The current Blackmagic Cinema Camera EF model.

As you may know Blackmagic released a fantastic little camera that shoots in 12-bit RAW, ProRes and DNxHD Formats (Price and specs here at BHphoto). Until now the camera was available in EF and ZE Lens Mount but today Blackmagic issued a new statement saying that they will soon release a “second model of the Blackmagic Cinema Camera that features passive Micro Four Thirds lens (MFT) mount“. Passive means that there is no electronic control of the lens and you can use manual aperture and focus only.

Click the link below to read the full press release:

Eiji Shirota responsible for product planning of M.ZUIKO DIGITAL lenses wrote a short text on facebook (Click here). He also hints that: “We are currently involved in planning and development of unique lenses with ever greater focus on high image quality and usability.” I hope he was not thinking on the 15mm f/8.0 lens when writing this :)

P.S.: The Olympus 75mm lens is in Stock in UK at Wexphotographic and in France at [shoplink 33262 ebay]PhotoVideo[/shoplink].

Zeiss makes fast lenses for mirrorless systems:
There is an interesting new press release from Zeiss (Click here): “Another highlight will be the presentation of a design study, with which Carl Zeiss will offer a sneak preview of a new family of autofocus lenses for mirrorless system cameras (CSC) that will most likely be available in mid-2013. Due to their performance and high speed, these new lenses will be ideal for deliberate photo composition, making them perfect for more sophisticated photographers as well. Carl Zeiss plans to initially offer fixed focal lengths in the wide angle and standard range as well as a macro.”

Zeiss currently offers high quality and expensive “video-optimized” lenses, the CP.2 for Micro Four Thirds (a list is here at BHphoto). I hope the new lenses will have the quality and price of the famous [shoplink 24401 ebay]ZM lens range (here on eBay)[/shoplink].

New Fuji X camera/lenses:
Meantime today we have a new announcement from Fuji. The X-E1 camera (Click here) and the 14mm and 18-55mm X lenses have been announced. A full coverage with reviews is available at MirrorlessRumors.com (Click here).

The Breathless Zoo: Taxidermy and the Cultures of Longing from Michael Mills on Vimeo.

Olympus E-P3 tested with the Sigma 150mm macro at DC.watch. Panasonic LX7 hands-on at DC.watch.

Buying more m4/3 cameras and lenses at Soundimagesplus.

Olympus Challenges Photokina Visitors to Put their Cameras to the Test (Photographyblog).

Panasonic G5 arrived in the hands of Soundimagesplus.

Panasonic LX7 tested at Trustedreviews.

Panasonic 45-150 mm 4.0-5.6 tested at Camerastuffreview.

Using GPS Tracklogs in Lightroom Maps fro Aerial Photography at Outbackphoto.

win $100 on e-p1.net.

Anonymous: “have today as a supplement made a new test of the same lens, now with a moving object. https://vimeo.com/48150666 AFC is much faster as wide (12mm).”

Bjarne: “Just thought I’d mention that, what seems to be, the first Lumix G5 unboxing is now available on youtube, http://youtu.be/d6wScBkzgJM. I have put a little unformal test on Vimeo of the AFC speed with the 12-35 mm f.2.8 on GH2 https://vimeo.com/47999097”

Marcelo: “I work in astronomical instrumentation (Scientific CCD cameras), and I’m subscribed to Photonics, a scientific magazine in electrooptics. Today I received the info at the link below, a development at Harvard School of Engineering, which can impact significantly the design of future camera lenses http://www.photonics.com”

Michael: “About a year ago I was pleasantly surprised to see you link to one of my GH2 Vimeo videos. This time I’m sending you a short and abstract interview video which strives to emulate a high contrast B&W film look, in case you wish to include it with one of your occasional “little bit of everything” entries: https://vimeo.com/48487720 (Editor’s note: video has been embedded on top of this post)”

Bruno: ” Seem to remember from reading the forum that you have an interest or background in physics / astronomy, so maybe this will interest you.  I’m a research scientist at the South African Astronomical Observatory and this is something I did a few weeks ago mostly with my Olympus E-P3 with the Pana 20mm and Oly 17mm.  I went up on the mountain and spent 4 nights to capture as much night sky as I could. We keep hearing that micro-4/3 don’t do well in low light or high ISO, so, being an anti-conformist, I decided to invest in the system to do just that!  I’m not a pro by any measure, I’m pretty new to photography in general and 3 weeks ago I didn’t know much about the whole post-processing world, but I gave it a go anyway. I’m very happy with what I got from that small camera!  I made a 90sec montage of over 1300 images from 5 different point of view, 13h total time on sky. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzMhMazdOrU&hd=1”

Amanda: “Not a rumour but We shot a film using the GH2 for an 48hour project in Rotterdam. This is the film: https://vimeo.com/48292058 Unfortunately its spoken dutch without subtitles. In some time there will be an extended edit which will also be graded….This version is ungraded strait from the camera. I used the Cluster v6 Nebular patch from Driftwood.“

Panasonic Japan just annnounced that the new G5 and 40-150mm m43 lens will start to be shipped from September 13th (Source: DC.watch). While the lens is not available anywhere the camera is alreayd shipping in European and USA stores like Jessops and BHphoto.

Nikon announced the first compact camera with Android and APP support (the Nikon S800c). And the new Sony NEX cameras will also support third party application development and installation. So these may be one of the main advertised new features at photokina this year. Also Panasonic officially stated that they are interested in developing such a technology.

Question is:

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P.S.: new price drop in US: Panasonic 20mm panacke for $339 at Amazon US (Click here).

When the sources sent me the info that there would be a small announcement I didn’t think it would be that small :) Event the 60mm macro hasn’t been officially released (even if Amazon displayed the 60mm lens on their server).
Olympus announced the new Olympus SP-820UZ superzoom compact camera. More info at ePhotozine.

UPDATE: Just want to make it clear that sources only told me about a “small announcement coming”. When I got the Amazon 60mm brochure it was my guess that it may be related to the 60mm macro. I was wrong :(

As I told you before the bog Mirrorless stuff is going to be announced in mid September! Same for Panasonic!