Sakar launches new Micro Four Thirds lenses! Branded as “Kodak”

The three new Sakar lenses branded as “Kodak”

Sakar just announced three new Micro Four Thirds lenses that will be sold under the famous brand “Kodak”. These are the:
– Kodak 8mm f/3.0 fisheye
– Kodak 25mm f/0.95
– Kodak 50mm f/1.1

The lenses will be priced at $400 and are manually focusing. ThePhoBlogrpaher spotted the lenses as first on the PDNshow and writes:

The build quality seems to be on par with the optical performance. Being an all-manual lens, we found both the focusing and aperture rings to run quite smoothly. The barrel of the lens seems to be made of metal, at least thats what the finish felt like. But right now we can’t really say much about the tech specs as they’re simply not available yet. Form what we were told, the pre-production units we handled had literally just come in.

Here are the images with courtesy of ThephoBlographer:

8mm f/3.0 fisheye
50mm f/1.1
25mm f/0.95

UDATE: Polaroid camera now at Amazon and BHphoto. They say it’s FT but it’s not!

The new Polaroid iM1836 camera is now available for preorder at Amazon US (Click here to read full specs) and BHphoto (Click here). UPDATE: They market the camera as a Four Thirds camera but it is not!!! They just use the term “Four Thirds”  for marketing reasons. Here is the official Polaroid site and camera description:

Built into a compact 4/3 body with a sleek matte white finish, the iM1836 features a brilliant 3.5″ touch screen LCD display to help capture the perfect image every time.

And at Amazon you can read that it’s a “Compact micro 4/3 body“. This is a real mess and likely will have legal consequences.

Here is a video presentation fo the new camera:

Olympus interview at IR: for the future we will focus on 4K and deeper buffer.

Imaging Resource (Click here) published a full Question and Answer article with Olympus President Haruo Ogawa and Planning Manager Eiji Shirota. It’s a very interesting interview and here are some of the most important info:

– 2012 worldwide system camera sales: out of 20 million units, four million units were mirrorless or CSC.
– Olympus will not focus on sports photography but more on “field photography”. Ogawa says: “You can use our camera in any type of shooting circumstances.
– Ogawa: “with the Olympus PEN launch, Olympus was able to capture the young and female demographics
– Ogawa: “It’s true that we have been focusing upon the still image“. But in future Olympus will focus on video too: “Now we’re working on the next generation engine as well. For that next generation engine, we are expecting that movie sharing will be the new demand coming.” (with 4K support)
– Ogawa: “We need to have a solution for a smartphone user to smoothly use a mirrorless camera. So now we’re working on that.
– Next products will have an even deeper buffer.
– Shirota explains that having on Sensor PDAf (instead of a separate AF sensor module) makes the PDAF more accurate.

Read the full interview at Imaging Resource!

 

Preorder Links:
Olympus E-M1 body at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto, Amazon DE (via DL), Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL), WexUK, Topshot FI, CameraWorldUK.
Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO Lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, AmazonDE (viaDL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-40mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK and CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-50mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK, CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus EP-13 Eyecup for E-M1 at Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus HLD-7 Battery Grip for E-M1 at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus LC-62D Metal Front Lens Cap for 12-40mm at Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus LH-66 Lens Hood for 12-40mm at Adorama and BHphoto.

Worldwide OMD price analysis.

omd_www_price

Click on image to enlarge.

An anonymous 43rumors reader sent me that graph and message:

I really like the new E-M1 and I was wondering about the different Olympus prices used for this camera within the EU. So I hit up the main European online Olympus stores to see the different prices. Then I decided to make a little table of this data, presenting this information. I included the both the E-M1 and E-M5, with the kits they are being offered in the EU. This could be interesting for you and your readers.

Notes:
– Not all European countries are listed. Sorry for the ones that are missing.
– The Danish and the Norwegian online stores are offline for some strange reason. They have been for the past 2 days (shop.olympus.dk, shop.olympus.no).
– The prices used for the chart are the prices advertised in the country specific Olympus online store (shop.olympus.fr for example). Prices in the EU usually include VAT. Different countries in the EU have different level of VAT (for example 27% in Hungary).
– All prices were converted to Euros. If the country did not have EUR prices, its currency was converted to Euros by using Google convert (by using conversion rate on Oct 20th, 2013).
– Some Olympus stores did not offer all the kit packages. For example Olympus online store in France is not offering the E-M1 at all. So if a tick is missing, it is probably because the online store is not showing it (or I could not find it).
– Yes, the 1442 E-M5 kit is cheaper than the body only option in Switzerland.
– The US did not have all the kits, so in those cases I selected the body only + lens for the option.
– I don’t speak Japanese, but hopefully I got everything right there too.
– Most expensive countries are: HU, PL, UK.
France also seems expensive for the E-M5 that they have.
– The cheapest one is Russia(!?).
– US and JP prices are still a lot better (although US is not including VAT I think).

I hope that others find this useful as well.

a little bit of everything…

Early Paris Thoughts from emeric (shot on GX7)

E-M1 ISO test at Focus Numerique.
David and Goliath – Olympus E-M1 v Canon EOS 5D Mk III (Photographyblog).
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX1- Review at PhotographicCentral.
Panasonic Lumix DMC-GX7 review by Admiringlight.
E-M1 user guide by Photolisticlife.
Olympus OM-D E-M1 Review by DigitalPhotographySchool.
Vdeo review of the OM-D E-M1 at Backscatter.
E-M1 review by Steve Huff.
Summilux 25mm f/1.4 review at M43photo.
Plenty of GX7 tutorial videos at Panasonic Australia.
E-M1 hands-on by Docma.

 

The 43rumors readers work roundup!

Dans les hauteurs de Paris from Marché Noir on Vimeo.

It’s time to catchup with some of the 43rumors great work roundup. It’s nice to see what artwork people can create with MFT cameras. If you have something to share drop me a message at 43rumors@gmail.com. Thanks!

Marché (video embedded on top): “I’m a young cinematography student living in France. I would like to share with you one of my latest videos. I’m working with a hacked GH2, after having worked with a GF1 before. Be first I’d like to thank you since 43Rumors is terrific when one wants to be ahead of all the advertising campaigns and be able to choose wisely which gear to buy. I’ve been shooting this video with a very poor quality lens : a Makinon mirror 300mm, showing even less contrast than a typical mirror lens. To me that’s due to the heavy dust laying on it. On one hand I’ve set my camera to dynamic mode with a +2 contrast setting. And on another hand I shot at a time when I could have a direct sun lighting the buildings, to a get a little more contrast. That’s part of some experimental shots I edited together in order to create a music video for my collective named “Marché Noir”. To me the result is kind of a “atmosphere” video. I also used a 20mm Lumix and a 135mm DSB Yashica lens at the end. The website : http://marchenoir.eu/

J Shin:I started a new Flickr group to document the US Federal Government Shutdown and how it affects or does not affect our lives/photography. Some of us are taking “a photo a day” approach. If you could share it with your readers, that would be great! Thank you. http://www.flickr.com/groups/governmentshutdown2013

Karsten:we are producing movies on the subject of culture and sustainability and use the famous GH3 as favourite cam. Our latest clip is about the little medieval town Wetzlar in the center of Germany. Perhaps you are interested in presenting a link: http://youtu.be/apaqBPwNC8c

Pedro:Just wanted to share some pics of GX7 with L1 together. I am glad we kept pushing for this! and thanks to Panasonic for having faith in the consumer requests. http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroboe/sets/72157635977577394/

Stuart:My latest film is now live here It’s live here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7u1EQ82lP4&feature=youtu.be
and also here; https://vimeo.com/56861092

Anonymous:Using this timelapser software http://timelapser.net/ I scrapped togheter these 2 clips:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8jLZxEnG6c
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H0_cSt0SI0
They were shot with the GH2 and kit lens, MJPEG at 2fps. Someone might find these useful.

Heather:Today we visited the Venaria Reale near Turin to test out the low-light performance (ISO performance and internal stabilisation) of the Panasonic Lumix GX7 versus the Olympus Pen E-P5. We found the results quite surprising!
http://www.bestmirrorlesscamerareviews.com/2013/10/06/panasonic-lumix-gx7-vs-olympus-pen-e-p5-how-does-low-light-performance-compare/

Steven:For your “reader’s work roundup” posting next time, I’m sharing a rapidly expanding set of photographs taken with the new Lumix GX7 and the Nokton Voigtländer 42.5 f0.95. These are extreme shallow depth of field images shot in panoramic style, both horizontal and vertical, to increase that shallow focal plane. Bokeh panorama is another name. http://www.flickr.com/photos/steven_hight/sets/72157636440815456/

Fabrys: “Just a little movie shot with the OMD E-M5 and the pana 14 mm in Tbilisi / Georgia ;) https://vimeo.com/77292284

Eric:Hello Admin!  I’ve got a new timelapse video out that was shot on the GH2 over at https://vimeo.com/76161556 There’s also accompanying stories at the following links:
http://oceanllama.com/?p=171
http://oceanllama.com/?p=159