Three GH4 manuals for download.

part of the manual that explains how to create stills from 4K video.

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Our reader James (Thanks) shared three links to three GH4 manuals you can download right now:

http://panasonic.ca/viewing/ALL/DMC-GH4P/OI/vqt5h68/vqt5h68.pdf (GH4 Basic Owner’s Manual)
http://panasonic.ca/viewing/ALL/DMC-GH4P/OI/vqt5h96/vqt5h96.pdf (GH4 Advanced Features Manual)
http://panasonic.ca/viewing/ALL/DMC-GH4P/OI/vqc9858/vqc9858.pdf (something about 4K pics from video)

 

North American preorders, shipping date and price:
GH4 camera at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), and Panasonic (Click here). Price: $1,698. In Canada at Vistek (Click here).
GH4 camera with interface unit at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here). Price: $3,298
Interface unit only at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and Panasonic (Click here). Price: $1,998

Europen preorders, shipping date and price:
Germany: Wexcameras, Marcotec-shop.de.
UK at Wexphotographic, CameraWorld, UKdigital, CVP, TipTop.
Holland at Fotohanskeuzekamp.
Belgium at Fotokonijnenberg.
Norway at Fotovideo.
Sweden at Cyberphoto, Skandinavianphoto.
Finland at Telefoto, Topshot, Verkkoauppa.
France at Photocineshop.
Spain: Fotoboom.

Olympus considering to merge medical and imaging division by April 2015.

The header of the official Olympus restructuring goal document.

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To save costs and avoid redundancy Olympus is considering to merge the medical and imaging division by April 2015. The official document describing Olympus intentions can be seen here: Olympus Japan (translated via google).

What this means exactly for the camera division isn’t clear but to me it sounds likely that Olympus will “dismiss” some employees. Hope I am wrong with that assumption.

Good news: Panasonic says GH4 preorders exceeded the expectations. Will ramp up production.

Panasonic Japan announced that the GH4 preorders were higher than expected and that they will try to increase the current production to meet the unexpected high demand. Currently the only cameras that have been shipped were sold by US stores and this also represents a first strategy change at Panasonic. They are now trying to increase their visibility on the US market. UPDATE: Personal-View has some GH4 in Stock and shipping worldwide.

And Photographyblog posted the full GH4 review and they are impressed by the camera:

The Lumix DMC-GH4 is a major step forward for Panasonic’s flagship camera, not only in terms of 4K video but also for the still image quality, responsiveness and handling. Even the asking price of £1299.99 / $1699.99 body-only seems like very good value for money given all the extra features that Panasonic have added, which means that the new Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 is a very worthy winner of our coveted Panasonic Lumix DMC-GH4 Essential! award.

Camerastuffreview writes:

The Panasonic GH4 is, in terms of ease of use, construction quality and image quality, a professional camera for video and photo – given the speed of the contrast AF – also for action and sports. A couple years ago, this was thought impossible. That is a top performance from Panasonic.

And so far the Sony A7s doesn’t seem to be a real competitor of the GH4. While the High ISO performance of the Sony is impressive (and so the pixel per pixel readout) the A7s is twice as expensive, cannot record 4K internally and has no 10bit out. And of course the Sony A7 series is known to have a very slow autofocus system too.

North American preorders, shipping date and price:
GH4 camera at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), and Panasonic (Click here). Price: $1,698. In Canada at Vistek (Click here).
GH4 camera with interface unit at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here). Price: $3,298
Interface unit only at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and Panasonic (Click here). Price: $1,998

Europen preorders, shipping date and price:
Germany: Wexcameras, Marcotec-shop.de.
UK at Wexphotographic, CameraWorld, UKdigital, CVP, TipTop.
Holland at Fotohanskeuzekamp.
Belgium at Fotokonijnenberg.
Norway at Fotovideo.
Sweden at Cyberphoto, Skandinavianphoto.
Finland at Telefoto, Topshot, Verkkoauppa.
France at Photocineshop.
Spain: Fotoboom.

Again everybody wins the Tipa Award :)

Panasonic’s headline on the Tipa Award prize.

Tipa published the list of the Tipa Award winners (Click here). And like any year…guess what…almost everybody wins a prize :)

There are so many categories that actually six mirrorless cameras won a prize:

– The Panasonic GH4 wins in the Best Hybrid Photo/Video Camera category
– The Olympus E-M10 wins in the Best CSC Entry Level category.
– The Samsung NX30 wins in the Best CSC Advanced category (Seriously…the NX30?).
– The Fuji X-T1 wins in the Best CSC Expert category
– The Sony A7r wins in the Best CSC Professional category.
– The Sigma DP Quattro wins in the Best Design category.

Every year big photo sites and camera manufacturers report the Tipa Ward news with plenty of glamour (See Panasonic’s headline on top). By creating so many categories it almost looks like Tipa let’s win almost everyone for purpose (but I may be wrong on that). And with respect for the Tipa organization…every year I will try to play down a bit these kind of ward :)

Firmware update for the Panasonic GM1.

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Panasonic released a new firmware updated for the GM1 that fixes the connection problem with Apple iOS devices via Wi-Fi. You can download the file here: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/dl/gm1.html

GM1 store list:
In US at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
In Europe at Amazon Germany, Wex Germany, Amazon UK, Fotohanskeuzekamp, Cyberphoto Sweden and Wex UK.
GM1 Gariz leather case in [shoplink 43805 ebay]Black or Brown on eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Lytro Illum announcement: This is what a future Panasonic Light Field camera could do!

Last week I reported about a Panasonic patent disclosing a Light Field sensor with high-resolution (original article can be read here). Well to get a glimps of how such a Panasonic camera could work check out the newly announced Lyto Illum camera at lytro.com. It has an astonishing 30-250mm f/2.0 constant aperture lens for a 40 Megarays 1 inch sensor! 40 megarays is around 4-5 megapixel in 2D resolution. Such a compact and fast lens is possible to make for a Light Field camera because you don’t need glass to correct aberrations (A Light Field Sensor captures all light directions).

Now imagine Panasonic making a MFT camera with such a sensor. I think it could become a killer camera!

P.S.: Play with that image to learn in three seconds what a Ligh Field Camera can do:

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