Back in April 2011 for the first time in Olympus history a non Japanese citizen became Olympus CEO. But after 6 months only the (british) Michael Woodford had been dismissed because of “boardroom and management conflicts“. (Source: Boston.com). The Olympus board appointed Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa as new CEO. It is an unexpected news and Olympus shares plunged more than 14 percent to 2,123 yen ($27.60) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The new CEO Kikukawa said that “He (M.Woodford) could not overcome the cultural barrier of Japan and Japanese companies“.

Analysis: What does it mean for Olympus? From what I read on newspapers and from what I know from my sources Michael Woodford is a very competent manager that has been able to improve the Olympus Europa Holding GmBH profits by cost cutting and restructuring. And my guess is that his restructuring plans were to much “advanced” or “revolutionary” for the traditionally very conservative Japanese company mindset. Is that good or bad news? I guess Michael Woodford would have gone rid of  the digital camera business if it keeps to loose money like it did in the last years. And that’s something that will probably go against Olympus history and tradition. What will happen now? That news increases the chance that Olympus will keep the digital camera business alive, but the risk is that the board will not take some serious decisions to increase the profitability of that business.

And here is the official Olympus statement about the recent event (Source Olympus Global):
“Michael C. Woodford has largely diverted from the rest of the management team in regard to the management direction and method, and it is now causing problems for decision making by the management team.
Hence, judging that realisation of the 2010 Corporate Strategic Plan with its slogan of “Advancing to the Next Stage of Globalisation” would be difficult to achieve by the management team led by Woodford, all the board directors attending today, except for Woodford himself who could not participate in the voting due to special interest, unanimously resolved the dismissal from his office of the representative director, President and Chief Executive Officer (dismissal from the office of the representative director, President and Chief Executive Officer and stays as director without executing right.) Along with this, it was also resolved that the representative director, Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa double as the representative director, President and Chief Executive Officer.
Global management that Olympus aims is to implement management rules, information management and operation that are common throughout the world in order to establish a business infrastructure that is more efficient and quick to respond while making the most of a Japanese style management that sets a high value on people, technology and pride of monozukuri or manufacturing. To this end, all our employees will head for the same direction as we will urgently start establishing a new structure to go towards the same goal with the entire staff as one.“

Driftwood 176mbit GOP1 GH2VK from Perry Wilson on Vimeo.

The GH2 hacking improvements are now reaching new dimensions! Thanks to the latest contribute from “Driftwood” user (check here at personal-view) the Gh2 can now record AVCHD Intra at 176Mbit. As EosHD writes: “This is a codec that uses i-frames only unlike consumer AVCHD. Every frame from the sensor is stored. Standard AVCHD is a Long-GOP compression format and works by estimating and guessing at frames in-between ‘real’ images but Intra doesn’t.” That’s really the best video quality you can get from any DSLR or Mirrorless camera and the amazing thing is that the GH2 tri core has the power to manage all that data! It really shows how good the [shoplink 16254]Panasonic GH2[/shoplink] hardware is! The video on top can be downloaded at http://vimeo.com/29763704 to see the full quality potential fo the new coding!

One more thing. The Gh2 price is dropping slowly in US and Europe. So you may take your chance! Check: [shopcountry 16254].

P.S.: The new G3 and GF3 1.2 firmware is now available: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/index2.html (it fixes an issue with the X lens support).

Fujiguys tweeted (found via Noisycamera) that they will not join the m43 for now. Just read the screenshot on top :(

This doesn’t mean that Fuji will never join m43 as the new X system is clearly targeted for the “premium” high-end market with a larger sized sensor (fullframe?). But I will bury my hopes for now. Now it’s up to Panasonic and Olympus to invent something as exciting as the Fuji announcement! Will Olympus-Panasonic ever create a new larger sensor system? I would welcome that and you?

As you all know, Steve Jobs passed away. I have to say I am not a huge Apple fan, there are things I like about Apple and things I do not like. But I don’t want to talk about that right now. What I will miss from Steve Jobs is the ability and the courage to create something “new”. He didn’t fear to create something unexpected, unexplored and most of the times something very simple and easy.

And this is what I sometimes miss in the camera industry. Micro Four Thirds was one of those (few) great inventions that moved me to create that website. But I still see to much fear in the eyes of  Panasonic and Olympus (but also other camera makers). It looks like they are all taking boring “calculative” decisions. That’s the wrong way to become successful. Apple was almost dead as company back in the nineties, with no vision and almost no hope. A couple of right decisions, with very clean and revolutionary ideas brought them back to live and success. So please camera makers, there is so much you can do right now! Do not fear, just do dream a bit more!

P.S.: Here are just a couple of things I think you should work on:
– Social integrated cameras (for low-end consumer)
– Easy and simple menus with less complicated options and expandable via a sort of APP store
– Software (APP store) and hardware (modular) expandeable cameras
– Large sensor mirrorless system (See Fuji X)

And so on…

Our friend Seb farges made the new video yous ee on top: “I’ve found on Ebay for 41€ a [shoplink 25880 ebay]Berthiot anamorphic 2X lens[/shoplink]. I have attached it to a C-mount Fujian 35mm 1.7 with a ring and scotch tape ([shoplink 25881 ebay]The lens is in Stock here on eBay [/shoplink]). The result is, at my opinion, very sharp, event @ the 1.7 Fujian aperture I’ve always have on this movie. When I put it on the Fujian, the picture goes wider, maybe going from 35mm to 16mm. I do not use ETC at all, and there’s a very light light vignetting. I’ve streched it with Premiere in post production with the “transformation effect” with 50 scale height, it seems to be the good ratio (2x lens = 2.66:1 format). This ratio is like this because it’s a 2X on a 16/9 720P. I’ll try on the 4/3 VGA Anamorphic hacked GH1 next time, the ratio will be look more like a regular 2.66.”

New Waterproof housing for the E-Pm1 and E-PL3 at DC.watch.

Subal housings for Panasonic GF2 and GF3 at Wetpixel.

Shana Tova by Megapixel.co.il (happy new year in Hebrew). P.S.: Shana Tova to all our jewish readers!

Have you heard about the 4/3 to m4/3 adapter by Viltrox? Me not! But one of our readers sent us the link to those adapters: http://www.viltrox.com/index.php?c=msg&id=148

pt4pano developed a special adapter for MFT-Cams to take full spheric panoramas. Look here, here and here.

Olympus PEN Mini E-PM1 : Promo Lollipops! (Openpn).

Now guys, abandon your hopes. Fuji really shaked (or shocked!) the world now and will do their own mirrorless system. They will not join m43 for now! And what’s so special with Fuji’s system? They will make a mirrorless system with ueber-large sensor that will deliver an image quality higher of that delivered by any full frame(!!!) system!!! You can see the official presentation at DC.watch if you don’t believe it! The resolution and Signal-to-Noise ratio will top all current full frame sensors. There are no detailed info about the sensor size and specs but they promised that they will show a mockup at the CES event in January. Now let me say chapeau to Fuji! They really now how to shake the digital camera world. First with the [shoplink 19929]Fuji X100[/shoplink] and now with a complete high-end mirrorless system. I wish Olympus and Panasonic would have such a courage!

P.S.: This could be a real challenge for Leica!

One more deal news: The Fuji X100 is in Stock at Amazon for the normal price (Click here)!