Olympus official statement about the missing E-5 in european Olympus stores.

Olympus were so kind to send us an official explanation about why for a short period there were no E-5 cameras listed in their European online stores. Here is the text:

We took E-5 off the shop as we had too many orders.
The shop is quite new and technically it is not so easy to stop the order taking.
We have so many orders now, that we’re not able to supply the new orders in a decent delivery time.
So we decided to take it off for some days/weeks.
[shoplink 17163]E-5[/shoplink] is very successful and we plan a long life cycle for this product.
And again, we will stop our SLR business only in case we will be able to provide similar qualities in MFT.

The E-5 is now back at Olympus shop Germany: http://shop.olympus.de/e_commerce/?payssite=de

a little bit of everything…

The video on top shows how to make a selfmade bellow lens! Amazing or not? You can read the full description and see the image sample at DC.watch (google english translated).

Olympus E-PL2 reviewed at DigitalcameraHQ. Links to the E-PL2 at [shopcountry 18844].

Panasonic GF2 review at PCworld.

Panasonic GH2 review at Digiphotomag. Links to the GH2 at [shopcountry 16254].

Kipon EOS-M43 adapter test at Sankei (Click here to read the translation). You can get the dapter on [shoplink 19603 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Olympus SZ-20 Review (Photographyblog).

Olympus E-5 review (Mobile01). Links tot he E-5 at [shopcountry 17163].

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TS3 at CNET.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS37 Review at Photographyblog.

The unhackable Panasonic GH1 is now hackable! (And plenty of GH2 in Stock in US)

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As you know the [shoplink 14826]Panasonic GH1[/shoplink] with the newest firmware isn’t yet hackable. That could change very soon! Vitaly (the hacker) updated the Lenin project status: “We got GH1 v1.34 firmware dump. I’ll start to work on reversing tomorrow, must not take long.” Source: Personal-view.com. Vitaly told me that he will bring a new updated PTool version that will allow you to downgrade the GH1 firmware to version 1.32.

And not only Vitaly can make miracles in these days. Also Panasonic made one! They finally shipped plenty of GH2 stocks to US. The black body only is in Stock at Amazon US via Samy’s camera (Click here). And all kit options are almost in Stock at J&R (Click here). They will ship the cameras on 05/31/2011!

An analysis about the present and future of Panasonic and Olympus (by Thom Hogan)

I want to focus your attention on the latest article from Thom Hogan (Click here to visit the website). He starts with the following statement: “Welcome to the beginning of the end of the digital SLR era.” The “DSLR unit sales have been flat and appear about to fall. Revenue per unit has fallen. Household penetration for DSLRs peaked some time ago, and much of the market now is replacement, not new sales.

He described the situation of all non Nikon and non Canon camera companies. I am going to copy the Panasonic/Olympus part only. Please read his article to read the full text at bythom.com.

Olympus/Panasonic: made a big bet on m4/3 taking the DSLR initiative away at the low end. Both pretty much neglected or abandoned any traditional DSLR approach to do so, which on Olympus’ side has alienated customers. Both increased their overall interchangeable lens camera sales significantly with their strategy, but at a lower price point. Still, they haven’t really blunted the low-end Canon and Nikon DSLR sales, they augmented them. Status: tenuous foothold at the low end, very tenuous above that. Forecast: continued tough road ahead.

What do you think about his opinion? I added the latest sales analysis graph made by BCNranking about the Japanese system camera market shares. As you can see on the graph (see image on top of the post) 69% of all sold system cameras are DSLR’s and 31% are Mirrorless. Mirrorless market share reached the top in December 2011 with 36,7%. But my guess is that market share has fallen because there wasn’t any real new product (only the slightly upgraded [shoplink 18844]E-PL2)[/shoplink]. And the lens repertory from all current mirrorless system is still “immature”. I predict a further advancement of the Mirrorless market after the June announcements (Panasonic, Olympus, Sony and Samsung will release new cameras and lenses).

P.S.: You can see on Amazon that most cameras in the TOP 20 are compacts and DSLR cameras. Mirrorless is still not so popular as in Japan:
Amazon US rankings (Click here)
Amazon DE rankings (Click here)
Amazon UK rankings (Click here)
Amazon FR rankings (Click here)
Amazon IT rankings (Click here)

a little bit of everything…


Panasonic Lumix DMC G3 Which first look

Wanderlust pinwide tested at Dslrmagazine (Click here).

Street shooting with micro 4/3 – by Andre Delhaye (Click here).

Panasonic Lumix G3 Hands-On first look at Trustedreviews (Click here).
Panasonic first impression at Optyczne.pl (Click here).
G3: Gestion du bruit électronique (Focus Numerique).
Test Panasonic G3 : optique 14-42 mm et balance des blancs (Focus Numerique).

Panasonic 20mm review at popco (korean)

Digital Camera RAW Compatibility Update 3.7 (Apple.com). Brings support for the E-PL2 and XZ-1.

NAVTEQ Supplies Digital Map Data in Olympus Imaging’s First GPS Enabled Digital Camera (Imaging Resource).

SLRmagic will resume the Noktor lens production (and Nokton next production run in June)

[shoplink 22205 ebay][/shoplink]

A small update about the Noktor resurrection. SLRmagic will resume the production of the lens. Apparently they will keep the same design. But I do hope they can lower the price! $799 is really to much for a cheap quality lens even if it has an f/0.95 aperture. P.S.: There is currently one Noktor lens for sale on [shoplink 22205 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Now let’s talk about one of the hotseller inside the Micro Four Thirds world the Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95. Camerquest said that the next prodcution run will hit the north american market in June. Nice to see the lens is so highly requested. We want more from them Voigtländer! In Europe it’s much easier to find the lens in Stock: [shoplink 22125 ebay]Foto Mundus[/shoplink], [shoplink 22126 ebay]infoto2[/shoplink], [shoplink 22126 ebay]infoto2[/shoplink], [shoplink 22127 ebay]eu-shphoto[/shoplink], [shoplink 22128 ebay]deutscher-digitalhandel[/shoplink] (ships worldwide!).

Olympus terrible financial results. Time to change something! (POLL: your suggestions)

The revenue made by Olympus with the Imaging division. Graph made by Photoscala.de

One thing is sure. it’s time for Olympus to wake up and change their product and marketing strategy. The last “Consolidated Financial Results for the Fiscal Year Ended March 31, 2011″ describes a terrible situation for the Olympus Imaging division. The company as a whole is not doing bad at all with the medical division still signing a big “+” in both sales and net profit. But the Imaging division revenue of the year 2010-2011 is halved compared to two years ago (See the graph on top. Thanks Photoscala!). Photoscala made a detailed analysis of the report. Olympus did lose “only” a 5% in the Japanese market but around 30% in US, Europeans and other Asian markets!

And the biggest failure for Olympus is that they are year for year selling less cameras while the digital camera market as a whole is growing! See the next graph made by Photoscala.de:

In short, Olympus is doing very bad outside Japan. And it continually loses market share and that’s a bit surprising if you do consider the recent Micro Four Thirds success. Probably Four Thirds is indeed almost a dead system (from a sales point of view) and maybe Olympus didn’t manage to be as good as Panasonic in selling Micro Four Thirds products. But that’s just my speculation. They need to rethink their product and marketing strategy. They have a history of innovation and certainly a group of top engineers. It’s the product and marketing strategy that fails. This is a huge wake up call for Olympus!

What should Olympus do?

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Read the full article from photoscala in german or via google english translation.