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They are very cheap, and I might buy a second E-M1 body. I'm not going to pay $2,000 for an E-M1 II or a GH5 anyway, at least not this year, and since I invest so much energy in trying to understand the Olympus menus, I might as well stay with this camera for a while. Maybe I'll have to change to C1 for processing of the RAW files though. C1 is still better than ACR for m4/3 files.
E-M1s remain expensive in Australia, new or used (on my pension budget, at least). Agree with C1 superiority—I have always found ACR/Ps/Lr to be worthy enough, but very dull in their output.
Prices in Thailand seem to hover around THB 20,000 (AUD 750) now, and will certainly not go up with the prospect of an E-M1 II being released soon.
New or used? Used E-M1s in Australia are around $750–800, with outliers in the stratosphere! I bought my E-M5 in January 2015, just before the II came out—a local store was happy to offer me the E-M5 kit for $499 (I had seen them offered online for $499)—I sold the kit lens for $130, making for a pleasing net cost of $369 for the body.
That price is used, but I'm probably getting one for that price with just 2,000 clicks which looks and feels like new. New, they are still THB 44,500 or about AUD 1,700, so prices seem to be similar to Australia then. There would have to be something really special for me to buy a new mirrorless body. Most of them can be had for very low prices after just a couple of years and many of them see very little use before they are sold. Better to let others take that loss. Features that were "sensational" a couple of years ago are more than good enough for me, and I don't want to feed the constant "last year's model isn't good enough" craze.
That is a sad story, Gary but reflects the turmoil across the world. I too was shaken out from a profession I liked during a downturn in 2000 but in the end I retrained (as a teacher) and I have had a wonderful second profession. Good luck for the future.Hard to believe that I have spent the last 28 years of my working life in this building. Mostly 6 days a week. I've been very, very fortunate and I never forget it.
Following the steep plunge in oil prices that began in June 2014, about ~600 people have been laid off here in the past 18 months. It is the biggest lay off of staff since 1999 when oil prices had fallen to about $10/bbl. I'm not sure we've seen the bottom of it yet. Many talented and hard working people are gone. Some good friends.
A few years ago, it was hard to find a spot in the parking lot if you had to leave the office during the lunch hour to run an errand. That's not a problem anymore.
Anyone want to buy an office building? This one is for sale.
Gary
GH3, 20/1.7 lens, B&W conversion with SilverEfex Pro2
I survived the cuts and am still here, but I have seen many co-workers and friends leave. Some were close to retirement and happy to get the generous severance package, others still had children to raise and college educations to pay for. I have about 3 years to go before I retire, so unless the global economy falls off a cliff or oil prices collapse (certainly a possibility) I will probably make it. The job I have been doing for the past 18 years is so specialized, there are only 2 of us here that do it. At my age, retraining for another career is probably not in the cards. I would just retire and spend more time taking photos, although I will miss this view of Denali and Foraker from my office.
Like everyone's job I'm sure, it is hard to describe in a couple of sentences. I've been at BP for 28 years and during all those years I have worked on one "Super Giant" oil field, Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska. It is the largest oil field in North America and twice as large as the next biggest field in east Texas. There are six huge oil processing facilities on the Slope at Prudhoe and the world's largest gas plant. My first 10 years were spent on commercial work, primarily disputes between the State of Alaska which owns the leases and the oil companies and an early attempt to commercialize the Prudhoe gas resource with an LNG project.
Working with people in so many different parts of the business (operations, measurement, reservoir management, drilling, finance, commercial, legal etc) both within BP (who is the operator of Prudhoe), at the other oil companies who own a share of Prudhoe and with the State regulatory agencies has made this job more interesting and challenging that I ever expected it would be. Even so, I'm looking forward to the day when I have more time to get out and take photos.
Interesting job Gary and I am glad you could survive the latest round of layoffs. I hope you can overcome the next few years till retirement and then take more time for photography.Like everyone's job I'm sure, it is hard to describe in a couple of sentences. I've been at BP for 28 years and during all those years I have worked on one "Super Giant" oil field, Prudhoe Bay on the North Slope of Alaska. It is the largest oil field in North America and twice as large as the next biggest field in east Texas. There are six huge oil processing facilities on the Slope at Prudhoe and the world's largest gas plant. My first 10 years were spent on commercial work, primarily disputes between the State of Alaska which owns the leases and the oil companies and an early attempt to commercialize the Prudhoe gas resource with an LNG project.
For the past 18 years I've been doing the production accounting for Prudhoe. So I keep track of all the oil, water and gas production and injection from about 1,500 wells, 6 processing facilities and 2 gas plants and then prepare all the monthly reports for the regulatory agencies and the oil companies, so everyone can book their revenue and pay the royalty and taxes due on the production. To do that, I'm regularly in touch with the plant operators on the Slope, the automation engineers, the petroleum, drilling and reservoir engineers and commercial groups, plus the co-owners and the Alaska regulatory agencies. It's been a fascinating job and one I have never tired of doing. For a guy who left college with a BA degree in philosophy 40 years ago and virtually no job prospects, my working life has gone in a direction I never would have expected.
When I told my wife 18 years ago that my job had changed and I was now going to be the Prudhoe "volume accountant", she was doubtful that I could do it. When I asked her why, she gave me two reasons: 1) I'm not a "real accountant" (she is) and 2) I'm "terrible at volumes". I asked what she meant about point 2. According to her, I could never pick the right size container to put any leftover food in. I was apparently always picking a container that was either too small or too large. After a few days on the new job, I was able to reassure her that this would not be a problem....I didn't have to fill the barrels of oil, just count them on a computer screen. I've been happily doing it ever since.
Gary
http://petrowiki.org/Prudhoe_Bay_field
