Yasuhara (the company that makes the Nanoha lens) just announced that “We are now planning to release NANOHA arond the end of July 2011. But we estimate we cannot provide enough amount of NANOHA in first several month. It costs some time to purchase NANOHA on your demads. Sorry for your inconvenience. After NANOHA appeared on the web, we got many contacts from all over the world, especially from Europe. Now we don’t keep any sales stations in oversea countries but we understand some useres do want to use such kind of the lens. So we are now planning to provide NANOHA directly to the oversea useres in the early period of our business. We will release new informations at the end of July on this page.”

The Nanonha is a macro lens for m43 with 5x magnification. On Nonoha’s website you can find a description written in English: “The magnification is much more than ordinary macro lens. The magnification is up to x5. It means 1 pixel on the picture is about 1 micrometer on the shooting target. With NANOHA, you can find small wonders easily without using microscopes. And we added some patented features for your good shooting.” Yasuhara made some really nice lenses in the past like the [shoplink 22469 ebay]MC 50mm/f2.8 (Click here to see that lens on eBay)[/shoplink]. The company went bankrupt or something around 2004 I think, and this is new starting project.

You can find some mage samples posted on DC.watch (Click here). Price of the lens should be around 450 Euro.

Image source and press release at Quesabesde.

There are a couple of Olympus news today!

1) The new VF-3 is finally official. It costs 190 Euro (or $180). From the Press Release (Source: Dpreview):
“The VF-3 is perfect for photographers who like the option of holding the camera up to their eye to compose. With 100-percent field-of-view, none of the recordable subject area is cropped, making composition with the VF-3 easy and accurate. The magnification and built-in diopter adjustment of the VF-3 allow for easy viewing. The VF-3 can be rotated up to 90-degrees to accommodate more obscure shooting angles for additional creative control. Furthermore, if you are the kind of person who likes to tweak the settings on your TV, you’ll love the ability to adjust the brightness and color temperature to your own particular tastes.”
So which One shoudl you buy? The Olympus VF-3 or VF-2? Answer at ThePhoBlographer (Click here).

2) The E-PL3 will start to ship in September for $700 with kit lens. (Source: Photographybay).

3) They also announced the SZ-11 a new compact shooter (Source: Akihabara). And another compact camera in Japan (the Olympus VG-145) Source: Dc.watch.

4) And than we have a new ultra zoom camera, the Olympus SP-810UZ. Source: Photoscala.

A trusted source that Olympus plans to make two more product announcements this year. One in September and one in November. There will be at least two new lenses (one should be the 50mm macro). But I am not sure yet if Olympus will also announce a new m43 camera. I got rumors about a PEN camera with built-in viewfinder but also about a Four Thirds E-xx. If you know something about that camera feel free to send me some info using the anonymous contact form on the right sidebar! Thanks!

The picture on top has been made by Marc (Source: Marcs page on Flickr). Keep sending me your renderings of the future PEN PRO and GF PRO cameras!

And take some inspiration from the past:
See the [shoplink 24193 ebay]Zeiss Ikon ZM (Click here to see it on eBay)[/shoplink].
The amazing [shoplink 24194 ebay]Contax G2 (Click here to see it on eBay)[/shoplink]….very innovative camera!
The [shoplink 24196 ebay]Konica Hexar RF (Click here to see it on eBay)[/shoplink]…this was a better copy of the Leica M6!
The [shoplink 24195 ebay]Minolta CLE (Click here to see it on eBay)[/shoplink]…so small!

Reminder -> 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

AF noise comparison at m43photo.blogspot.com.

It looks like Samsung prefers the Olympus PEN cameras over their own Samsung NX! If you look at the Galaxy Tab presentation page (Click here) scroll down to “Snap and Share the Moments”. You see the camera logo? LOL :)

New Olympus 12mm unboxing pictures at Mobile01.

Panasonic Lumix G3 review at OutBackPhoto.

Panasonic GF3 review at Ubergizmodo (french) and DC.view (chinese)

Olympus E-P3 review at Fotopolis (polish), Mobile01 (chinese) and DC.View (japanese).

Olympus test day at Dudamobile.

Olympus EP3 iPhone 4 Skin at Etsy.

Olympus is talking shit about your camera phone (Chase Jarvis).

The Pinwide Pinhole Cap for Micro Four Thirds review at ThePhoBlographer.

I am traveling from Tuscany to France today. Hope to not find any jam like I am used to find every time I am travelling across Europe! In the meanwhile you can have some fun by trying out the new updated version of the Four Thirds Matching simulation (Click here). You can now select the grip color of the new [shoplink 23568]Olympus E-P3[/shoplink] and also add some other fancy accessory like the [shoplink 24233]MAL-1[/shoplink] pictured on top.

The japanese website BCNranking displayed the latest data about the japanese camera market.

Most sold cameras with interchangeable lenses:
The E-PL2 is on position three with 6.4% of the whole volume share. The [shoplink 17361]Panasonic GF2[/shoplink] is on Position 5 with 6.2%. And on position 9 you can find the in Japan only available E-PL1s.

Mirrorless Market Share (January to May 2011):
Olympus (37.95%), Sony (32.02%), Panasonic (30.03%). The year 2010 ended with following shares Panasonic (38.7%), Sony (32.2%), Olympus (29.1%).

Market share for all interchangeable cameras (Mirrorless and DSLR):
Canon (29.3%), Nikon (27.4%), Sony (15.0%), Olympus (12.7%), Panasonic (9.7%)

P.S.: 31% of all sold interchangeable cameras are Mirrorless.

In Europe and US you cannot have such detailed reports. You can get a very vague idea about the popularity of a camera by checking the Amazon rankings:
– System camera rankings (DSLR+mirrorless) at Amazon US (Click here). Amazon has also a dedicated Micro Four Thirds ranking (Click here) where you can check which m43 camera is the most popular.
– All digital camera rankings Amazon Germany (Click here). Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon Germany (Click here)
– All digital camera rankings at Amazon UK (Click here). Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon UK (Click here)
– All digital camera rankings at Amazon France (Click here). Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon France (Click here)