Thom Hogan praises Olympus PR

Thom Hogan (an independent Nikon stuff expert and reviewer) writes on his homepage:

“Let’s see, I’ve been using an Olympus for exactly a month now. Olympus yesterday announced a firmware update for the E-P1, and guess what, I got an email directly from their PR firm to that effect. In 15 years of covering Nikon, the only contact I’ve had from their PR firm (or in-house PR staff) is when I published the D70 specifications before announcement and they asked me to take them down because “they are wrong” (they weren’t). What makes me think that when Nikon introduces their compact APS camera they won’t even send me a press release? Oh, I know: despite asking more times than I can count, they’ve NEVER sent me a press release on anything…”

chapeau Olympus! Well done!

New reviews…

20mm

The 20mm f/1.7 lens has been reviewd by photoreview and has gained a very good reputation! “Imatest showed it to be capable of high resolution through its aperture range, with the highest performance being between f/3.2 and f/7.1….

Digitalcamerareview tested the Panasonic GH1.  “The bottom line here is that the $1500 GH1 is a near perfect choice for shooters graduating from a prosumer/long zoom digicam to their first dSLR…

One of our readers sent us a selfmade E-P1 review ;)  “After two months of use, I must say the Micro Four Thirds concept does work. And it works very well…

Panasonic GF1 + 20mm f/1.7 lens to be delivered on December only (says Adorama)

Adoama will ship the Panasonic GF1 + 20mm lens combo on December:
Panasonic Gf1 Preorder now!
For the Panasonic GF1 + 14-54mm lens delivery is expected to start October 2009
Panasonic Gf1 Preorder now!

Amazon US will ship the Panasonic GF1 with 14-45mm Lens on September 24

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The most lucky people (like always) are the japanese. They are beginning to post their first GF1 pictures. An example? http://ganref.jp/magazines/index/1/0/330

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I just bought a portable hard disk for cheap! If you need one click here: SimpleTech by Hitachi Signature Mini 500 GB USB 2.0 Portable External Hard Drive FS-U25/500E (Espresso). It is really incredible how cheap hard disks are. I remember the time when I bought a 40GB Hard Disk for 400$ :(

(FT4) UPDATED-> Samyang ready to produce lenses for Four Thirds mount?

Samyang_14mm-396x400

Samyang recently released the new 14mm f2.8 IF ED MC Aspherical lens for Canon, Sony, Nikon and Pentax mount. Now we know that Samyang will “possibly” produce lenses for Four Thirds mount! The lens they want to release for Olympus is the 35mm f/1.4 (UPDATE: 35mm in Fullframe format-> it will be a 70mm on your Four Thirds camera!). This lens is going to be announced early 2010 and should be also available for Nikon, Sony, and Pentax mount. UPDATE: The Canon version will have an f/1.2 aperture :)

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P.S.: UPDATE: Samyang is a korean company! You can see their lenses here: Samyang lenses on amazon

Panasonic GH1 video with 20mm f/1.7 lens

Light (our cat) from kiyuri on Vimeo.

kiyuri made this nice video with the Panasonic and the new Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 Aspherical Pancake Lens.
He writes:
Just a simple video of our cat, Light. Nothing humorous. He’s sleepy, but does a little grooming. He is a red point bi-color Ragdoll and is just over 1-year old.

Recorded with a Panasonic LUMIX GH1 and 20mm “pancake” lens at F1.7. Camera is set to continuous autofocus, and with the shallow depth of field you can see it go in and out of focus slightly at times.

The original is 1280×720 at 60fps, but I slowed it down to 30fps so it plays in slow motion. I think it’s more relaxing to watch this way. =)

Chasseur d’images review the GF1 (on paper)

p001_b

Image of a GF1 Leatherette Skin from http://aki-asahi.com/

Found a summary of the review on dpreview :

The last issue of Chasseur d’images (October 2009, number 317) contains a review of the new GF1 they only had a beta firmware on it and definitive measures are still waited; but here is a sum up of what they already wrote about it :

Resolution at low iso : very slightly less than the (but the E-P1 was slightly surpassing the GH1 and the D90, two winners of the category), GF1 is slightly superior to the G1. So, indeed, very good.

Noise at higher iso (measured with standard Noise reduction on). It seems to be somewhat better than the E-P1, but at the cost of loosing more details, especially after 1600 iso. Chasseur d’images seems to put the GF1 above the E-P1, at least for 400 and 800 iso.

AF : they weren’t yet able to test, because they only had a beta version of the firmware. But from handling it is good, somewhat like the G1-GH1.

Viewfinder : the real surprise is what they write about the EVF. They aren’t in awe. Here is what they say in the conclusion :

The viewfinder is the real problem of the GF1. The DSLRs users are accustomed to aim with a viewfinder stuck against their eye and will be concerned by an lcd display. A “true viewfinder” is much more effective in bright sun.

Comment : that first paragraph is exactly the same they wrote for the E-P1 but then, they add :

The EVF could be a solution, but it is cumbersome and of a very “middle of the road” quality : the viewfinder on the G1 & GH1 is much better.

Here is the problem : the GF1 is designed for aiming with the lcd. Either you accept this constraint (which is that of every compact camera) and everything is fine, or you don’t accept it and the body looses 90% of its interest.

Final verdict : Compacts with large sensors are developping, but still rare : this specialized body comes with important limitations of handling. In its category, the GF1 is very satisfying and would earn five stars (it was the same for the Olympus E-P1). But one should also consider it like any other body and compare it with the rest of the market’s offering, then four stars are deserved.

And here is what they say concerning the external viewfinder earlier in the review :

An external EVF is available (the DMW-LVF1). You slide it in the flash hotshoe and an integrated connector allows the exchange of all informations. The display module is a very ordinary model (202.000 pixels). The use of the G1/GH1 HD module was causing technical problems it seems (and also probably costing a lot). Under these conditions, the EVF doesn’t appear very interesting. IF you are interested in an EVF, you should rather look for a Lumix G1 : a much less expansive body offering a much better viewfinder.

(translated by myself, trying to stay as near of the original text published in Chasseur d’images as I could, but provided without warranty, given my English knowledges)