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)

EosHD (Click here) made the video you can see on top by using the hacked [shoplink 16254]GH2[/shoplink] with 42Mbit AVCHD 1080/24p! He mostly used the new amazing [shoplink 24213 ebay]Samyang 35mm F1.4 lens (Click here to get that Four Thirds lens on eBay)[/shoplink]. In Short EosHd says that low light performance is just better, less electronic looking noise, less compression appears to have helped with banding on gradated tones, color and detail are much better. What do you think after seeing the video? The official Hack website is here: http://www.personal-view.com/

One more GH2 relate news. Do you remind the battery grip announced by the chinese company Ownuser? They delayed the product release and a dpreview forum user got the following message:
“Dear sir
We have project for GH2’s grip. We are very sorry, because some problems cause project delay. We also hope that GH2’s grip will be available at 7 / 31, but there may be extended to 8 / 15~30.
thank!Sincerely,
Ownuser Customer Service”

Our original article about the Ownsuser battery grip is available here: https://www.43rumors.com/battery-grip-for-panasonic-g-cameras-now-in-stock/

The G1 G2 GH1 G10 Ownuser battery grip is already in Stock on [shoplink 21130 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

There is a new firmware update for the 14-42mm II and 14-150mm Olympus lenses. Source: Olympus Japan. With the fw update the lenses will focus faster on the new [shoplink 23568]Olympus E-P3[/shoplink]!

The E-PL3 will be in the shops from late summer in black, white, silver or red with 14-42mm II R zoom lens; pricing £549.99 for the standard kit. (Source: Photographyblog). There is no store accepting preorders yet. And only B&H (Click here) is showing them in their database (without price info). Olympus Japan also announce that a list of new E-P3 grips and caps will be available in August (See them at DC.watch).

From the new Olympus products only the 12mm is in Stock in non asian countries. At Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and B&H (Click here). The E-P3 is now out of Stock but could be in Stock at any time again at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and B&H (Click here)!

It’s not a Micro Four Thirds camera but some of you might be interested to see what kind of improvements the new FZ47/FZ48 has.

You can read the press release at Dpreview. Pity, the cameras has no RAW :(

And here is the new cheap LS5 compact camera: Dpreview press release.

Take a look at what Amos Chapple was able to do by using Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds cameras. In 2009 he won the Cathay Pacific Travel Photographer of the Year Award.
You can read an interview with Amos Chapple at http://blog.karimsahai.com/2011/03/the-photography-of-amos-chapple/. More pictures at http://www.amoschapple.com/.

As you can see wonderful work can be done with Micro Four Third cameras. Just a reminder: There are also two wonderful m43 stories at Craifmod:
1) The GF1 is a near perfect travel camera
2) Seeing prime: The Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 Lumix lens.

If you find nice professional works done with m43 and 43 cameras drop me a text at 43rumors@gmail.com! I will be very happy to post it here!