Now Olympus Europe admitted that this was a wrong statement. They now corrected the E-PL5 specification info on the official website and confirmed that the E-PM2, E-PL5 and E-M5 do have the same sensor and the same Anti Aliasing filter. Source: Lepidi (translation here).

Yep, even big companies can do mistakes sometimes. But I am surprised that it took one month(!) to get and admission of error. Oly, you can make it good by leaking us some good news about your future products :)

Image credit: Oly5050 at Clubsnap.

Like it is with me some of you also still don’t know if they should get the Black or Silver E-M5. The best way to help you (and me) is to show you some sexy pictures of the E-M5 with different kind of lenses. Here is the list:
Silver E-M5 with Olympus 12mm at Digitalcamerareview.
Silver E-M5 with Olympus 17mm at ThePhoBlographer.
Silver E-M5 with Olympus 150mm lens at Hwupgrade. SWD link at Amazon.
Black E-M5 with Olympus 150mm lens on Flickr.
Silver E-M5 with Olympus 50mm f/1.8 OM lens at Hwupgrade. OM lens link on [shoplink 32966 ebay]eBay[/shoplink].
Silver E-M5 with Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens on Flickr.
Black E-M5 with Olympus 45mm f/1.8 lens on Flickr.
Black E-M5 with Olympus 35-80mm OM lens on Flickr. OM lens link on [shoplink 32967 ebay]eBay[/shoplink].
Black E-M5 with Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 ZM lens on Flickr. ZM lens link on [shoplink 30081 ebay]eBay[/shoplink].
Black E-M5 with Olympus 60mm macro prototype lens on Flickr.
Black E-M5 with Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 lens on Flickr.
Silver E-M5 with Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 lens on Flickr (Click here).
Black E-M5 with Switar 25mm f/1.4 lens on Flickr. Switar link on [shoplink 32968 ebay]eBay[/shoplink].
Black E-M5 with Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 lens on Flickr.
Silver E-M5 with Olympus 50mm f/2.0 macro Four Thirds lens on Flickr. Macro lens link at Amazon.
Black E-M5 with Leica-Panasonic 25mm f/1.4 Four Thirds lens on Flickr.
Black E-M5 with Olympus 14-35mm f/2.0 Four Thirds lens on Flickr. Lens link at Amazon.
Silver E-M5 with Zeiss 50mm f/1.5 ZM lens on Flickr.

Overall I have to say that it’s safer to go for the Silver E-M5. Black and Silver lenses will loook always good on it!

——–

E-M5 order links:
Amazon, Adorama, B&H, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.

E-M5 Case:
There is the official [shoplink 31898 ebay]CS-36FBC Olympus case[/shoplink]. A [shoplink 31899 ebay]leather half case from Hong Kong[/shoplink]. A full [shoplink 31900 ebay]leather case with strap from Cina[/shoplink]. Than we have half cases from two well known producers, [shoplink 31901 ebay]Zelenpol[/shoplink], [shoplink 31906 ebay]Kaza[/shoplink] and [shoplink 31902 ebay]Gariz[/shoplink].

E-M5 Batteries, and other things:
The [shoplink 31905 ebay]Olympus GS-4 strap[/shoplink] and the [shoplink 31903 ebay]DSTE E-M5 batteries[/shoplink] you have to use with an extra charger. There is an [shoplink 31903 ebay]E-M5 car charger[/shoplink] a [shoplink 31908 ebay]new E-M5 LCD screen[/shoplink] and a [shoplink 31909 ebay]Front Cover+ Top Panel[/shoplink].

Home To Thanksgiving, lithograph by Currier and Ives. (1867) Wikipedia.

This is a short message to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! :)))

—

Black Friday deals: Amazon (cameras), Amazon (all stuff), Adorama, Bhphoto, J&R, TigerDirect, Bestbuy and eBay.

The Hong Kong located company Jackar Optical just announced a new 34mm f/1.8 Micro Four Thirds lens. The lens has manual and mechanical smooth focus and aperture rings. You can read full specs and more at Snapshooter.jackarlens.com. Image samples can also be found on Flickr. The retail price is $190. It will soon be on sale on eBay. Jackar currently sells many adapters and fisheye lenses on [shoplink 35027 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. For a $190 this looks like a well packaged present!

November .. in Milan from Dario Viola on Vimeo.

E-M5 for sport photography at Steve Huff.
Panasonic LX7 review at Imaging Resource.
Scott Rinckenberger is featured on Gizmodo,  shooting Costa Rican beach babes with the E-M5 (Thanks to the anonymous sender of the news)
Nokton 17.5mm lens review by Sgoldswoblog.
XZ-2 review at Photoreview Australia and DC.watch.
60mm macor lens test at Admiringlight.
Panasonic GH3 hands-on at Photographymonthly.
XZ-2 review at Techradar.
Giveaway at Philip Bloom.
Panasonic prepares for “garage sale”, to axe 10,000 jobs (Reuters).

Club Panasonic is running a sale on the Lumix G5 with 1 or 2 lens kits through 1 December 2012.  G5KK prefixed bundles.  The sales range from US $150-250 off list prices, with free shipping.  I haven’t done any checking yet to see how these compare with retailers such as Amazon.  Since they are based on list prices, the online retailers might beat them.
http://shop.panasonic.com/shop/cameras-and-camcorders-lumix-digital-cameras-interchangeable-lens-models?bundle=Yes#?sc_ec=club_DMC-G5_BUNDLES_pcmna_1444902_10162012

Rinaldo: “Hi from Brazil. Not a rumor, just another suggestion for your recent ‘a little bit of everything…’, my first omd small set: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rinaldolima/sets/72157631978982828/with/8173776803/ Cheers!”
Jurek: “Hope all is well with you. I recently flew to Hawaii for nine days and recorded some video of the trip. So this is not a rumor, not a test or review, but it was shot on a m43 camera! Perhaps if you enjoy it and have a slow news day, you are more than welcome to share it with your readers. https://vimeo.com/53177869”

During the latest episode of CameraDiner a Panasonic UK manager unveiled some info about the GH3. Just watch the video on top from minute 21. Some of the highlights:
– The GH3 will start shipping at the end of November.
– Rear display and touch focus shown in use.
– The AA filter in pre-production cameras sent out for review is not the final version.
– No focus peaking for now, but it’s not ruled out for the future.
– Exclusive offer for viewers in the UK from Wilkinson Camera.  Buy the GH3 and get a second battery and 32 GB SD card free with special code.
– HDMI output shown in use (briefly)

GH3 preorders at Amazon , Adorama, Bhphoto, Panasonic US, Samys and in Europe at Wexphotographic UK and Technikdirekt.

Reminder: Panasonic price on the GX1 kit and 45-175mm X lens.

Let’s catch up with some financial news:

Wall Street Journal reports that “Olympus President Hiroyuki Sasa indicated Monday that the company might need further collaboration with Sony to turn around Olympus’s unprofitable compact-camera business.” And Panasonic said that “it will axe another 10,000 jobs” (Source: Reuters).

Overall by reading their reports you will notice that both companies are slowly recovering from the crisis and the forecast is positive. And coming back to Sony’s and Olympus compact-camera strategy…does it make sense to keep their foot in such dying business? The only kind of compact camera that still can stand up against the cameraphones may be the Sony RX100. P.S.: The XZ-1 sells fine (ranking here) but Olympus had to cut the price down to $199 and I doubt they will have some margin on this.

But again, I am not an expert in these kind of analysis. May you can add some more value to that discussion by commenting this post!