Mr. Yukihiko of Olympus Imaging Development Division has been interviewed by DC.watch (google translation here). I highlighted the key info in the hope google translation tool didn’t fool me as it happens sometimes:

1) Worldwide DSLR+Mirrorless Camera Sales went down by 15%. But Mirrorless alone is till on expansion (Sales are growing for both lens and cameras).
2) The PEN series is not selling as expected in USA and Europe, but the E-M5 sold very well in Europe. (PEN and OMD are selling well in Asian countries).
3) The manager is confident that the E-M1 will sell better in EU and US than previous MFT cameras.
4) Future focus is on premium products (New OMD camera and lenses, and so on).

Note, there was a lot of talk about OMD and absolute zero talk about PEN. Probably Olympus marketing is betting on OMD cameras (and less on PEN’s) to increase their sales in 2014.

CIPA data of cameras shipped by Japanese companies (October 2013)

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It wasn’t really a secret but now you can see it on a nice graph (Thanks to Personal-View). As you see Asian countries are rapidly switching from DSLR to Mirrorless cameras. Europe’s mirrorless market is also slowly growing. But it’s in North America where Mirrorless cameras still cannot come closer to DSLR sales. Hard to say for me why it is so. Wrong marketing, different culture., or something else…you guess :)

Unlike the GF series Panasonic is investing a lot of marketing money on the new GM1 “philosophy”. At least in Japan Panasonic invested a lot to change their image and with the Gm1 release they also launched a new website: http://lumixgm.tumblr.com. The famous Japanese actress Haruka Ayase is sponsoring the GM events (http://panasonic.jp/dc/gm1/event/). This is just to make you understand that like the GH series the GM could mark the beginning of a new much bigger vision on high quality “miniature” mirrorless cameras.

GM1 preorder list:
In US at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
In Europe at Amazon Germany, Wex Germany, Amazon UK, Fotohanskeuzekamp, Cyberphoto Sweden and Wex UK.

It’s Sunday morning here in Eruope and if you want something new to play with click over at the new Olympus E-M1 and Lens Matcher simulation: http://cameras.olympus.com/en-us/omd/lenses.

For German readers: 200 Euro off on the E-M5 kit (See dealsrunner).

P.S.: play with that one too: http://guesstheformat.com/photo

The Sony-Olympus partnership makes it possible for Olympus to joint the FF world. While I don’t know if this will happen (and if it makes sense at all) the people on the web is already starting to dream their Olympus FF cameras. So here is the first Olympus E-7F designed by one of our 43rumors readers. Feel free to send me your Olympus FF designs if you want them to be posted here!

Puget Sound Sunset – BMPCC RAW from Forrest Burger on Vimeo.

Panasonic GM1 image samples at Pixinfo.
Nachteule E-M1 (Pen And Tell).
Olympus Stylus 1 Review (Photographyblog).
Sony A7r, Fuji X-E2, Panasonic GH3 – DOF and Noise comparisons (Soundimagesplus).
Panasonic GX7 Notes: Big Noise about Noise (TheOnlinePhotographer).
Olympus Partners with Denis O’Regan (Photographyblog).
GX7 test by BMCR.
Insectography with the Olympus 60mm macro at Samudranil.
Best lenses for the Olympus OM-D EM-1 (DxOmark).

Samyang released a new lens designed for ASP-C system cameras and it will come with native MFT mount too. It’s the 10mm f/2.8 ED AS NCS CS lens and will ship from January. Full press release and image samples (on APS-C cameras) can be seen at Samyang-europe.com.

And this is the official video: