Lats week Olympus issued a financial report and for the first time it was not losing money in their digital camera business! And it seems like this could be a “gobal” trend. For the first time in years the June 2015 camera unit sales were not much worse than the previous year (June 2014). We may have reached the bottom of the bottle where sales will no more drop compared to the previous year?

Detailed CIPA data graph can be seen at Personal View.

Samyang announced their new “XEEN” Cine lens line. And the first three Micro Four Thirds lenses can be preordered at BHphoto:
Rokinon Xeen 24mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).
Rokinon Xeen 50mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).
Rokinon Xeen 85mm T1.5 Lens (Click here).

UPDATE: Preorders are up at Adorama too (Click here).

A first hands-on review of the lenses can be read at Explora (Click here):

I found the Rokinon XEEN Cine Lenses to be well made, easy to work with, and overall I enjoyed the image quality. They rendered naturalistic images with good contrast and a pleasing, slightly warm feel. Intercutting between the lenses required no additional color correction beyond applying the same LUT to the footage. It is my preference to shoot more closed down than wide open, and I did feel the lenses performed best starting around T4, but I was still satisfied with footage shot at T1.5. Overall, I was pleased with the XEEN lenses and look forward to working with them again.

We have a couple of new firmware updates:

The Tamron 14-150mm firmware 1.2 improves autofocus performance on Panasonic cameras:
https://www.tamron.co.jp/support/firmware_c001_JPN/index.html

The Panasonic FZ1000 and TZ57 cameras got a new firmware update:
http://av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/dsc/download/index.html

Chiu Chiu Lung
le confessionnal
by 7-14mm 2.8 EM1

1) You can share your pics by using the message box on our 43rumors Facebook page (Click here).
2) All 43rumors readers pictures can be seen here: facebook.com/43rumors/photos. Like the pictures you like and chat with the authors if you want to know how they took the shot!
3) The most liked pictures and some pics selected by myself will be posted weekly on 43rumors

This is the weekly selection:

Jurek (video on top): “Still loving the GH4/SLR Magic 10mm T2.1 combination. Although slightly overshadowed by the recent Voigtlander 10.5mm release (purely a numbers game), I cannot get enough of how well this lens and camera combination performers. Hoping to be able to fly the combo on a CAME-TV Single 3-axis gimbal when it finally arrives, but in the meantime here’s some footage from a trip to Saint Martin earlier in the year. https://vimeo.com/133807078”

Comparison between the Leica 42.5mm Nocticron, Voigtländer 42.5mm Nokton and the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 (Tysonrobichaudphotography)
Lensbaby Velvet for MFT (Tysonrobichaudphotography).

Fredrik: “I just finished my first food video and want to ask you if you could share it with your readers. The video was shot with two GH3’s, 12-35mm f/2.8, 25 f/1.4 and 45 f/1.8. It was lit using Fotodiox 1000ASVL with Lee 1/4 minus green filter. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pS0cGcsCS8”

Romain: “A little expériment with the GH3 + 12mm T1,6 + Voigtlander 25mm f0,95. Corsica 2K13 by HR Prod. https://vimeo.com/133429635“

Image source: PDF presentation.

Yes, that’s the kind of news we like to get from Olympus! At last they are reporting strong growth in all their business including the Imaging Segment! They write:

In the mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera field, the OM-D series continued to perform solidly, such as the “OM-D E-M5 Mark II,” which was launched in the previous fiscal year. Sales were also boosted by a contribution from the high performance interchangeable lenses “M.ZUIKO DIGITAL PRO” series with additions of new models bringingthe lineup to four models. In the compact camera field, the Company continued to limit the number of units sold in response to market shrinkage, while retaining sales on a par with the previous year by further advancing the shift to high-value-added models. As a result, sales in the Imaging Systems Business overall increased year on year. The Imaging Systems Business returned to profitability, recording operating income after recording a loss in the same period of the previous fiscal year, mainly due to the increase in sales and progress in reducing expenses.

Full reports can be downloaded at olympus-global.com/en/ir/data/brief/2016/

Panasonic released firmware updates for many MFT lenses to support Dual IS on the new GX8: av.jpn.support.panasonic.com/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/index2.html

GX8 Preorders:
Black GX8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Panasonic. In Eu at Amazon DE, Amazon UK, WexUK.
Silver GX8 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and Panasonic. In Eu at Amazon DE, Amazon UK, WexUK.