Zdp-189.tumblr.com toke that picture of the new Noktor Hyperprime 50mm f/0.95 production (demo model) post acquisition by SLRMagic from their showroom in Sim City, Mongkok. I have been told by the SLRmagic guys that they remade the focusing part of the lens to get perfect infinity focus. And every lens has to be tuned before to go for sale and that (alng the stonrg yen) is the reason for the higher production costs. The new lens should hit the stores by end of the month.

P.S.: Those are the links to the other three lenses made by SLRmagic:
SLR magic 11mm f/1.4 lens you can preorder on [shoplink 22154 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] Toy Lens 26mm f/1.4 lens on [shoplink 18603 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] SLR Magic 35mm f/1.7 MC lens on [shoplink 14881 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]

As you know the most used camera on Flickr is the iPhone…Compact Cameras are dead and long live the Phone Cameras! That’s the revilution that is going on the mass market. And that’s why Panasonic is pushing their new Lumix Phone. Today they annoucned the new Panasonic Lumix Phone P-05C you can see here: Panasonic Japan. It has 3.3-inch LCD, 13.2MP sensor with full HD video recording, it is the world’s first phone with optical “anti-shake” (something we would love to see in m43 Panasonic cameras!) and DLNA support.

Link to the official press release: Panasonic.co.jp.

Vitaly Kiselev just announced the new PTool v3.60d which also includes the GH2 hack. This is the the new feature list (Source: Personal-View.com)

TZ10:
* Initial support with most major patches ported.
* Release not include manual movie modes and PAL<->NTSC patches.

GH2:
* Initial support with many ported patches.
* Some new patches added.
* Bitrate patches are intended for testers only!

Cooooooool!!!

I have been told that Olympus did show mockups of E-PM1 and E-PL3 cameras at the various Olympus events that toke place in different parts of the world. And those cameras will be available in autumn only. To me it looks like Olympus were in hurry to show their [shoplink 23109]GF3[/shoplink] and NEX-C3 competitor (the E-PM1)! And price of the cameras is also unknown. What do you think about the Olympus strategy to announce products without to mention the price and with an availability that si still far away? Something could be wrong or not? An example: who will buy the E-PL2 (still available everywhere at [shopcountry 18844]) knowing that “sooner or later” and with an “unknown” price the E-PL3 will be on market?

Thom Hogan describes exactly what I am thinking about the recent Olympus product/marketing strategy:

1) “There’s surprisingly little differentiation in key features of the three cameras.” And sometimes the differences are quite confusing (See the lower 3fps frame rate for the E-P3 when the lower end models can do 5.5fps).

2) “Olympus’ press releases and Web sites aren’t much help in differentiating the models, and I found a couple of mistakes on them, as well. Worse still, OlympusUSA is now in the confusing position of marketing six different Pen models (three incoming, three outgoing), and the best different at or they really provide on their site is simply price. Of course, none of the three new models are available yet and apparently won’t be for a couple of months, further confusing customers. Olympus, like most of the camera companies, seems to be of the “keep the customer confused” mentality in terms of marketing (yes, there’s really a type of marketing that utilizes customer confusion). Either that, or they’re just confused themselves.”

But the Olympus products are definitely better than the Olympus marketing:

3) “Overall I judge this to be a nice set of products from Olympus. Focus is improved, lots of small things have been addressed, fixed, or improved, the two new lenses fill in some gaps for enthusiasts, and I’m excited to try them out. As many of you know, I’ve been using a Pen for some of my work since my Africa trip in 2009. I’m sure that will continue, given the new models’ features.”

Overall I do think Olympus made some very welcome improvements (AF, own “tweaked” sensor, interchangeable grip, the new lenses are awesome!), but they still need to get rid of some “confusion” inside their product and marketing strategy.

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Hot preorders: Olympus E-P3 preorders at Amazon US, Adorama, BHphoto and Amazon UK. Worldwide shipment start soon (?).
Olympus 12mm f/2.0 preorders at Amazon US, Adorama, B&H and [shoplink 23576 ebay]eBay[/shoplink]. Worldwide shipment start on July 22.
Olympus 45mm f/1.8 preorders at Amazon US, Adorama, B&H. Worldwide shipment start in october

And GF3 preorders at [shopcountry 23109].

This is not a Micro Four Thirds related news but damn…that’s a huge news we absolutely have to talk about! Ricoh just announced the acquisition of Pentax for $124.2 million! I really didn’t expect a relative “small” company like Ricoh to buy Pentax. There were rumors about Samsung or even Canon interested in buying Pentax. It will be also interesting to see how Ricoh-Pentax will now evolve their mirrorless system. And now we can be sure that Pentax will not join the Micro Four Thirds system!

P.S.: I am wondering if Ricoh will soon get rid of that über-expensive “Pentax Q” system (See that ugly camera at [shopcountry 23628]).

You can read the full press release at MirrorlessRumors.com (Click here).