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It’s quite amazing how many compact camera Olympus did in the past. We are discovering some of their nicest products in our Amarcord column. Til now we saw the (Click on the name to read the article) Olympus 35 RD, Olympus Trip 35, Olympus PEN EED, Olympus 35 SP and the PEN F.
Recently Olympus launched the new body cap lens that has a constant f/8.0 aperture. Many of you argued that f/8.0 is a huge limit and a faster body cap lens should be done by Oly. And actually….Olympus already did such a compact and fast lens in the past! The [shoplink 37230 ebay]Olympus PEN-W (ebay auctions here)[/shoplink] used an extremely compact and fixed 25mm f/2.8 lens (see picture on top). This Pen Series camera was designed specifically for wide-angle photography (Source Olympus). To see how compact this lens is you can also watch that youtube video. Ok, so it’s possible…but how good is a lens like that? Lars-Göran Hedström posted a full review of the PEN-W on his blog Sculptingwithlight (Click here). Greta pics!
Now let’s see if Olympus can do a lens like that for the MFT system too!
Olympus PEN-W auctions on [shoplink 37230 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
There is a commerative Gold finished PEN-W on [shoplink 37231 ebay]eBay US (Click here)[/shoplink].
Setup Your GH3 Like a BOSS – Part 1 of 4 Function Buttons. Other three parts on Discovermirrorless.
Our friend Amos Chapple just sent me a message: “The Atlantic photo blog have just gone live with my pictures from three trips to Iran, with the last one finishing up a couple of weeks ago. All photos shot with a GH2, hopefully I’ll be getting a new GH3 soon!”
10 Reasons Why I’m Switching to the OM-D from the Canon 5D Mk 2 by Jonathan Posner.
Sony 35mm 1.8 for NEX tested at ThePhoBlographer.
Michael Woodford Exposed book review at Photographyramblings.
New Mecablitz firmware update for MFT (Photoscala).
Panasonic Lumix G VARIO 14-42mm II Lens Review at ePhotozine.
Review of Leica DG Summilux 25mm f-1.4 Lens for Micro Four Thirds (TheDigitalStory).
Olympus E-M5 review at Johnsson-photography.
JR: “I just wanted to share a casual low-light test I’ve done with the new SLR Magic 25mm T0.95: https://vimeo.com/61443115”
Gene: “I had just finished posting my article on what the Nex-FF camera might be, when my mind finally clicked at it all makes sense. Sony is going after Leica. Now the pricing and feature set makes perfect sense. Just updated the piece on http://preferredaperture.blogspot.com/”
Lawrence sent me that link to his E-M5 monkey shots :)
Andre: “I’m from Brazil and together with my wife, we left 11 months ago on a RTW trip on bikes that will take 3 years more. I sold almost all my pro Nikon gear to buy a GH2 system, a GoPro and a Sony small camcorder. We are working hard to feature our content on TV and we have pretty good chances since I’ve already photographed as a still photographer for some major TV channels and there’s also a new law that’s good for us. A foreign channel must have at least 50% of content shot by brazilians or about Brazil. 9000km so far I’m loving my GH2 despite it’s poor performance on highlights, noise/shadow banding and continuous AF… I just don’t care anymore but it was a little bit disappointing in the beginning. I carry a 14-140 kit lens, a 20mm f1.7, a 45mm f1.8 and I gave myself a little (heavy) treat that I use for a portrait series about people that help us… a Voigtlander 17,5mm f0.95 that I love. Always shooting wide open using a Heliopan Variable ND. You can check some pics at www.facebook.com/BikesAndSpices There, there’s a nice clip featuring our first 3500kms. Now we are heading to Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Cheers!”
As I told you weeks ago Olympus may introduce a contsant f/2.8 lens soon. Specs are yet unkown but Egami spotted a new Olympus patent that may describes exactly what’s coming. Basically the patent is about the sam lens but in two different variations:
1) 12-40mm f/2.8-40 lens:
39.100mm – f = 12.247 focal length
Fno 2.88 -. 4.08
31.11 ° – 2ω = 88.03 angle
BF 18.407 – 27.202mm
133.86mm – 136.25 Length
Mod 0.35m
15 sheets of 13 group lens configuration
Three six-sided aspherical
3 ED glass sheets
2) 12-40mm with constant f/2.8 aperture.
39.081mm – f = 12.249 focal length
Fno. 2.88
30.85 ° – 2ω = 85.27 angle
BF 16.194 – 16.192mm
131.16mm – 140.24 Length
Mod 0.35m
13 images in 11 groups lens configuration
5 three aspherical surface
3 ED glass sheets
That lens will be certainly weather sealed and a real competitor of the [shoplink 31225]Panasonic 12-35mm X lens[/shoplink].
Richard just sent me the following message: “I ordered a SLRMagic 25mm hyperprime CINE for MFT on March 12th direct from their website. Even though it says Pre-order on the website, it was in stock in Hong Kong and shipped on the 13th, and I am getting it today! I am in California.” And as I told you before there is a rebate of $150 if you preorder it now (you will pay $650 instead of the original $799 price).
If we look at the recent GX1 deals than a GX2 may be really coming soon! Today we have some new price drops (again): 1) GX1 with 14-42mm X lens for $489 at Amazon (via third party reseller). 2) GX1 with 14-42mm lens (non -X) and a huge amount of accessories for $454 at Amazon (via third party reseller).
According to multiple top sources we will have at least three announcements between early April and early May: 1) First announcement form Panasonic in early April 2) Second announcement from Panasonic in late April-early May 3) Another announcement from Olympus in late April-early May
Panasonic is likely going to announce a new G and a new GF model. I am still not sure about a possible new GX model although the recent massive price drops suggest that a new camera may be on the horizon. The 42,5mm f/1.2 and the 150mm f/2.8 lens are NOT going to hit the marked for the next 6-8 months.
Olympus is likely to announce the new E-P5 (with no built-in EVF), a new fast f/2.8 zoom, a Black 17mm f/1.8 lens and a new external viewfinder with 2,44 million dots.
What else can we expect? Maybe a new Blackmagic MFT camera with full electronic support, maybe one of the preannounced Schneider lens. Zeiss is NOT going to release a MFT version of their three new primes for the NEX and Fuji X system.
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Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds): FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct
