This camera has been released in 1975 and is the a compact Full Frame rangefinder and fixed lens camera. It had a couple of what I call “wow” features:
1) It had a leaf shutter which allows super silent shooting (developed by Seiko). For the record, you don’t have many professional digital cameras with this. The just announced Sony RX1 has it! And so my medium format [shoplink 28309 ebay]Mamiya 7[/shoplink].
2) it also had a tiny and f/1.7 fast 40mm lens.
3) And than of course there was that super body quality. The Austin University(!) has a lot of appraisal for the RD: “In addition to being versatile, the 35-RD is a solidly constructed, metal bodied 35mm camera with a professional grade of fit and finish that were hallmarks of Olympus quality.”

Of course little of this camera can be taken as inspiration for a new modern Micro Four Thirds “rangefinder” styled camera. Leaf shutter is out of question, but compact design and high quality body is certainly something most of us want.

Links:
Olympus 35D auctions on [shoplink 35305 ebay]eBay[/shoplink] or on Slidoo.
Source: info: Camerquest, Utexas, Olypedia, Image samples by Sean on Flickr. Review by Eric Rose.

E-P3 price drops and discontinued status:
All normal E-P3 kits are now marked as discontinued at BHphoto (Click here). And they are massively discounted at Adorama (Click here) and low in Stock at Amazon (Click here). You can get it for even less as refurbished item on Cametaauctions (via Slidoo) or directly at Cameta. In Germany price drops are also shown by Idealo.de price history.

What’s coming:
I am working on that rumor now. All I have heard from one source is to not expect a “successor” but rather “something different“. As usual these kind of rumors lead to all plenty of speculation. Let’s keep expectations low so that we won’t be disappointed if something unspectacular will be announced. Question…when will it be announced? I am getting rumors form anonymous sources that the new camera may come in February! Still to be confirmed by trusted sources yet…
For some unclear reason I keep checking old [shoplink 35422 ebay]Olympus rangefinder cameras one eBay[/shoplink]. Just to see how a digital version could look like -> of course without rangefinder tech but with rangefinder style. But as I said, the new PEN will not be spectacular, just a small update..or not? :)

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Deal sent by Eric (via NoisyC).

Life always manages to surprise our short staying on this world. Almost a year ago I was hit by a multiple series of not so good events (article here). Those bad news were related to some people close to me that have been living different kind of issues. The months after I worked hard to fix what could be fixed. Of course some things cannot be fixed at all. It had been a time where I spent more energy than I could get back from the world around me. But as I told you, life is immensely surprising. And not only bad news come and go, also unexpected good news hit you from time to time :)

Particularly the news I am going to share you today will have a great influence on my life and also a bit on my work on 43rumors. That’s the reason why I choose to make it public. I will very soon become father for the very first time. The baby is “scheduled” to see the light of the world…guess when…January 1st! Of course you never know when that creature decides to jump out of the box :)

As we are pretty close to the event it could be that when this happens for a few days 43rumors will not be updated. If you see me not posting any news you should know that I have a good reason for it! And the first two weeks I will likely post less on this website. Could be that I skip the usual news-reviews coverage in favour of rumor posts only. And please don’t be upset if I don’t answer your mails or if your comments will take long time before they get approved! And expect me to double or triple the error rate in my already poor written English! :)

Thanks for your understanding!!!

P.S.: I am now going to the gynecologist with my wonderful girlfriend (and future wife). Will be offline for a few hours. And here are some more little news:
43rumors and Mirrorlessrumors design update:
A small design update on 43rumors is coming. And ipad and iphone versions are coming too.
Mirrorlessrumors will be completely redone and become a “vertical community” where to share stories and work and news around the mirrorless world (it will take 4-5 months to develop that).
Thinking on doing a personal blog:
As you know I decided to live somewhere in the middle of nowhere on the Pyrenees. I am thinking on doing a blog sharing some of my small experiences doing that life. I may do camera reviews by photographing cows and goats :)
Slidoo:
Last week I presented you my Slidoo.com project (article here). This is an easy search and notification service for eBay that soon will be expanded to Amazon too. I carefully discussed all your proposals and ideas with my programmers and most of them will be realized soon! Thanks for your help and keep using and testing it. I hope you will find it useful!

Invicem from Kristoffer Stranden on Vimeo.

Rubber Monkey Software have just released a fine new version of the FilmConvert digital emulsion emulation with support for the Panasonic GH2 sensor. On top you can watch the example video shot with the GH2. What do you think…are we really getting this “mythical” film-look?

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Meantime “price-cheaters” are pretty active on eBay (Click here). Selling the GH3 for much more than you can get in “ordinary” stores. Here are some more “normal” price in EU, US and Canada. Only exception may be UK where Panasonic set a high price:

12-35mm GH3 kit:
Wex UK, Wex DE, [shoplink 35309 ebay]Photoexpress UK[/shoplink], FotoHansKeuzekamp (NL),

14-140mm GH3 kit:
Wex UK, Amazon UK, [shoplink 35310 ebay]Photoexpress UK[/shoplink], Wex DE, Amazon FR,

Body only:
Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Panasonic store, Samys, Henry, Vistek, Wex UK, FotoHansKeuzekamp (NL), Amazon FR, [shoplink 35311 ebay]Webdistirbution FR[/shoplink],

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David Busch’s E-M5 book is now downloadable on iTunes (Click here) and shipping  at Amazon US (Click here). It will ship in two weeks at Amazon UK (Click here). German readers can buy the book from R.Wagner at Amazon.de.

Panasonic (Click here) released the new 12-35mm firmware update 1.1. It improves the AF performance on the E-M5. Reminder: There is a $200 price drop on that lens at Amazon (Click here). And the 20mm pancake price decreased down to $324 at Amazon (Click here).

From time to time I spend a couple of hours reading Olympus and Panasonic patents. I found a kind of design I never saw before. Don’t know if you have seen such a thing. Guess form the picture on top what this could be!

The full patent can be viewed here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/D671584.pdf

Weird or not?

I have the pleasure to introduce you to a little new project I created with a group of friends and that I am sure some of you will find useful to use. The name is Slidoo.com and it’s an eBay search and notification service that will be soon expanded and include Amazon results too.

Why I create this:
I guess most of you use eBay (or Amazon) to find stuff. But it’s quite difficult to find some real deals on eBay. I will make you an example. Back in 2011 I noticed that every couple of months a polish store sold new Nokton 25mm f/0.95 lenses for 250 Euro less than the regular price you pay in the rest of Europe. I wished to have a tool where I could easily get notified when the auction is up. eBay gives you a service like that but it’s not nicely done and a bit annoying to use and customize. That is why I created Slidoo with a group of programmers that are actually close friends of mine.

How it works:
(Note: Slidoo is an officially approved eBay APP and we have access to their full database.)
First you have to login. Actually you can easily login by using your facebook or twitter account so that you don’t have to waste time on a new user name and password creation. On the notification settings page you can set your Location so that you can optimize the search based on where you live and buy stuff (like for example US or Germany and so on).
Coming back to my Nokton 25mm lens notification example I set my search here (Click this link). I want a lens in “new” condition, from “Europe” and “Buy it now” option only. The regular price in Germany is 950 Euro (too expensive for me). That’s why I want to get notified when the lens will be in Stock for le’ts say less than 820 Euro. As a registered user I can save this search and get notified when some new auction will be online within the parameters I set. I set a price range of 600-820 Euro because I wanted to cut out all the accessory stuff for the lens that usually sells for 150 or less Euro.
For USA friends I will make an example with the superb Olympus 75 f/1.8 lens. The lens sells for a regular price of $899. But two times I found them for sale for $100 or even $150 less and I set this search (Click here) to get notified when this happens.
Within the notification settings you can set how to get notified (via email, facebook, twitter or zero notifications). Important: You can also mark single products to get notified about price changes of the specific item.

The real time feeling:
I also wanted to create a search that works in real time. It means that you can use the sliders and results will change almost instantaneously! I found this very useful for example to compare the price of used and new stuff or to order the results by different options (for example price).

The future features:
This is a Beta version. Within one month we will add Amazon results too (used and new stuff). Within 3 months an iPad and iPhone and Android APP will be created. Along that stuff many little new features and small design changes will appear every week.

How you can help us:
I would be immensely grateful if you could try the website for a short period to see if that is actually a service you find useful or not. Of course it is useful for all stuff you search…not only for cameras and lenses! And please don’t forget that you can change the location search settings on that notification settings page. We worked hard on it and invested a lot of time to make it. You can also send your suggestions for new features and bugfixes at contact.slidoo@gmail.com.

So join and try out Slidoo.com! Oh…one more thing…can you spread the word to people you know that may be interested in using this? We don’t have money for advertising so we rely on your help to spread the news :)

Thanks a lot from Ale and his friends Andrea-Richard-Melle-Elena-Mate :)

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You can also join the Slidoo Facebook group and Twitter stream.

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eBay vs Slidoo
Some asked me to explain the difference between eBay notification service and the Slidoo notification service:
1) On Slidoo while you set the search parameters the page doesn’t get reloaded…you just slide. Try to set price and item status (like new or auction) on eBay. It’s a long time to set them forward and backwards!
2) on eBay you have to click through two times to reach your saved search list. On Slidoo you just hover your saved search item list and you have them all.
3) Notification is also customizable. For example you can set email or facebook notification or have no notifications at all (if you prefer to check the saved searches for yourself on web).
4) On Slidoo  the frequency of the notification can be set too. On eBay you get notified once per day. Here you can get notified multiple times.