Oh guys! This is going to kill me! For one full month sources told me that [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink] sensor would be a “new one”. The problem was that I went almost crazy because I didn’t know if the sensor would be “REALLY new” or just “Olympus marketing new” :)

And there is a new chapter of the “sensor mystery story”! The Olympus manager Toshiyuki Terada revealed in an interview with Quesabesde (Click here): “It’s true we have used Panasonic sensors in the past, but this time we can’t tell the name of the E-M5 sensor maker. I have to say this is an all new sensor.”

Oh guys, I quit. it’s up to you now to guess what the heck is happening inside the E-M5. As long as images are good I really don’t care. But next time we have to discuss about future Olympus camera rumors blame on Olympus and not on me if I cannot give you a clear answer :)

Oh one more thing: Olympus said that this is not a professional camera. And this backups some of the rumors I got in these days :)

Full Updated Preorder list:
1) Black E-M5 body at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
2) Silver E-M5 body at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
3) Black E-M5 body with 14-42mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
4) Black E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here), Redcoon Deutschland (Click here), Amazon Deutschland (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
5) Silver E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here), Amazon Deutschland (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
6) FL-600R wireless flash at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
7) MMF-3 Four Thirds adapter at
Amazon (Click here) and Adorama (Click here).
8) HLD-6 power battery holder at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).

We have some news about the two not so spectacular Sigma Micro Four Thirds lenses. The Sigma 30mm f/2.8 for Micro Four Thirds will be available from February 24th. According to Sigma Germany the price will be 199 Euro. There is no price and availability info about the 19mm f/2.8 lens. If you wonder why those lenses look so big the explanation is quite simple. Both lenses have been designed to work for the Micro Four Thirds and Sony E-mount cameras. And the NEX system is using a larger sensor and that’s why the lenses are unnecessary larger for m43 cameras. I would prefer Sigma to design lenses for the Micro Four Thirds only as they did with the Four Thirds system. I am sure this will make more money with those lenses than they will get from the lenses they have just announced.

Reminder: List of Four Thirds lenses:
[shoplink 18947 ebay]Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6[/shoplink] [shoplink 18948 ebay]Sigma 18-50mm f/2.8[/shoplink] [shoplink 18948 ebay]Sigma 18-50mm f/3.5-5.6[/shoplink] [shoplink 18949 ebay]Sigma 18-125mm f/3.5-5.6[/shoplink] [shoplink 18950 ebay]Sigma 24mm f/1.8[/shoplink] [shoplink 18951 ebay]Sigma 30mm f/1.4[/shoplink] [shoplink 18952 ebay]Sigma 50mm f/1.4[/shoplink] [shoplink 18953 ebay]Sigma 50-500mm f/4-6.3[/shoplink] [shoplink 18955 ebay]Sigma 55-500mm f/4-5.6[/shoplink] [shoplink 18956 ebay]Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8[/shoplink] [shoplink 18957 ebay]Sigma 105mm f/2.8[/shoplink] [shoplink 18958 ebay]Sigma 135-400mm f/4-5.6[/shoplink] [shoplink 18959 ebay]Sigma 150mm f/2.8[/shoplink] [shoplink 18960 ebay]Sigma 300-800mm f/5.6[/shoplink]

The image on top shows the new E-M5 with the attached ecternal VF-2 viewfinder! I didn’t know that this would work! Question: If one day Olympus releases a super new high quality external viewfinder you can use it on your OM camera….will it work on your E-M5? But it will certainly not look that good anymore :)

Focus Numerique (Click here) posted an image of the new Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 lens on the new Olympus E-M5 camera. And a size comparison with the 25mm f/0.95 sisther can be seen at DC.watch (Click here). I didn’t find any preorder option for the new Nokton 17.5mm lens while the Nokton 25mm f/0.95 is easily available on [shoplink 15659 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Olympus offers free grip with OM-D in Uk (via Dpnow). And in germany you can now preorder the E-M5 at Amazon.de (Click here).

Full Updated Preorder list (with Amazon Deutschland):
1) Black E-M5 body at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
2) Silver E-M5 body at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
3) Black E-M5 body with 14-42mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
4) Black E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here), Amazon Deutschland (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
5) Silver E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here), Amazon Deutschland (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
6) FL-600R wireless flash at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
7) MMF-3 Four Thirds adapter at Amazon (Click here) and Adorama (Click here).
8) HLD-6 power battery holder at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).

The official E-M5 commercial. (P.S.: I don’t like it that much)

Next week our friends at Nexthardware.com will be able to interview someone very(!) important manager from Olympus, in a few days. And they kindly asked me to collect your questions so that he can use them to “torture” the Olympus manager :) Please comment this post to add your questions. Please try to reduce your questions to a maximum amount of three or four. And try to make some smart questions!!!

The guys over at Nexthardware will filter and sum your questions. The answers from Olympus will be posted here after February 18/19th! I highly suggest you to participate because it’s a unique chance to get in touch with a very important person from Olympus (he is not a no name marketing guy!).

Updated Preorder list (with Redcoon Deutschland):
1) Black E-M5 body at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
2) Silver E-M5 body at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
3) Black E-M5 body with 14-42mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
4) Black E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
5) Silver E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
6) FL-600R wireless flash at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
7) MMF-3 Four Thirds adapter at Amazon (Click here) and Adorama (Click here).
8) HLD-6 power battery holder at
Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).

Our friend Valentin Sama from DSLRmagazine (Click here) wrote an interesting report about the E-M5 presentation. He has learned form Olympus that there is a 33% improved dynamic range. And as you see from the picture the motion sensors are placed on top of the viewfinder. This is an ideal position becuase it’s as close as it gets to the sensor. Valentin writes that he would have liked to see a higher resolution viewfinder but Olympus told him that this would have made it impossible to have sharp and no vignetting corners. The Olympus AF is 40% faster than the fastest AF from DSRL cameras.

If you need to see two E-M5 Full Size images Helixcameras posted them here and here.

Thom Hogan analyzed the Olympus sales report at Sansmirror (Click here).

An interesting story: Masato O. (A friend of mine) was at the CP+ show in Yokohama. He said that there were so many people visiting the Olympus booth that he waited 100 minutes to get his hands on the E-M5!!!

Here are the pictures from the new 75mm f/1.8 and 60mm f/2.8 macro lenses on the E-M5 (Click on it to enlarge):

via DC.watch.

Updated Preorder list (with Redcoon Deutschland):
Black E-M5 body at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
Silver E-M5 body at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Warehouse UK (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
Black E-M5 body with 14-42mm lens at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Redcoon Germany (Click here), and Amazon Japan (Click here).
Black E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
Silver E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Jessops (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).
FL-600R wireless flash at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).
MMF-3 Four Thirds adapter at Amazon (Click here) and Adorama (Click here).
HLD-6 power battery holder at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and Amazon Japan (Click here).

Hurry guys! There was a live Question & Answer session from Olympus on Facbeook (Click here). The next Q&A session will take place next Thursday at 3:00pm ET. Here are some of the most interesting answers from Olympus:

First news: Olympus says the E-M5 doesn’t use the same [shoplink 26836]G3/GX1[/shoplink] sensor. It uses an “entirely new sensor“. But(!) keep in mind that Olympus marketing could have a different interpretation about the meaning of the word “new”. Maybe in their opinion small tweaks are enough to define a sensor as “new” :)

Second news: Again about the sensor: “The sensor is more similar to the sensor from the [shoplink 23568 ebay]PEN P-3[/shoplink] but with an increased refresh rate or readout of the image off of the sensor. Means the black out is virtually non existant and you can shoot at a much faster frame rates.”

Third news: “Olympus has recently stated that they are studying a successor camera to the E-5 and another lens.”

Fourth news: “regarding adding the OM-D to the Pro Service program, we are studying that point now. No official word yet.”

Fifth news: “ISO 100 has been removed as ISO 200 has the same low noise performance, but better sensitivity.”

Sixth news: “Our in-house testing has confirmed that the E-P3 and E-M5 are faster than the V-1 or J-1”

Seventh news: “Currently we are focused on fast primes but it would not surprise me to see some fast zooms down the road.”

That’s it!

—-

For my european colluegues:
[shoplink 29051 ebay]Silver E-PL3 with 14-150mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29052 ebay]Black E-PL3 with double lens kit[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29053 ebay]Silver E-PL3 with 14-42mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29054 ebay]Red E-PL3 with 14-150mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29055 ebay]Silver E-PL3 with double lens kit[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29056 ebay]Silver E-PL3 with 14-42mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29057 ebay]Silver E-PM1 with 14-42mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29059 ebay]Silver E-PM1 with 14-150mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29060 ebay]Silver E-PM1 with 14-42mm lens[/shoplink],
[shoplink 29061 ebay]Black E-PM1 with 14-42mm lens[/shoplink],