a little bit of everything…


Panasonic GH4 Shoot with Lumix Luminary William Innes

Win an Olympus Stylus 1 by joining the Olympus Impressions Contest.
Olympu SP-100 hands-on at DSLRmagazine.
JPEG Standard 9.1 Will Bring 12-Bit Color, Lossless Compression (Popphoto).
Pocketable paparazzi: Real-life test of the Tokina 300 mm f/6.3 reflex lens for street photography on the GM-1 (Medium).
Oly 25mm 1.8 Unboxing, first impression and image samples (Mirrorlessreview).
Peter Van Agtmael used the EM5 and 45mm 1.8 for some of the images in the winning series at WorldPressPhotos.
E-PL5 and 45mm f/1.8 lens combination: taking photos with a pocket camer at Qamera.
E-M10 test at Akam.
E-M10 hands-on at DC.watch.
Panasonic GM1 Field Report at Luminous Landscape.
Panasonic Lumix Leica DG Summilux 25mm f/1.4 ASPH review (ShotSlot).
DIY Slide Digitizer with Olympus OM-D and Leica Projector (TheDigitalStory).

 

Spectacular lens patent: Olympus designs a 12mm (and 14mm) f/1.0 MFT lens!

Well this is one of the very few times a Patent can be really exciting! This new patent published oon February 20 (yesterday) describes a 12mm f/1.0 and a 14mm f/1.0 lens! These would be the world fastest ultra-wide angle autofocus lens for any interchangeable camera system! The current [shoplink 36581 ebay]Nokton 17,5mm f/0.95 MFT lens (here on eBay)[/shoplink] isn’t as wide as the Olympus patented lenses and nor does it have AF.

These are the lens specs (Google translated screenshot from Japanese):

There are also lenses for 1 inch and 1/1.7 inch sensors on that patent.

These fast Oly lenses have storng chrome issues that will be fixed in camera. And here are the single lens performance graphs. I know the size isn’t big and I am trying to find larger images now:

12mm f/1.0
14mm f/1.0

 

As usual with patents the lens may be made in a different way when it hits the market (for example f/1.2). That said, would you buy such a lens?

I would buy the...

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found via Egami.

Olympus interview by Blunty.

Blunty had the pleasure to meet Olympus manager Terada. And there are quite many interesting info in that video like:

-at 2:20 Terada explains why the OMD-10 uses a 3 axis stabilization (very interesting answer!).
– at 7:20 he explains that rangefinder similar EVF design is not optimal. EVF in the middle is better because your eye is in line with the sensor-lens axis. Doesn’t sound like Olympus is interested in a sort of GX7 alike PEN camera.

So be sure to watch it!

E-M1 brochure now shows the upcoming 40-150mm f/2.8 PRO lens.

Our reader Willy discovered a nice addition on the E-M1 brochure. It now shows the camera with the new 40-150mm PRO zoom. I attached the image here on top while the new brochure can be found here: http://www.getolympus.com/us/en/em1_brochure

Now you can get a nice idea of the camera-lens dimension :)  And here is the description from the brochure:

M.Zuiko 40-150mm f2.8 PRO 80-300mm (35mm camera equivalent) Available in 2014

Incorporating the same powerful optical and digital technologies developed for the top-of-the-line Zuiko Digital lenses, M.Zuiko PRO series lenses are designed to bring the highest level of professional imaging performance to our line of compact Micro Four Thirds system cameras. The second model in this series is a telephoto zoom lens with 35mm camera-equivalent zoom range from 80mm to 300mm. Built tough to stand up to the harsh demands of professional use, this high-grade lens boasts optical performance with f2.8 brightness throughout the zoom range and a durable dust-/splash-proof structure. Together with the 12-40mm f2.8 PRO standard zoom lens, this new lens enables the PRO series to cover the widest possible range of photographic requirements.

Note: There is also a 1.4 times teleconverter patent along the 40-150mm f/2.8 patent discovered by Egami.

Panasonic GH4: can it do 4:4:4 at 1080p?

The GH4 can be preordered in Finland at Topshot.

Andrew from EosHD  “believes” you can get 1080p 10bit 4:4:4 with your GH4:

Actually the theory is 8bit 4:2:0 4K material from this camera can be taken through a workflow in post that converts it to 10bit 4:4:4 1080p – with all the smoother tonality, better colour and workflow advantages that format brings. This is a big leap for 1080p based on the much more expensive C300 which only does 8bit 4:2:2.

The way this works is quite technical but it essentially amounts to using the extra pixels present in the 4K files to rebuild the lost colour information. Neighbouring pixels are summed to create a super pixel with a greater bit depth and better sampling. It requires a lot of processing power and a finishing codec good enough to store the extra colour data (10bit 4:4:4, with CineForm and ProRes being suitable choices) which is why the camera doesn’t do it internally. It does require a transcoding step in post but the increase in quality over the 8bit internal 1080p codec will be marked. The message is clear. Even if you’re working in 1080p, shoot 4K on the GH4 if you want the best quality.

Well this would be really big news if real!

Some more GH4 tidbits:

David:As came across another GH4 article, this is interesting as it shows the difference between the cropped GH4 4K and Super 16 film size, it isn’t hugely different so I reckon a few S16 lenses might work on it? Exciting news I think for C mount fans! http://filmmakermagazine.com/84315-with-4k-gh4-panasonic-comes-out-swinging/

Japanese CP+ Hands-on video on Youtube.

Anonymous soruce:Real final GH4 price will be between 1 300 € and 1 400 € for Europe and $ 1,499 for Usa. no more. Availability in April.