Dear readers.

I had a small surgery today. That’s why I had no tiem to answer your emails and comments. Tomorrow (Saturday) I will have more time to work on 43rumors.

Thanks for your understanding.

P.S.: I am doing fine ;)

Camerquest (Click here) is keeping us up to date with the [shoplink 15659 ebay]Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95[/shoplink] availability: “March 6th Update: The February shipment is indeed SOLD OUT. The NEXT PRODUCTION RUN is estimated in late April 2011.”

At least you find a few of them on [shoplink 15659 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. There are now more ongoing auctions than it was a few weeks ago.

One of our sources told us that Cosina doesn’t have any plan to increase the production of that lens. They do not have the capability to do that. So you can expect shortages for the whole year :(

P.S:: For our polish and European readers: Infoto.pl and Allegro.pl do list the Nokton as in Stock! Somewhat crazy if you think  that the rest of Europe doesn’t have it in Stock :)

Thanks Mike Kobal!

Goodgearguide tested the Olympus E-5: “The Olympus E-5 is definitely a beast of a camera, but its low-light performance isn’t as good as its competitors, and overall its images look a little muddy (although some users may prefer this). It also takes a while to learn how to use it effectively. However, it is fast when it comes to sequential shooting as well as focusing, and it has a useful articulating screen and Live View mode.” Get the E-5 at [shopcountry 17163].

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3 Review (Photographyblog).

March 11 Earthquake in Tokyo taken with the GH2 (Vimeo). Get the GH2 at [shopcountry 16254]

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 / ZS10 High ISO JPEG Noise preview (CameraLabs).

Panasonic GF2 review (Fotopolis). Get the GF2 at [shopcountry 17361]

3Dkraft tested the audio quality of the GH2 y doing a Bariton- and Sopran-Saxophon Live-cut. The quality is very surprising good and you should hear the video using good headphones!

Image courtesy: Megapixel

Last week Olympus stated that DSRL will become a niche market in 5-10 years. The future is mirrorless or as Olympus says the future are “Pen-type” cameras :)

There are two data that do confirm the increasing mirrorless popularity. Almost a quarter of all interchangeable lens cameras sold in the UK during January are mirrorless (That’s a 160% rise on the same month the previous year). In Germany 80.000 of all 960.000 system cameras sold in Germany during 2010 are mirrorless. And In Japan almost 40% of all sold system cameras are mirrorless.The market is lead by Panasonic 38.7% followed by Sony 32.2% and Olympus 29.1%.

Image on top: The fisheye, wide and macro converters.

Olympus officially postponed the launch of the recently announced products (Source: DC.watch). That includes the new compact cameras and the three Micro Four Thirds lens converters.
We all have understanding for this!

If you want to make a donation to help the japanese people click here: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Reminder: The other two PEN accessories are already on market:
– MAL-1 Led Light at [shoplink 20217 ebay]eBay[/shoplink], Amazon US, Amazon Deutschland, Amazon UK, Amazon France.
– PenPal bluetooth module at [shoplink 20218 ebay]eBay[/shoplink], Amazon Deutschland, Amazon UK, Amazon France.

UPDATE_2: The X100 is in Stock at Digitalrev (Click here).
UPDATE_1: BHphoto now takes X100 preorders (Click here). They will ship it soon (so they told us).

Right now you can find one single [shoplink 20939 ebay]Fuji X100 on eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. It’s a unique chance (and I bet it will expensive also) to get the camera also because Fuji officially announced that they had to stop the X100 production! The factory that currently produces the X100 is in Taiwa-Cho (Miyagi) which is 30 km from Sendai. Good to hear that there were no injured people!

Other (Micro-) Four Thirds member like Sigma and Cosina/Voigtländer had no or very little damages in their factories that will not affect their current production. Reminder: Cosina makes the [shoplink 15659 ebay]Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95 for Micro Four Thirds[/shoplink].

On picture: Olympus facility in Japan

I just got good news from Japan. All Olympus employees are safe, nobody was injured and all facilities are secure. There will be of course some problems with the current activities and production but that’s just a temporary and not so important issue in those days.
Meanwhile Panasonic made a 300 million yen monetary contribution and in-kind donations of 10,000 units each of radios and flashlights and 500,000 dry batteries to aid victims and support the recovery of areas affected by the strong earthquake that struck Tohoku area on March 11.
P.S.: Thanks to everyone who sent this in.