Great idea, guys. My congratulations to the chosen members too.

And a quick recovery to Mario, by the way.

Best regards

--

Ricardo

what a great idea and outcome! congrats (and speedy recovery) to you and also to the photographers! a great display of MFT style!

WOW, I missed that show out of personal reasons and that was a shame cause one of my last year images was presented there. You know the organizer of that show also put the images in a book, a high quality coffee table book and sale them. Thant's a good idea the Toronto show. Now we have some action here :))

Actually I found Oly's booth looking like something out of the 70's, with wood panelling look, something out of the last century rather than 21st century.

As for the pictures, I saw them but they were at kicking level the way they had their display...hardly a showcase for what their cameras can do. Other than noting the pictures were there I didn't really pay attention to them.

What I would really like is a full size poster of the lens lineup for my office...right now I have the original one from the E-1, but there aren't many lenses shown in that one.

Dear Mike,

Nice words you used especially for someone that is a member here from 2005 and managed up to this moment to post ZERO images.

Well, I'm interested to hear what Mike has to say, seeing as he's an "eyewitness" to the event. I don't care if he's posted 1 image or 1000, lol, but I am intrigued by his description of the 70s-style wood paneling and the photos being at kicking level (oh, the imagery that brings to mind!). I actually laughed out loud when I read his description and found it rather amusing. It doesn't make me feel negative towards Olympus or the display; it is what it is and maybe future iterations will improve on this first try. And I wouldn't mind having a big poster showing the current lineup of Olympus lenses, either; that would be an impressive image vs. the original one. (And what I'd really, really like is a poster showing all the *future* lenses .)

Congratulations to the five members selected! As for the images being a kicking level, I hope that is not the case. Eye level is usually a preferred level for presentation of artistic creations. So, who has pictures of the display to share?

Congrats Alan and Mario and also especially to the photographers work chosen which is of course held in high regard in this community.

I cannot be 100% sure of this but I am sure that Mike has posted some pictures here in the past but that's not the point really is it? I agree 100% with Elisabeth. Mike's comment is valid regardless of whether he has 1 or 1K images posted.

I wonder if the images are at foot level so as you can attach an E3 and a 7-14mm to your ankle, pull out the articulating screen and lovingly gaze down through live view and peruse the images in motion whilst Olympus films you in action and simultaneously interviews you on the value of live view in capturing documentary images in motion which you of course take with your wireless remote? LOL, those advertising boys will stop at nothing ;-) 70's eh? Hmmmm.... Ok, Monthy Python has come back on the television. Ministry of funny walks and all that .....

Well done Alan & Mario and congratulations for those selected!

Eugene, I admire and enjoy your imagination!!!!! that was quite a comment......should I were the Olympus CEO I would hire you immediately as the PR chief :-)

Many thanks Alan and Marion for all your efforts......Mario, hope you feel better soon.

Some of my comments may have been over the top, but I said what I said to express MY DISAPPOINTMENT with the "look" of Oly's booth, having seen it first hand.

Instead of calling it wood "panelling" I should have called it wood "veneer", everything was covered in it and it didn't look like a good quality veneer either but instead it looked like Mactac (the sticky vinyl you put onto items to make it look better or give the appearance of different material, like give a cardboard box a woodgrain look). All the other booths had chrome, glass, & plexiglass, and if they had wood it was grey or black. In comparison Oly's booth looked like something out of a 70's rec room.

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures to back up my comments, but if you did an image search on Google for OLYMPUS BOOTH you'd get some impressive examples with the Oly colours, grey & blue...woodgrain just looked shoddy and an embarrassment. Not to mention blue & brown just don't belong together.

Regarding the prints being at "kicking level", the prints that I saw were about 12-15" (30-38cm) off the ground on either side of a platform which you were supposed to stand on to access the cameras they had on display. Note that none of the prints I remember seeing in the booth were the ones in the link above posted by "Alan & Mario" (I was more interested in the new equipment rather than looking at the prints, so maybe I missed the specific ones anyway)...now I was at the show Friday morning and Mario didn't arrive until Friday evening, so maybe the specific images didn't arrive until then.

As for the complaint someone made about the fact I posted those comments without having posted images here (which has nothing to do with my comments other than to personally attack me rather than respond to my comments), My FourThirds (MFT) is about more than just posting images. When someone posts a question and I know the answer I take the time to respond to it. I do promote MFT on other sites when people are looking for images to look at or a place to share images, but that's not MY reason for coming here.

The reason why I'm a member of MFT is its home is in Toronto, Canada, and local Olympus news is hard to come by (this thread is an example of local Olympus news)...that was my MAIN reason for joining MFT, especially when they were going to host an international meet in Toronto two summers ago, which I participated in. There are one or more Toronto SIG groups on MFT, but they haven't been active in a while; I belong to another local website, The Toronto Photography Meetup Group http://www.tpmg.ca where we're have Olympus specific meets every few months in Toronto to try out each other's equipment and discuss Olympus specific issues.

As well I help run a brick & mortar camera club, the Toronto Camera Club...this takes up most of my time so I don't have the time to post images online; out of the 7000 images I've taken with my E-300 over 2.5 years I may have posted 20 online. Also as an accredited judge and someone who helps run over 20 image competitions a year I see more than my share of other people's images, so when I go online the last thing I want to do is look at images, and instead look for the technical information and questions & answers about Olympus equipment that help me know my camera more than looking at images does.

Please limit any further replies to my comments to the show itself, rather than my personal involvement on MFT as it has nothing to do with this thread.

Well Mike, was there anything positive about the show? It sounds to me that the entire Olympus PR department should be fired ;-) but it seems we have a good candidate here for the top position... Anyone interested??? LOL

Well, Olympus has expanded their underwater (UW) cameras by having an aquarium (framed in wood veneer). It also showed off the E-series UW cases.

When I had arrived one of the reps had just dunked an E-3 into the aquarium to show how weather resistant the camera is.

All the current bodies and lenses were on display, but Olympus doesn't let anything slip at this show; at the last show I was at Olympus announced a new piece of equipment (E-3?) the day AFTER the show had ended, but there was no clue to the possibility of an announcement being done the following week. Also the reps pretend to know nothing...don't know how many times I've asked about the new ultra-wide that's supposed to be coming out this year.

As for the rest of the show other than a few new bodies and lenses there's nothing that piqued my interest...it was a yawner.

My warm congratulations to those members whose images were chosen for the Toronto show.

Congrats to the Fab Five...Job well done Alan and Mario! Cheers!

I agree with Michael. It looks like the images were an after thought. Sad really...

Looks to me like the photos are the only decent bit. I feel a bit of proprietorial pride at seeing them there but also embarassment that they are displayed so poorly. What a shoddy looking stand, especially considering the price we pay for lenses. What are they doing with their profits?

Looking at some of the comments since the image was posted it looks like you agree with me with the look of the Olympus booth (and my comments above have been vindicated). There was one of those tall shelving units on each corner of the booth. Everything was made out of the same type of "wood", including the stand the aquarium I mentioned above was sitting on.

That red "balloon" on the right is a tent you walk into that has pieces of paper blowing around and you're supposed to catch, each piece of paper has a prize (shirt, hat, pen, or Stylus camera), and you're supposed to find the best prize within a certain time period (sorry, I don't know the name of this game).

I wonder who made the decision on how to design this booth, if it was something out of the Canadian office, or a decision from Japan.

Mario, I wondered if you took other pictures of the booth at the Toronto show.

One thing I just remembered about last year's show, Olympus had a space where you could take portraits with the then new E-3, and Oly had hired impersonators doing Austin Powers, Marilyn Monroe, and a few others (Marilyn however didn't reenact her nude sessions though). To me that was a fun, great idea, especially to compete with the "booth bunnies" that Sigma, Epson, and others had.

It doesn't look good. Nevertheless, well done to our MFT colleagues who supplied the images.

As beeing one of the photographers having the privilege to have one of my photos displayed here, in another country at a big show, and at the same time beeing a booth designer in my profession, I look at this with some degree of dissapointment!

I am suprised that a company like Olympus, with a great history of brand awareness, leaves the important path of consistancy in promoting your own brand. It doesn't matter if it is a big or small fair, consistancy is the very essance of brand building.

But still, I would like to thank Olympus, A&M for having the oppurtunity to display one of my photos!

Regards // Ola