Olympus digital camera sales down by -18%

In the fiscal first quarter (April-June 2010) Olympus sold 18% less cameras than in the quarter before. The result is not surprising if you consider that there have been no new FourThirds camera for a year now. “Only” two MicroFourThirds cameras, the [shoplink 14830]Olympus E-P2[/shoplink] and the [shoplink 14832]Olympus E-PL1[/shoplink] have been announced since July 2009. 43rumors expects at least two new Olympus cameras to be announced at Photokina (E-5 and a new Pen). Let’s see if that will stop the sales loss.

Source: Photoscala.de (google english translation)

work in progress (and sorry if I failed to answer your mails!)

Good morning!

Sorry guys if I am failing to answer your mails or posting your links to video or articles. I have been very busy lately so if I forgot something please resend me your message.

I am currently working on a lot of bugfixes and new features:

Camera Database:
– BUG: The camera database doesn’t scroll when you are inside an article. On homepage the scrolling works.
– FEATURE: New logo will be made soon
– FEATURE: Press release, reviews and user reviews will be added for every camera and lens
– FEATURE: Also an adapter list will be added

Social features:
– FEATURE: Avatar will be shown in the comment system
– FEATURE: Every user will have the possibility to create a photographic album.
– FEATURE: Forum and Wiki will e added with the next verison of buddypress (expected to be released in few weeks)

Other stuff:
– FEATURE: There has been a reader suggestion -> SHould we add an Artist Database? A list of important photographers that actually do work with MicroFourThirds cameras
– BUG: Better pagination with numbers (1,2,3…)
– BUG: we have a major problem with the 43rumros database. An important plugin is causing slow loading times. That’s probably the biggest challenge for us :(

I am very busy at this moment but still working on new rumors. We are currently experiencing the famous “silence before the storm” ;)

So don’t worry, there will be hot rumors soon!

Bye

Welcome to the new 43rumors.com website!

Good morning….and surprise! :)

What you see here is the basis of our new theme. Over the next days you will see many changes. For example a new logo will be made soon and new fonts for the title will be used. All suggestions are welcome!

Why a new theme?
43rumors has existed since 16 months ago. The theme we always used was a “casual choice” and not a consequence of a rational decision. There are many reasons why we felt we had to change the design:
1) Easy simple design. We wanted a new theme with less chaos and content. We have taken into account your criticisms and suggestions and tried to find the best working solution.
2) We wanted to make it easy for you to share rumros and news. Click on the “SHARE” button (on the top of the right sidebar) to send me links images and rumors/news. Name and email address are not required and IP-address will also not be stored. Easy or not?
3) A major improvement has also been also made on the camera database. It locates your IP-address and shows the stores near to you (for now this works only for 10 countries and we will be adding holemore countries soon). Soon we will add quick-links to reviews, specs, news and user reviews for eveyr single Panasonic and Olympus camera and lens!
4) The theme and the whole website is now based on buddypress. This means that if you are a member you can join groups, post in forums, share pictures and make friends. Buddypress is still under heavy development and we will add those features as soon as we feel they are mature. For now you can register yourself and create a profile. Once registered you can make friends, and create or join groups.
5) The old theme and plugins didn’t work very well. There were database errors and a lot of weird stuff. The new website is a completely new installation and runs very well!
6) The new website is easy readable with all modern browsers and also with Blackberries and Iphones.

We need some help:

1) If you are from US, Canada, Japan, Germany, Austria, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Poland, you can help us to test the camera database. In theory the database should show you the links to amazon, ebay, pixmania and other stores, depending upon your location. If you are located in Germany click on “Amazon” and you will jump to the Amazon Deutschland product page. If you have some time please check if it works for all products! There are so many links that I may have made some mistakes :(
2) If you find bugs or if you would love to see some changes here and there contact me on 43rumors@gmail.com.

So now let me go back to work! I really want to fix everything as soon as possible while my girlfriend is out shopping!

Many Thanks again for all your support!

Ale

UPDATED: New 43rumors theme online (lots of bug to fix)

Sorry for inconvenience. We need to fix a lot of things on our new theme. After that we will release a detailled description of the new features. All the process will take few hours.

UPDATE: I am sooooo tired. We were three guys working to make the new installation. You don’t know it….but this is our third attempt to install the new system (three nights!). Now we are here with tons of bug we need to fix. It’s 2.19am and I am falling asleep like a completely drunk teenager. Sorry if I didn’t manage to fix everything, but I need to rest and tomorrow I will finish the job and explain you the new website.

Thanks!

P.S.: This is not just a new design, 43rumors now runs on a completely new software. 43rumors will become a mini-facebook were each other can share infos and pictures, and make friends.

UPDATE: Tomorrow new layout and new features for 43rumors!

After months of gestation, tests and a lot of frustration the new theme is finally ready! We tested the theme on other websites before to install it on 43rumors. We wanted to be sure that almost everything works.

This is a major change for 43rumors. Not only because the website will become far more cleaner (and I hope nicer) but also because new features will be added. One of the most precious value of 43rumors is…you! And that’s why the new 43rumors websites runs on buddypress (a social blog). You will be able to become official 43rumors members. You can make friends, send messages to each other, create fan groups and in near future forum and wiki will be added!

I will give you more infos soon but let’s do the installation now and fix the bugs!

Thanks!

The reason why Leica didn’t join MicroFourThirds (+ Leica lens test on the E-P2)



Popsci tested the [shoplink 14883]Leica Elmar-M 24mm f/3.8 lens ($2,400)[/shoplink] on the [shoplink 14830]Olympus E-P2[/shoplink] ($850 body-only) using the Novoflex’s Leica M-Mount Micro Four Thirds adapter ring ($270). They also shot with the Olympus 17mm f/2.8 lens ($275) for comparison.

Christian Erhardt, Leica’s VP of Marketing tells why that combination doesn’t work very well:

Our lenses our designed to work best with full format, the light can hit different pixels of the sensor at a very extreme angle–once you have that, the image may be slightly out of focus, or not as bright around the edges.”.

But he also explained why Leica choosed to not join the MicroFourThirds alliance: “One reason why we’ve decided not to move into Micro Four Thirds is that we have looked at the sensor size and realized that it cannot produce the image quality that we need. Therefore we decided to stick with the full format in addition to APS-C. It’s all about the ratios“.

Do you really think the Leica X1with fixed lens(!) that sells for $1,995.00 is a better solution?
By the way, Popsci came to the conclusion that the price difference doesn’t justify the use of the Elmarit instead of the Olympus 17mm lens :)

Source: Popsci
Found via: Noisycamera