Our friend Tyson Robichaud analyzed the current situation of MicroFourThirds and in general mirrorless system. He ends his post with an open request to Panasonic and Olympus:

“My plea to both Panasonic and Olympus:
Panasonic: Now offering 3 different “small” dSLR style body lines that are barely smaller than a Rebel? Really? This is ludicrous in my mind….Please continue to advance the GF platform
Olympus: Please oh please have someone redesign your menus and interface.
To both (my rant): For the love of all that is holy, get some new, fast, reasonably affordable, small lenses to market to compliment the kit lenses you’ve already released.”

I do agree with his “analysis” and you?

Read the article: tysonrobichaudphotography.wordpress.com

Download the Adobe Camera Raw 6.1 Plug-in: http://labs.adobe.com/wiki/index.php/Camera_Raw_6.1

Reminder: The new Adobe CS5 suite is now shipping! On photoshopuser.com/cs5 you can see a very well done list of the new features.

USA:
Adobe CS5 suite on Adobe US / Amazon / BHphoto / Amazon Canada

Europe:
Direct links to the pre-order page on Adobe UK / Adobe Deutschland / Adobe France / Amazon Deutschland / Amazon UK / Amazon France

Asia:
Amazon Japan

Press release:

“The new Olympus Viewer 2 is designed especially for photo editing, picture sorting and selection, and RAW image file development.

It offers the same ability as the previous Olympus Studio 2 for image management and the development of RAW format image files with Art Filter effects (with RAW files from relevant cameras), as well as the e-Portrait and movie editing functions of both Olympus Master 2 and Olympus Studio 2.

Product features

• Flexibility in selection and management of images with thumbnail view at a glance and colour sorting marks

• Light Box function for comparing different images with magnification of the same area of those images

• RAW development into high quality images with detailed adjustments

• Editing with ” before ” and ” After ” comparison viewing

• RAW development with Art Filter effects o Only for RAW format images taken with Olympus cameras incorporating Art Filter functions

• “e-Portrait” function for the images taken with the Olympus cameras that incorporate the same function

• “Beauty Fix” function for the images taken with the Olympus cameras that incorporate the same function.

• Compatible with PEN Lite E-PL1

• Compatible with Windows 7 and Mac OS X Snow Leopard

• RAW development with the “Gentle Sepia” Art Filter effect o Only for RAW format images taken with the Olympus PEN Lite E-PL1

• RAW development of “Diorama” and “Cross Process” Art Filter effects for the RAW format images taken with the Olympus PEN E-P1”

Download page: http://support.olympus-imaging.com/ov2download/index/?Lang=ENU

We expected the Sony NEX cameras to be cheaper than MicroFourThirds so we compared the current prices with other (compact!) mirrorless cameras:

Camera+prime lens combos (cheapest on top / click on the product name to visit the shop):
Sony NEX3 + 16mm Lens ($549 on Adorama)
Sony NEX5 + 16mm Lens ($649 on Adorama)
Panasonic GF1 + 20mm Lens ($844.16 on Amazon)
Olympus E-P2 + 17mm Lens ($1,029.95 on Amazon)

Camera+kit-zoom
Olympus E-PL1 + 14-42mm Lens ($549 on Amazon)
Sony NEX3 + 18-55 Lens ($599 on Adorama)
Sony NEX5 + 18-55 Lens ($699 on Adorama)
Panasonic GF1 + 14-45mm Lens ($749.99 on Amazon)
Olympus E-P2 + 14-42mm Lens ($899.99 on Amazon)

The only cameras that seems to be overpriced are the GF1 and the E-P2. But you also have to consider the features. The GF1 has a built-in flash, allows the use of the optional electronic live viewfinder, faster autofocus and better ergonomy and buttons. The Olympus E-P2 has Built-IN stabilization and also a very high quality electronic live viewfinder
The Olympus E-PL1 is the cheapest item in the camera+zoom section. To bad they do not offer the E-PL1+17mm option.

The NEX is cheap, but not cheaper than MicroFourThirds. I guess the real battle is about image quality and features!

P.S.: Interesting:
After 36 hours amazon has still no Sony NEX product and if you search for Sony NEX you will get a MicroFourThirds advertising instead of NEX :)

The forum battle has started! People is “fighting” against each other in never ending discussions.

Let’s start with a surprise: Cgerrard from Alphamountworld lists all the “problems” of the Sony NEX camera. That’s called “friendly fire” :)

Thom Hogan “I’d say there are some ergonomic issues that need to be explored”.

Is the Sony Alpha line going to have the same problem like Olympus with the classic FourThirds line (dyxum)

NEX vs 4/3 (dpreview forum)

NEX-5 vs E-PL1 1600ISO samples (dpreview forum)

I guess Sony managed to keep the Sony NEX body incredible small. The “problem” is that the lenses are bigger.
Source: Imaging Resource

Full news coverage is available on SonyAlphaRumors.com

Source: CNET