March 2012 filed patent GX2 design with integrated EVF.
A March 2012 filed patent (re-)shows the new GX2(?) design with integrated and tillable electronic viewfinder. You can read all details and see the pics at Freepatentsonline. The front linear design reminds a bit the Panasonic DMC-L1 body (here on eBay). Three years ago I found the first patent with that design. I am glad to have found the newer one because it may means that Panasonic is seriously taking into consideration to transform this into a real product. Another thing I noticed on the patent is that Silver Halide part. May some smart tech guy explain us what it is doing there???
The three year old first patent (Source: Freepatentsonline) explained well why such a cameras makes sense: “If an electronic viewfinder is disposed where a conventional optical viewfinder function component used to be disposed, there needs to be the same amount of space above the body mount as when a pentaprism or the like is disposed, and the various parts cannot be disposed efficiently, which hampers efforts at making the camera body smaller. The technology disclosed here is intended to reduce the size of a camera body.”
Loading ...Links to current Four Thirds L1 camera (here on eBay).
Yun
4 months ago |I like the design but would remind Pana , image quality is the most important if Pana want to establish a breakthrough in mirrorless section .
I expect an even high ISO performance with new generation of sensor , is a must if Pana expect folks to remain / upgrade .
My point , I’ll observe the development closely to see if worth for my upgrade .
jules
4 months ago |Yes more of everything plus the kitchen sink please
ISO, dynamic range, tonal range, headroom, buffer size & speed, etc.. We all want more 
Now, if you ask me, RAW vs RAW, the difference between Olympus and Panasonic is more on the academic side. I am not talking about straight out of the camera, but end result, which is what matters most to me.
ArKersaint
4 months ago |Indeed the best comment ! Howrver it’s nice to see that Pana has – at last – understood the Fuji and Nex lesson about the market’s request !
And I strongly believe that good pana software design along with straigt OOC jpeg enhancement woul result on a winner !
Yet Another Fantard
4 months ago |i would remind you and pano that making a mirrorless camera with any evf without having to fork over 600 bucks would be the most important thing. dalrs+ all have ovf’s. mirrorless, most dont have evfs. People like to pay more for more…not less.
Mumbly
4 months ago |I strongly disagree with that! Image quality is indeed important, but IQ has already reached such a high level with m43 cameras, that it’s not that important anymore.
And IQ isn’t that all! I don’t want Panasonic to become a company like Canon, being too much focussed on image quality and neglecting other important criteria like functionality and usability…
Sean Nelson
4 months ago |Compact size usually means striving for pocketability, and to achieve that goal it’s much more important to minimize depth and height than it is to minimize the width of the camera body. Therefore they should design an electronic viewfinder whose components fit on the left side of the lens, using a reflex (mirror) optical system so that the view through the eyepiece is reflected down onto an EVF screen which points “up” inside the body cavity. This would minimize the depth and height of camera, unlike the current Panasonic EVFs which add quite a lot to those dimensions.
fvanzela
4 months ago |Very interesting design, if they really go for something like this, it will be a winner model.
Harbinger
4 months ago |I agree, this is looking very promising. I just hope it doesn’t come at the expense of a tiltable rear LCD though. Having both would be perfection.
Anonymous
4 months ago |[...] [...]
kesztió
4 months ago |“Patent” for a such trivial and already widely used design?! LOL
USA rulez! Japan rulez!
kesztió
4 months ago |To be better understood:
If it was up to me such banal, commonplace things like the design and layout of a new camera wouldn’t be allowed for patenting.
Dummy00001
4 months ago |In the current US patent regime, patents are needed not only for offense, but also for defense. As a deterrent against frivolous litigations with competitors. For companies operating in the US it has already became business as usual.
jim
4 months ago |Agree – a world without the bull! Has ford got a patent for a wheel!
TheEye
4 months ago |There are even design patents, which are rather about looks than function.
kesztió
4 months ago |And design patents are bullshit. Period.
TheEye
4 months ago |Yeah, clearly you are ragging.
Schweinchen Dick
4 months ago |I suppose you’ve never come up with anything that’s worth protecting. Don’t cry gypsie tears!
Yet Another Fantard
4 months ago |He’s got a point, dickie. Cameras dont have any so called new tech anymore. dslrs, done. Mirrorless, done. Digital, new but not new anymore. Dlst…done by canon pellix. EVF’s…done, they were called TV’s.
Anonymous
4 months ago |and yet Panasonic just filed some… huh.
bart
4 months ago |The very very large majority of patents gets awarded on things that are not innovative and non-trivial, and should not have been awarded to begin with. If that gets addressed, patents will be fine, but as it is, they are not.
wintermute99
4 months ago |I love the idea of an integrated viewfinder, which can still be tilted upwards. Being able to tilt them up is one of the major advantages of the current external EVFs. That patent design would combine the compactness of the usual integrated EVF with the versatility of an external EVF. I’d buy such a camera almost instantly.
jimdtrf
4 months ago |I agree the tiltable EVF is useful in a lot of shooting scenarios { low angles,macro etc}. This still of body is a good compromise between the dslr style {g5, gh3} and the really compact models
Yun
4 months ago |I suspect the picture above is not a GX model , will be another very high end series promised by Pana to include in G series 2 years ago . The L style camera .
Let’s see if my guess is correct .
Mike
4 months ago |I made this rough mockup of a gx2 with a viewfinder and other elements taken from the G series. I’m not a m43 camera owner but I really like the high quality pictures coming out from such pocketable bodies.
http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8050/8439703522_9358c945ba_b.jpg
BdV
4 months ago |Nice one, Mike!
GreyOwl
4 months ago |Well done, looks really good. Perhaps you should work for Panasonic as a designer
Bob B.
4 months ago |Nice! …Looks like a GX1 on steroids….
Milt
4 months ago |Good description with that bulgy black lower body. Hope it wouldn’t weigh as much as a GX1 on steroids.
Olly01
4 months ago |Nice attempt. It may look the part at first sight, but the viewfinder would be seriously small – not bigger than what you find on current “bridge”/superzoom cameras, i.e. too small to be of real advantage, in my experience. But then I haven’t used e.g. a NEX6/7, which seem to have a similar viewfinder size… Could it work out nicely after all?
street
4 months ago |+1000
admin
4 months ago |Amazing MIke! I may can post this on 43rumors? Can you pout your copyright info on it?
Mike
4 months ago |Use it freely, It was only for fun
admin
4 months ago |Thanks a lot!
adaptor-or-die
4 months ago |The PDF file drawwings only show a hinged Flash popup, no details of an EVF are included. Moveable or fixed. Then you get down to Fig 6 where they show a Pentaprism and mirror in the cutaway detail ..
Tom
4 months ago |So let’s go on an anti hump crusade, fixed corner VHF for g7 and floppy corner for gx2.
Tom
4 months ago |So let’s go on an anti hump crusade, fixed corner VHF for g7 and floppy corner for gx2.
tom
4 months ago |Dang spelling auto-mangle, ‘VF’ and ‘flippy’, not ‘VHF’ and ‘floppy’. A real spell checker would recognize made up words from the thumbs of an illiterate.
Dummy00001
4 months ago |> Do you like that kind of GX design?
Yes! Panny, no need to be shy – bring it on!
krixoff
4 months ago |Mike, amazing, nice job!
Anonymous
4 months ago |i need is titable screen like em5.
Soeren Engelbrecht
4 months ago |Admin: “Silver Halide” is the chemical basis for film – you know, the thing that people used to take pictures with for about 150 years
And some of still use, BTW 
Anyway, they refer to an old patent (of a “Silver Halide” camera) where the flash capacitor is placed inside the film take-up spool. Clever, methinks. In this patent, they claim to have figured out another ingenious way of placing the flash capacitor – horizontally at the top of the housing (page one of the patent shows this as item 133a.
Hope this helps,
Soeren
admin
4 months ago |Thanks Soeren!
Imagine a GX2 that takes filmrolls hehehehe.
true homer
4 months ago |Amazing…no morons asking or clamoring for IBIS…can you actually teach something to a fanboy?
jules
4 months ago |My initial reaction is : “Wow! Cool”
But I doupt it will being anything to the table compared to the G5, except maybe the lack of tilt swivel LCD..
Don’t bring my that nose-crush thing, it seems like something we discovered after 60+ years of SLR… the EVF will still recess out anyways.
jules
4 months ago |Then again, with all the ink spilled of color of lenses, I guess its important after all
brent
4 months ago |#132 is a flash – where is the tiltable evf in this picture?
amalric
4 months ago |Indeed I don’t see anything remotely like it. If digital allows the VF to be anywhere, then a wearable WI FI VF would be even better.
However bringing one’s cameras to the eye, is not so wrong if Leica is still around after 80 yrs.
With a tilt, touch focus LCD one has both of best worlds. That patent looks about a flash – LOL.
Jus Sayin
4 months ago |Between the numbers 134 and 160c there is a box that appears to be drawn as if it is able to be pulled up. that is what they believe is a tiltable evf.
amalric
4 months ago |Yes I see it – but then it hasn’t anything to do with the raised reflector, 132.
That patent is just a way to test our patience, because one doesn’t know yet what the fabled E-P5 will look like
What should we do? Buy candies in the meanwhile?
krixoff
4 months ago |We are not talking about 132 flash in the picture but you can see an EVF integrated like fuji X or sony NEX (go google pics)
krixoff
4 months ago |by the way, is the EVF tiltable like 3 years old patent?
safaridon
4 months ago |If you read the text of the patent it clearly says this is an EVF that can tilt.
krixoff
4 months ago |thanks you
43warrior
4 months ago |Has to have flip-LCD…. just tilt EVF alone not convince enough to upgrade from G3……
davel
4 months ago |My reading of the patent is that it is about the location of the flash discharge capacitor in the space vacated by a mirror box. This allows a mirrorless camera with a built in flash to have a potentially smaller body. All other design features appear to be pre-existing features of previous mirrorless camera designs and patents.
I think they are mentioned in the patent purely to confirm that the new configuration is potentially compatible with them and does not preclude them. This includes any potential EVF or tilting display unit. This design would preclude an optical viewfinder though.
Therefore if any new Panasonic camera uses the design mentioned in this patent then it would definitely have an integrated flash unit, definitely not have an OVF, but anything else is optional. Should be a tad bit smaller though!
Lucasz
4 months ago |This is the format Panasonic should have introduced three years ago with the GF1. Had they done so they would by now be market leaders in mirrorless. Instead, Sony picked up the ball with the nex-7 and the market has said, “Yes please!” to pocketable cameras with integrated VF. No remotely serious photographer would try to take picture with a camera waving about at the end of his arms.
Now Panny will have to try to play catch up, and it doen’t always work.
I wonder if it was the bean counters who prevailed over the photographers with the GF1?
Idiot above
4 months ago |You left out “In my Opinion”.
Craig O. Affidy
4 months ago |I think the E-M5 got it right with its lack of pop-up flash, instead bundling it as an add-on. Let us use the space where a pop-up flash would be to do something useful (mucho killer EVF, yessir).
safaridon
4 months ago |In the patent drawings the flash is built around the hotshoe drive and does not impact the space on the left where the EVF would be located similar to the L1. Earlier patent drawings showed how the EVF could be swiveled. In my opinion the addition of a built in flash for fill flash is a very valuable asset missing from most Oly Pens and EM5. Who wants to carry a bulky flash along with you negating the small size and portability of the camera? This increases dependancy on having IBIS or fast primes for low light conditions indoors to stop action of active kids.
Craig Affidy
4 months ago |You make a good case, but, sorry, I won’t be reasoned with.
Milt
4 months ago |Agree
Milt
4 months ago |IE I agree with safaridon
amalric
4 months ago |The initial assumption for the smaller models was that they were for people upgrading from P&S and for women, Camera Joshi.
dSLR like models instead catered for those ‘downgrading’ from dSLR.
Sony and Fuji, especially have introduced a third, intermediate model, the RF, Leica-like model. In this repsect that patent is different, and not v. likely to implement.
I handled an X-Pro 1 some 2 yrs ago, and I felt ambivalent about it: bigger size, light but much easier to handle. The X-E1 improved on size and it has a folding, tilting flash.
My hope, for the coming Pen and Panny models, is not so much about a tiltable EVF – I have it but almost never use it – but about a good layout of function buttons, which is v. distinctive on the X Pro 1. I would even accept the camera being slightly bigger than the GX1, like the X-E1.
It would also have better haptics than the E-M5. If you use the camera every it is really important, and has been a major source of complaint. One function-one button might even be better than all reconfigurable buttons, but then you need more room in the back.
Milt
4 months ago |This looks great. It looked great three years ago. It might look great in another three years – there is no guarantee at all that this is the next GX or even the one after that. But I like it. GF1 size would be fine. GH3 sensor for the GX2, not the G5 one please. Hang in there, Panasonic!
Milt
4 months ago |By the way, along with the GX2 I would like a lighter and more compact 14-140mm f4-5.6 for a walk around lens on both my large and small M43 bodies. Equal or better IQ please.
carlosc
4 months ago |sould be more “slim´´like GX1
carlosc
4 months ago |should be more “slim´´like GX1