a little bit of everything…

another video by Jamie MacDonald about the opportunity to provide feedback to Olympus engineers in Japan.

The GX7 vs the OM-D E-M5, battle for my affection, Round 3 – IQ, Interface, Features and the Final Decision (tysonrobichaudphotography)
Voigtlander 42.5mm f/0.95 Nokton Lens Review at ePhotozine.
Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens review at Soundimagesplus.
GF6 review at Der Spiegel.
Olympus PEN E-P5 Offer (ePhotozine).
Panasonic GM1 image samples by Mapcamera.
E-M1 vs E-M5 image stabilziation test by Pekka Potka.
Olympus Stylus 1 Hands-On Preview (ePhotozine).
Olympus stand in Paris by OpenPn.
Win An Olympus Camera With Olympus Impressions (ePhotozine).
Photo Ninja – Some comments from Jim Christian, the developer at Soundimagesplus.
GX7 review at Neocamera.
The top 10 cameras of 2013 by Photographytalk.
GM1 test by DCfever.
2013 Rueckblick by SystemKameraForum.

 

Long exposure issues on the E-M1 (and a first HLD-7 grip impression review)


Olympus OM-D EM-1 / EM-5 “Live Time” Long Exposure Demonstration by Kevin (doesn’t show any issue)

Long exposure issues on the E-M1:
As discussed on Flickr (Click here) and MU43 (Click here) the E-M1 seems to have a fairly worse long expsoure performance than the E-M5. Don’t know if the mentioned issues can be solved via firmware upgrade. One of the commenters said that he received an email From Olympus:

“They had sent my samples off to Germany/Japan and now had an answer. They’re just telling me that unfortunately there will be no fix for the long exposure noise. The advice from Olympus is to make sure NR is enabled or left on AUTO at all times”

And our reader Knut shared his HLD-7 grip impression review:

Took some pictures of it with different lenses, and added a set on Flickr;
http://www.flickr.com/photos/knutivars/sets/72157637489250755/

My thoughts are:
Grip is VERY good. It’s not small, but it’s meant to provide a good grip for use with all the different lenses – which it does perfectly. Used it on a studio-shoot today, and it was lovely to use. It makes the camera kinda huge and will match sufficiently with the FL-50R. The E-M1 can be a small and anonymous camera when you’re out and about – e.g at a restaurant, but It can also be made into a tank of a camera – providing pro features in a compact body. That’s one reason why I love it. The improvements over E-M5 are also welcome – and not only feature-vise like the faster shutter, low-iso and focus-peaking, but things like button-layout and response of the camera when using dials and buttons.

Secondly – I hope there will be a firmware up soon; The C-AF and continuous tracking could use a fine-tune, along with a few other features;
* WiFi app for PC – Allowing tethering.
* Same exposure on different aperature-settings when zooming with a not-constant aperature zoom, like the 14-54, 50-200, 40-150, etc..; by ISO compensation.
* Exposure compensation in manual mode with Auto-ISO.
* 25fps video (again).

Olympus have to remember – this is a pro camera with a longer time at market – and any updates are welcome by the users.

—-

E-M1 Store Links:
Olympus E-M1 body at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto, Amazon DE (via DL), Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL), WexUK, Topshot FI, CameraWorldUK.
Olympus M. Zuiko Digital ED 12-40mm f/2.8 PRO Lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, AmazonDE (viaDL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-40mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK and CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-50mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK, CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus EP-13 Eyecup for E-M1 at Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus HLD-7 Battery Grip for E-M1 at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus LC-62D Metal Front Lens Cap for 12-40mm at Adorama and BHphoto.
Olympus LH-66 Lens Hood for 12-40mm at Adorama and BHphoto.

New Kowa Micro Four Thirds Cine lenses announced.

Newsshooter at Interbee 2013: Kowa Micro 4/3 lenses cine lenses from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Kowa announced a couple of new Micro Four Thirds Cine lenses. The optical design is based on their current industrial lenses. What changes is the lens body (focus ring, mount and so on). As far a s I could see from the video on top there will be five new lenses:
8.5mm T/3.0
12mm T/1.9
16mm T/1.6
25mm T/1.9
50mm T/2.1

No price and release info were given yet.

video found via Newsshooter. Thanks!

Funny running GH3 rig picture :)

BHphoto (Click here) published that funny picture of a running GH3 rig combo :)
That said the rest of the article about the art of Shooting Video with the Panasonic GH3 is a must read!

And if you speak German read the article about “Professionelle Kinoproduktion mit Lumix GH3” at Photoscala (Click here).

Jack:  “today CreativeLive will host a live presentation about using GH3 with John Greengo: http://www.creativelive.com/courses/fast-start-panasonic-gh-3-john-greengo. I’m really looking forward to what this guy has to say.  He’s more of a traditional photographer.  He has done a session like this with E-M5 before.

Blackmagic Camera v1.5 released (Adds lossless DNG RAW support)

Image of the Pocket camera with RAW(!). Thanks Rinaldo Lima for the pic!

Blackmagic Camera v1.5 has just been released. You can download it here: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/support

Kristian Lam from Blackmagic writes:

This update adds lossless CinemaDNG RAW support to the Pocket Cinema Camera. We recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro 64GB SD card if you’re going to be recording RAW.
The lossless CinemaDNG RAW will work in DaVinci Resolve and applications from Adobe like Photoshop and Lightroom. However, the Preview and Quick Look feature in OS X is not compatible and you will not see a proper image. This has been reported to Apple. Hopefully, they will have an update that will address this.

via Blackmagicdesignforum.

P.S.: Blackmagic Pocket Cinema orders in USA at Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and in Germany at Technikdirekt, in France at pbs-video. In Sweden at macoteket.

First image of the Nocticron 42,5mm f/1.2 on the Panasonic GX7.

Someone at Mobile01.com posted this picture of the soon to be released Leica-Panasonic Nocticron 42,5mm f/1.2 MFT lens on the Panasonic GX7. I hope the person will soon share some image samples taken with that combo. It looks like a beast of a lens that makes even the GX7 look too small and unbalanced.

The Nocticron will be released in early 2014. Price is still unknown. For comparison only: A Full Frame Canon 85mm f/1.2 lens costs around $2,200 ay Amazon (Click here). Hope the Nocticron will cost much much much less!

P.S. For German readers: Gold Box deal on the Olympus E-PM2 (Click here)!!!