acquiring at some point. In the process of researching it, I came across several interesting things. The first tidbit that caught my attention was the fact that the resolution at 7.5 was half a megapixel lower than the 8mp of the E-300 that it replaced. This is something that almost never happens in the digital camera marketplace so I looked into that a little and as it turns out; Olympus changed from using the original supplier (Kodak) to Panasonic for the sensors. This opened a completely separate can of worms onto itself! Besides the obvious that the Panasonic sensor although lower in resolution, had the killer feature that Olympus was after in "LiveView", Panasonic, or more correctly their parent company, Matsushita, is one of the "big dogs" in the electronics world and it's always advantageous to be connect with them. This has a number of ramifications including the fact the there's a far greater number of cameras/sensors involved beside just the Olympus ones, and therefore lowering costs, but another peripheral connection as well. In this case, we are talking one of the truly "Prestige" names in the photographic world which was the venerated Leica!
In the highly complex world of Japanese corporations, these agreements are even more key than most people know. Without getting into an extended history of Japan and explanation of keiretsus, these alliances tend to be archane where often agreements are done without money changing hands and tends to be quasi-secretive in their operations. So, although they are part of the 4/3rds consortium, Kodak isn't part of the the "inner-circle" and ultimately became a casualty. Leica got in on this show, by not only becoming part of the 4/3rds consortium, but as per their licensing and technology sharing agreement vis-a-vis Panasonic. This started out with the optical glass end of things of course, since Matsushita had great electronic expertise, but none in high-end optics. It was a natural fit since Sony of the Mitui keiretsu, had already locked up an agreement with the other prestige German glass maker/designer, Zeiss.
After that little aside, lets get back to the camera. In any case, I've gotten neck deep into research on the E-330 and as it turns out, the info on these "agreements" led me to the fact that within the space of 10 months, 3 companies introduced cameras with the same sensor, lens mount as well as shape and size........hmmm.......suspicious. Hint: look at the number, location, and size of the controls as well as access doors on the different cameras. They can change a lot of things visually, but can't change those without spending LOTS of money.
Olympus E-330 (Jan. 2006), $1100 new MSRP, <$200 used
Panasonic DMC-L1 (Feb. 2006), $2000 new MSRP, $400-500 used
and Leica Digilux III (Sept. 2006), $2500 new MSRP, $1000-1400 used
......verrrry inttteresting!!!
As you can see, the prices on them vary greatly; on the current used market as well as the original "list" (which bear no resemblance to "street") price. As you can see from the "used" prices above, a quick scan of recently completed auctions on eBay indicate that there's quite a disparity on pricing. Granted, both the Panasonic and Leica were originally sold with the highly thought-of Leica D 14-50mm/f2.8-3.5 Vario-Elmarit Aspherical lens, and the Olympus sold with the Zuiko D 14-45mm/f3.5-5.6 lens, but GOOD GRIEF, that $1200 differential is one heck of a lot of money!
One last thought before I go feed the kids (and me) lunch. Lens aside (most people, including me, aren't as good as their lenses are anyway), the basic of the bodies are essentially the same with the exception of the fact that the Olympus has an articulated screen (no small thing with LiveView), but it's a long standing camera company with a history of innovation with electronics as applied to photography. And with digital photography, that end of things is at least half the equation. Soooo, which one of these three would you put your money (pun intended) on to deliver in that area? Yes, I understand that "build quality" is important and I'm a disciple of that, but double, or $1200 worth of it?
Besides; since they all use the same lens mount, you can even run out and spend $500 or so to buy the Leica lens for your Olympus. Personally, I love the looks of the Panasonic (I'm a sucker for flat black and squared-off look), and if I could find one at a great price, I'd have to look long and hard at it, but at the sub-$150 that the E-330 sell for......it's the right camera for a frugal propellerhead.
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