–

For a short time Robin Wong (Click here) scared us a bit with that sentence in his first part of the ongoing E-P5 review:

“Unfortunately, I have to drop a bomb this early: the focus peaking did NOT work with the CCTV lens. When using a manual lens with no electronic contacts, I find NO way to activate the focus peaking! Believe me I have tried digging all the menu system and press all buttons, and if I am wrong in this I would GLADLY be corrected (this is the one time that I wish I am wrong, believe me). Focus Peaking on the E-P5 does not work with manual lenses. I could not use the CCTV lens to test the focus peaking, hence I chucked the idea of using the CCTV lens altogether. So much for an interesting, unconventional plan to do a review differently this time!“

UPDATE: But the good news is that Pekka Potka gave us an answer about Robin’s issue:

“Robin is simply wrong here. Focus peaking works perfectly well with all manual lenses. Electric contacts are not needed, but of course FP can not be actuated then by turning focusing ring. It can be assigned to at least three different buttons, just pick your choice. Another matter is if a lens too soft to be able to give any sharp details at all…”

UPDATE_2: Robin Wong officially apologized. Editor’s note: Don’t worry Robin, nobody is perfect and we still like you a lot :)

Damn, got a shock for a while :)

Links to all newly announced Olympus stuff:
E-P5 Black at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys. In Europe at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK and at Wex UK.
E-P5 White at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys. In Europe at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK and at Wex UK.
E-P5 Silver at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys. In Europe at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK and at Wex UK.
E-P5 Black with 17mm f/1.8 lens and VF-4 at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys. In Europe at Amazon UK.
E-P5 Silver with 17mm f/1.8 lens and VF-4 at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys. In Europe at Amazon UK.
E-P5 White with 17mm f/1.8 lens and VF-4 at Amazon UK.
E-P5 Black with 14-42mm lens at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK and Wex UK.
E-P5 White with 14-42mm lens at Amazon Germany and Amazon UK.
E-P5 Silver with 14-42mm lens at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK and at Wex UK.
17mm f/1.8 Black at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys.
45mm f/1.8 Black at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys. In Europe at Amazon Germany.
75mm f/1.8 Black at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys.
VF-4 viewfinder at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto and Samys.

Photoscala.de (google translation here) analyzed the latest Schneider financial report. Like so many other companies also Schneider announced that they will step out from the compact camera (fixed) lens business. And they confirmed that they want to focus on producing high quality lenses for Full Frame and for Mirrorless system cameras. As we reported before here on 43rumors their three MFT lenses will hit the market with at least a six month delay because of production problems. I think they should skip the 60mm f/2.4 macro release. We already have a good Olympus 60mm macro lens. It would be much better they do a MFT version of one of their great existing primes:

My favorite would be the 16mm f/1.2 Xenon! Great for street photography!

We had two new Panasonic announcements this week:

Akihabaranews reports that Panasonic is releasing a micro SDHC memory card with 6 “Proof” performances: waterproof, static electrical resistance, magnetic resistance, X-ray resistance, and heat resistance on July 13. It also has “fuse” function that protects the device from heat and fire generation if the micro SDHC memory card happens to generate anomalous heat.

Image Sensor World reports about a new Panasonic 2k4k/60fps Sensor.

Not as exciting as the Fuji sensor partnership but these super proof micro SD cards are really nice!

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-GF6 Product Introduction Video

Samyang 16mm f/2.0 and 300mm f/6.3 Reflex lenses announced (Dpreview).
GF6 review at Techradar.
Panasonic Lumix LF1 review at Trustedreviews.
Olympus Lens Cap 15mm f/8 – Review at Photozone.
Panasonic LF1 First Shots at Imaging Resource.

ThePhotoSoup: “I just received my copy of the new Olympus 75mm f1.8 in black. I’ve posted a couple of [cell phone] images on my Google+ Panasonic GH3 community here: https://plus.google.com/communities/110723552030778537272 . Also, as I just mentioned in the previous sentence, we have an active community on Google+ dedicated to the Panasonic GH3. Maybe you can let your readers know. ”

Ainga: “I am a street photographer running a photography site called: aingaframes.com. Recently, a collection of photos were uploaded taken by the often forgotten Panasonic GF2. Although the camera is obsolete in comparison to some of today’s best M43 offerings, this little beast is still capable of very high quality images.  I think your readers will be delighted to learn the quality and the capabilities of a tiny, inexpensive M43 Panasonic camera. The images from this link are all taken with a GF2 and the 20mm 1.7 pancake lens in the great city of Hong Kong: http://aingaframes.com/blog/2013/5/28/hong-kong-photographic-journal-by-photobomb”

Anonymous: “There aren’t many Steadicam Merlin 2 tests with the GH3, and some people may be wondering how it turns out. Check out my video while really testing it out for the first time! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96sUTUtJL6o I also used the Bower 7.5mm fisheye, but applied the Fisheye Fixer originally created for the GoPro cameras (in Final Cut Pro X). If anyone wants to know how it turns out, the above video is an example of how it lineates the Bower lens curvatures.”

Nick: “Hey mate, I thought you and your readers might be interested in two galleries of work I shot a few nights ago in Taksim, Istanbul, using the EM5 and CV Nokton 25mm (plus a couple with the m.ZD 45mm. This is by far the most challenging conditions I’ve ever shot in – almost all the shots are at 3200/6400iso and f0.95, not to mention very nervous and twitchy subjects and the obvious heavy police presence… Luckily the night I was there stayed non-violent and Gezi had more of a carnival atmosphere than anything else; even the riot police were willing to chat with demonstrators. Hopefully it stays that way…
In colour: http://peopleandotherstrangecreatures.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/the-colour-of-taksim/
In B&W: http://peopleandotherstrangecreatures.wordpress.com/2013/06/14/the-shades-of-taksim/“

First two news: Epson Japan “officialized” what was already known. The new Olympus VF-4 uses their Ultimicron EVF. And Cosina Japan announced that the Nokton 42,5mm lens will ship in August.

Big US shipment day tomorrow: Amazon says that both the Olympus E-P5 (Click here) and the Panasonic G6 (Click here) will finally ship tomorrow.

After a very long wait you can finally find the Blackmagic Design Cinema Camera with passive MFT mount in Stock via [shoplink 39649 ebay]dvestore (Click here)[/shoplink]. They also have a kit with the [shoplink 39650 ebay]Sandisk Extreme 240GB SSD (Click here)[/shoplink].

The active mount Pocket Cinema Camera is set to ship by end of July. Preorders in USA at Adorama, BHphoto and in Germany at Technikdirekt, in France at pbs-video. In Sweden at macoteket, scandinavianphoto, protel.jetshop, webhallen. Drop me a message if you find more preorder links!

Two more US deals:
$29 off on the Panasonic 45-150mm lens at Amazon (Click here).
Buy an Olympus Camera and the Olympus 40-150mm Lens and Receive $50 Cash Back via Mail-in Rebate at Amazon (Click here).
all deals of the day at DealsRunner.com.