Graph courtesy: Personal View.

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Cipa released the full Japanese camera shipment data for March 2014. And you can se plenty of great graphs at Personal View. These are some of the key changes that happened:

– Small increase in shipments for both DSLR and Mirrorless. But the results could be a influenced by the fact that Japan will soon increase the VAT on all products. So Japanese internal market shipment increase may not be a constant factor.

– The bad news is even with the small increase the situation is quite worse compared to previous years:

– Mirrorless is still not doing well in American and European markets. It’s mainly Asia that loves them :)

In summary: The next 2-3 years we will see who will survive this crisis. There are so many challenges I think no one really know’s with 10% certainty what needs to be done to make money with system cameras. And there is the fact that new kind of photo devices are coming out every year, Not only smartphones and tablets but now we will have Google Glass and other super portable and “always connected” stuff.

This is the first time we post an AF test video of a MFT lens that Tamron decided to NOT release :(
The video has been posted by Dicahub and he also confirmed that Tamron withdraw the lens release. It means you can stop checking the Tamron 14-150mm MFT BHphoto page to see when the lens will ship :)

Reminder: Like I told you before Tamron will not release that lens because they said (unofficially) that it makes no sense to make stabilized lenses seeing that also Panasonic will offer more on sensor stabilization cameras in future.

I completely forgot to mention that Samyang also announced a new 300mm  f/6.3 mirror lens which will also be sold with Four Thirds mount! This could be the last FT lens ever made by a company seen that Olympus doesn’t plan to make any FT camera anymore!

DicaHub (translated) also got word from Samyang that six of their brand names will be gone soon keeping only Samyang and Rokinon (brand popular in US). These are all their current names (with lens list on eBay): [shoplink 20647 ebay]Samyang [/shoplink], [shoplink 20684 ebay]Walimex [/shoplink], [shoplink 20649 ebay]Rokinon [/shoplink], [shoplink 20650 ebay]Opteka [/shoplink], [shoplink 20651 ebay]Falcon [/shoplink], [shoplink 20653 ebay]Vivitar [/shoplink] and[shoplink 20652 ebay]Bower [/shoplink].

via CanonWatch.

There is a good and a bad news you can read within the latest Panasonic financial report (download the pdf here):
Good news: Panasonic reported the first annual profit in three years And they expect another 16% income increase by 2015
Bad news: The AVC segment which includes cameras, sensors, tablets and so on is the weakest segment showing a loss compared to 2013. But nevertheless Panasonic expects things to go better here too.

As you know Panasonic said they will drop business not having at least a 5% profit by end 2015. So let’s hope the GH4 will sell well ! And according to my sources this is happening :)

Samyang announced the new 7,5mm 10mm and 12mm Cine Lenses for Micro Four Thirds!

Official press text:

Nearly a month after their market release, Samyang 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS and Samyang 12 mm f/2.0 NCS CS lenses are now available in their equivalent cine versions: Samyang 10mm T3.1 Cine and 12mm T2.2 Cine. Samyang VDSLR cine lenses feature aperture and focus rings with sprocket wheels controlling their work through Follow Focus systems. This allows for noiseless and smooth adjustment of the above parameters during filming.

Samyang 10mm T3.1 Cine and 12mm T2.2 Cine have nanocrystal anti-reflective layer (NCS) that ensures better light transmission, increased resistance to light reflections and higher contrast, which improves optical resolution of the lenses.
Samyang 12 mm in photo and cine versions fills the gap among lenses dedicated for mirrorless cameras with APS-C sensor, large angle of view and high brightness. The lens has been designed for cameras fitted with a high resolution sensor (above 24 mln pixels). Samyang Optics company is renowned among clients for great quality optics offered at affordable prices. And this is also the case with 10mm and 12 lenses which provide technical parameters and optical potential that can easily compete with the best wide-angle prime and zoom lenses available on the market.

Samyang 7.5mm T3.8 Fish-eye Cine. This is a cine version of a meticulously designed manual fish-eye lens which provides diagonal field of vision equal to 180 degrees. Despite its small size, Samyang 7.5mm T3.8 Cine produces images with splendid parameters and exceptional vividness, and the minimal focusing distance amounts to only 0.09 meters.

More images and specs at samyang-europe.com/index.php/new-products/93-samyang-new-lenses-coming-soon

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.

Vincent Tsai
Panasonic G5 & Sigma 60mm f2.8 DN
My Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/vftsai/

Time to cath up with the weekly 43rumors readers photo collection. You cna watch the full pictures list sent by 43rumors readers at facebook.com/43rumors.

Here are some of the picture liked by our readers or by me :)