Teaser on a project about Sevillanos universe shot by Steph on GH2 with Voigtländer 0.95 and Noktor 12mm.

An Olympus camera sculpture at Henry Road.

OLYMPUS SH-21 12.5x optical zoom, High-sensitivity shooting, Touch shot (Olympus Global).

GF2 with Olympus 45mm lens samples at Google Plus.

Will Canon buy Olympus? (Zone-10).

The Panasonic GF1 – A Landmark Camera by KJ Vogelius (SteveHuff).

New aluminium grips for the E-P3 (DC.watch).

Mitmachen: Lumix Festival für jungen Fotojournalismus 2012 (Photoscala).

A short update about the Olympus fee scandal. As you know it’s a crucial month for Olympus. They have to release their financial report within December 14 otherwise they will be delisted from the Tokyo exchange. And tomorrow the the investigative panel will release their report about the Olympus fee scandal. But first bit of info are already coming out. Reuters reports: “An investigative panel has found Japan’s disgraced Olympus Corp hid up to $1.67 billion in losses from its investors, but is likely to say there is no evidence of involvement by organized crime in the cover-up, a source said Monday.”

As I said before, I am crossing the fingers for Olympus. Let’s hope 2012 can be the year where Olympus can restart with new energy and clear ideas from the management!

[shoplink 16254][/shoplink] Image on top: The [shoplink 16254]Panasonic GH2[/shoplink]

That huge GH2 deals ongoing in US and EU stores may be a sign that a GH3 is coming soon (February-March?). The deal just started and will last until they run out of cameras:
GH2 with 14-42mm lens for $699.95 at Adorama (Click here). Please insert the Coupon Code “S1442144”.
GH2 with 14-140mm lens for $999.95 at Adorama (Click here). Please insert the Coupon Code “S2141401”.
You have to to sign in to see price. Coupon codes are entered on the checkout page!
But there are discounts in almost any store. Check: [shopcountry 16254].

GH3-POLL
I know that in January-February there will be a new GH2x kit option with the yet available 14-42mm X and the upcoming 12-35mm and 35-100mm X lenses. But I don’t know if that alone is the reason of the $300-500 price drop in US stores. But if there is really a GH3 coming soon I ask you:

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And here are a couple of GH2 related news (mostly sent or made by our readers):
German interview with Timo Großpietsch that shot his latest documentary with the GH2 (Slashcam.de).
Fabio Bianchi sent us his latest video link on Vimeo.
GH2 stills and video tips and tricks on youtube.
Steve made a short film with the Voigtlander Nokton 25mm, Canon FD 50mm 1.4 and the Panasonic 14-140mm. Video on Vimeo.
The Poetry and Artistry of Cooking” on vimeo.

Now here we are with our next (almost) daily Olympus crisis news roundup:

The big news is that Woodford quits form the Olympus board and is seeking for Olympus Shareholder Backing (Bloomberg). If he will archive the gold than he could soon come back as new Olympus CEO. We will know within the next few weeks for sure! Meanwhile more weird stories are coming out. A Key figure in Olympus scandal has been found in Hong Kong (Reuters).

But I will stop here, I wish all that mess will be over soon. It’s time to talk about the future 12-60mm Olympus lens announcement!

Vitaly Kiselev is collecting the money to buy two Panasonic GF2 cameras. His goal is to hack the GF2 camera. You can support him via personal-view.com. The GF2 hasn’t been a popular camera but with the recent massive rebates on that camera it became far more appealing. And if Vitaly will also give us a hack for it than this could be a damn good deal!

Panasonic lowered the price of the GF2 in all countries. Here some examples:
GF2 body only now for $314 at Amazon (Click here). With kit lens for $400 at Amazon (Click here).
GF2 w/14-42 in Canada for C$289.99 at Newegg.ca
Red GF2 with 14-42mm lens for 298 Euro at [shoplink 27204 ebay]Digitalkamerprofi on eBay DE (Click here)[/shoplink].

P.S:: Our US readers can still enjoy Cyber Monday deals in most stores. Some deals will last the whole week: Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), Cameta (Click here) and J&R (Click here).

I guess soon we will know if the Olympus Camera Division will be kept alive or sold to an external company. And that would be a bad news for the whole photography industry if such a appreciated and historical company disappears. Here is the news that worries me:
Today Reuters reports that “Olympus Corp has launched a review of its business structure, according to an internal memo, amid speculation that the 92-year-old company may have to sell assets in order to survive a massive accounting scandal.“. Reuters also underlined that “Olympus’s camera business currently runs at a loss” and “Investment bankers say rivals in both the endoscope and camera markets are closely watching events unfold at the company, although prospective bidders are expected to stay on the sidelines until the situation becomes clearer.”

I know Olympus managment will try to do everything to not sell the camera division. But I don’t know if the financial situation will force them to sell everything to…Panasonic?..Samsung??? no idea :(

More Olympus fee scandal news:
Michael Woodford meets the FBI (Source: AP). He supports the Olympus Grassroots action (Source: AP).
A number of European banks are under investigation by Japanese authorities to determine whether they helped the management of Olympus hide irregular payments (Source: NYT).

We all know Sony’s solution to archive phase AF by using a semitransparent mirror. And looking at the latest Panasonic patent it looks like there are even smarter solutions! The sensor itself can reflect some of the light to the phase AF sensor (N.13 on the picture). There is a sort of reflective material between the pixels. That solution is called “Front side illuminated sensor”. There is also a second solution where some of the RGB pixels have been replaced with Phase-AF-Pixels like it works on the [shoplink 25297 ebay]Fuji’s F300EXR (it is a compact camera)[/shoplink].

Now, I doubt that Panasonic will ever introduce such a phase detection system. The current [shoplink 23568]Olympus E-P3[/shoplink] and [shoplink 16254]Panasonic GH2[/shoplink] have already an exceptional fast contrast autofocus. My bet is that in a few years every camera will use contrast AF only. Phase AF is only a waste of space and resources!

More about the patent at Egami (Click here to read the translation).