Image courtesy: DSLRmagazine

Last week Panasonic Mangers Michiharu Uematsu and Yoshiyuki Inoue have been interviewed by the DPreview team and they admitted that they are rethinking the whole G product strategy. Today DSLRmagazine (translation here) also posted an interview with Mr. Uematsu and another part with Mr. Terada from Olympus. Here are the key info:

Panasonic:
– When asked if the new Kodak-JK Imaging MFT camera couldn’t bee lower the image of the Micro Four Thirds system (because of the Chinese manufacturer) the answer was “no”. Kodak has a big name.
– The GH3 is a clearly positioned product while the rest of the G MFT series isn’t. There is a huge competition and there is no clear target about what kind of features and specs the future G cameras should have.
– Different countries also like different cameras. So it’s hard to develop and make a universal G camera.
– Uematsu believes that there will be a considerable group of DSLR owners that will switch on High End Mirrorless cameras. 43rumros note: It clearly sounds once again that Panasonic wants to play a role in the (semi-)pro digital camera world.
– The good news is that Panasonic lens sales are good and particularly the two constant zooms are welling well.
Olympus:
– A Tilt Shift lens has very low priority for Olympus.
– It is highly Unlikelye that a Optical Viewfinder with a Digital Trans Panel like the one used by the Fuji X20 is going to be used by Olympus.

One more thing: Terada also explained that the ideal time for product launch is Spring and Autumn. That’s why there were no new MFT camera announced for the CP+ show. So let’s wait for spring and the new PEN with built-in EVF :)
And…what are your thoughts on those news coming from Panasonic and Olympus?

That you don’t have to own the latest and most expensive stuff to create an exceptional work should now be obvious for everyone. I use my Olympus E-P1 on daily basis and plenty of filmmakers still do some amazing shots on the now very cheap Panasonic GH2. Nofilmschool (Click here) spotted a couple of new movies entirely shot on the GH2. The one I embedded here on top of this post is the trailer of “Upstream Color” that has been shown at the Sundance film festival.

Great work! And do you still want the GH3? :)

GH2 vs GH3 price comparison:
GH2 at [shopcountry 16254] GH3 at [shopcountry 33624]P

Olympus OMD5 and FL-50 electronic flash

60mm lens test by Lepidi (translation here).
GH3 test bei DerSpiegel (in German).
A Shift Adapter from Kenko at DC.watch.
75mm lens review by MicroFourThirdsinfo.

Hajdu Tamás: “Hi, I’m an old reader of your blog. I was thinking that maybe you are interested in a photo taken with an Olympus OMD and Panasonic 14mm f2.5 goal, that has become a finalist in the Sony World Photography Awards in the category Travel http://worldphoto.org/images/image/457624/?FromImageGalleryID=16047”

Michael: “I see you’re posting more reviews of the much-maligned Olympus 17mm F1.8 as they trickle in. I’ve had this lens for a week and I find it is plenty sharp for my needs, which are mostly video-related. It’s early days, but I believe the question of sharpness will be an non-issue for video shooters.
You can see my first video test with it here: https://vimeo.com/58682286”

Rachid: “Just to share with you a work entirely done on a Panasonic GH2 camera. It’s a trailer for a movie-play (movie sequences – memories of the main character – are projected during a play) called Quai 33. I hope you’ll enjoy it.
https://vimeo.com/58508982”

Hehku: “It is up to you if you think this is worth posting but in Finland, you can get
E-PM1 + 14-42mm R II for 250 EUR
Olympus 12-50mm for 199 EUR
Olympus 75-300mm for 499 EUR
(and the Sigma 19/30mm for 109 EUR)
The store is at www.topshot.fi.”

Sometimes you find very exotic and unexpected patents like this one from Olympus (Source: Egami). And it was even a bigger surprise after learning that actually a camera having a feature like this already exists…it is the Casio EX-ZR1000. Basically it’s a feature where you can shoot multiple pictures in a sequence and different focus points to obtain an all sharp image.

Son’t know how many of you would find this useful but to have a feature like this doens’t hurt :)

There is a MFT camera announced at Photokina that still ins’t in Stock yet. It is the Blackmagic MFT camcorder. The good news is that John Browley posted that image of the just received Blackmagic MFT camera (discussion at forum.blackmagicdesign / found via Slashcam).  If you preordered the camera you may receive it soon too!

Something that isn’t shipping yet is the Kipon adapter with full electronic control. Don’t know why there is a delay and I see only the manual adapters listed on [shoplink 20746 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].. You got some info about that?

Small update about the new Nokton lens. Unlike the Panasonic 42,5mm f/1.2 lens (that is likely to hit the market in early 2014 only) Voigtlander-Cosina will ship the lens from this summer. Price is yet unknown although we can easily guess it will be priced at around $1200 like the current 17mm lens. Save this search on Slidoo to be notified when the lens will be available for preorder on eBay.

Reminder: These are for now the only image samples I found on the web. Please let me know if you can find more of them. Thanks!
F/0.95: http://bbs.kakaku.com/bbs/K0000145739/SortID=15702607/ImageID=1443875/
F/1.4: http://bbs.kakaku.com/bbs/K0000145739/SortID=15702607/ImageID=1443878/
F/2.0: http://bbs.kakaku.com/bbs/K0000145739/SortID=15702607/ImageID=1443881/

For the record. These are the five f/o.95 lenses:
Nokton 25mm f/0.95 ([shoplink 36580 ebay]here one Bay[/shoplink]).
Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 ([shoplink 36581 ebay]here one Bay[/shoplink]).
Nokton 42.5mm f/0.95 (not in Stock yet, save this search for notification).
SLRmagic 50mm f/0.95 ([shoplink 29455 ebay]here one Bay[/shoplink]).
SLRmagic 25mm f/0.95 (not in Stock yet, save this search for notification).

The German company Ibe Optics announced a new 26mmf /1.4 lens. You can download the Lens – Datasheet, German (2347kB) to read more about the specs. And yes, this is the same company that created the Ibelux 40mm f/0.85 lens with Kenko.

Source: ibe-optics.com