Yesterdays announcement was focused on the new Panasonic AVC PRO technology more than on real products. The new camcorder announcements will probably follow soon.

Sources told me that the new AVC PRO compression scheme will be implemented in future business and consumer camcorders. AVC PRO will be available in early 2013. The new cameras that will be unveiled for the NABshow can be upgraded to AVC-Ultra in 2013. It has to be seen yet if the AG-AF100 successor and the GH3 will include the new compression technology. We will probably know more about the products on Tuesday April 17th when Panasonic will have the official press session at the NAB show (at 03:40 PM Las Vegas time).

Meantime here are some info about AVC-Ultra via Wikipedia (Click here):
“The Panasonic AVC-Ultra family defines an additional three new encoding parameters within the MPEG-4 Part 10 standard, utilizing up to the 4:4:4 Intra Predictive Profile, as well as an additional low bitrate proxy recording mode.
The most efficient new parameter within AVC-Ultra is by Panasonic called, AVC-LongG. AVC-LongG enables compression of video resolutions up to 1920×1080 @ 23.97, 25 and 29.97p, with 10 bits of pixel depth at 4:2:2 color sampling, at data rates as low as 25 Mbit / sec.
More over, the AVC-Intra Class 50/100 is now extended to Class 200 and Class 4:4:4. The Class 200 mode extends the bitrate to 226 Mbit / sec for 1080/23,97p, while the Class 4:4:4 extends the possible resolution from 720p to 4K with pixel depths at 10 and 12 bits.
The bitrate settings for Class 4:4:4 varies between 200 and 440 Mbit / sec depending on the resolution, frame rate and bit depth. Both the Class 200 and the Class 4:4:4 are Intra-only coding modes.
The AVC-Proxy mode enables extremely fast ENG content delivery and offline edits of 720p and 1080p video at bitrates varying between 800 Kbit to 3,5 Mbit / sec at 8 bits of pixel depth.”

More info about yesterdays Panasonic announcement at Tvtechnology (Click here).

Click on picture to see the full size version

Oly5050 from Clubsnap (Click here) posted a set of nice pictures of the new E-M5 along the superb Carl Zeiss Sonar f/1.5 (on the left of the image) and the upcoming new Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens. That lens will arrive this summer and NOT be weather sealed. The exact price is unknown but it will be certainly higher than the Olympus 45mm f/1.8 price ($399 at Amazon now). Some unconfirmed rumors from external websites say the price in between $700-$800. The lens is so good on the new [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink]!

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Here are two more pictures (Click on them to enlarge):

E-M5 (Pre)order links (Click on store name): Amazon, Adorama, B&H, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.

Today Rankings:
USA: E-M5 on position 8/13 (Click here)
UK: E-M5 bad ranked (Click here).
Germany: The E-M5 is on position 4 (Click here).
France: not available (Click here to see rankings anyway).
Japan: E-M5 on position 6/13/16 (Click here).

Over 6,400 unique voters selected the favorite future Micro Four Thirds lens wish list. You can see the poll and full results here: https://www.43rumors.com/poll-vote-your-future-micro-four-thirds-wish-list/.

While this doesn’t pretend to be a scientific analysis there are certainly some general tendency we can extract from the results:
1) There is a high need for high quality zooms. Currently the m43 systems offers many zoom lenses but none is really fast. And that is something our m43 readers highly do miss.
2) The most requested lens is the Micro Four Thirds version of the popular [shoplink 23681 ebay]Four Thirds 12-60mm f/2.8-3.5 weather sealed[/shoplink]. The current 12-50mm slow zoom isn’t enough for you!
3) While Panasonic is about to launch their f/2.8 X zoom lenses the 43rumors readers are still demanding faster f/2.0 zooms. Probably influenced by the superb (and expensive) [shoplink 25320 ebay]Olympus 14-35mm[/shoplink] and [shoplink 25119 ebay]35-100mm f/2.0[/shoplink] lenses you asked for new m43 12-35mm f/2.0, 12-50mm f/2.0 and 35-100mm f/2.0 zooms. I asked you to take into consideration that those lenses would be very expensive. I hope your emotional part of the brain didn’t fully overrun the logic :)
The Olympus 14-35mm f/2.0 costs over $2,000 at Amazon right now (Click here). So be prepared to pay a lot for these lenses if Olympus/Panasonic will ever release them for real!
4) The most requested prime lenses are the 17mm f/1.4 and 25mm f/1.2 weather sealed high quality lenses. I voted for them too ;)
5) Interesting to notice that the most requested pancakes are again having the same focal length of the top quality primes: 17mm f/2.0 and 25mm f/1.8 pancake.

Overall high quality and weather sealed lenses with wide up to normal focal length and fast aperture are requested. Surprisingly there is not a high demand for tele lenses. Do you found other interesting aspects from the poll results?

P.S.: Thank you all for the talking part in this. If I get soem feedback from Olympus/Panasonic soruces I will let you know what they think about it!

Back in January Panasonic announced three new converters. But since there I haven’t found any of these in Stock in any country I checked. The Panasonic DMW-GWC1GU wide angle converter is listed at Amazon Germany (Click here) but there is no info about the availability and no preorder option. Did you hear some news about them?

UPDATE: All converters are listed at Panasonic.net (Click here).

Olympus CEO Hiroyuki Sasa

The upcoming new Olympus CEO Hiroyuki Sasa has been interviewed by Japantimes (Click here). He confirms the partnership interest from Fuji and Sony but also underlines the possibility that Olympus may can handle the current financial situation alone without any external help. The very interesting part for us is that Sasa wants to “narrow down our (digital camera) portfolio” and “we can make the (digital camera) business fully profitable.”

Some types of inexpensive compact digital cameras will be withdrawn but at the same time the company also intends to strengthen its popular mirrorless interchangeable lens camera (says Sasa).

As I already wrote many times here there is to much product reiteration and too many similar cameras. Ans example is the absurd triple [shoplink 23565]E-PM1[/shoplink], [shoplink 23567]E-PL3[/shoplink] and [shoplink 23568]E-P3[/shoplink] release. Could be that Olympus wanted to test which one sells more but as I think two PEN cameras would be enough. No need to waste time developing and producing three almost similar PEN cameras. A cheap entry level E-PM1 and an advanced E-P3 (with E-PL3 tilting screen) is all what we need.

For the most advanced user they already made a great camera like the [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink]. I don’t know if there is room for another m43 camera category. I would now focus on two aspects: 1) Sensor: Something special has to be done here like the Fuji X PRO 1 sensor did. 2) Connectivity and Applications: Just look at that new Polaroid camera. It is the future :)

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P.S.: Links to all current Olympus m43 cameras (Click on shopname to open the search page).:
E-M5 [shopcountry 29074].
E-P3 [shopcountry 23568].
E-PL3 [shopcountry 23567].
E-PM1 [shopcountry 23565].

This post will be continually updated! Keep reloading it from time to time  :)

key info and specs

“Newly developed” 12.1 megapixel Live MOS image sensor, Venus Engine VII HD2 processor, ISO 160-12,800, 0.09 second Auto Focus, 1080p Full HD video with stereo sound, available in black, white, red (and in Japan brown and gold too) from June for $749.99 (£579 or 699 Euro) with the 14-42mm X lens and $599 (£449) with the standard 14-42mm lens. The GF5 sensor technolgoy is based on the 16 Megapixel G3 sensor. The new processor can treat highlights and shadows noise differently…it’s called “3DNR” (three-dimensional noise reduction system).

Preorders

GF5 is now available for preorder at Amazon (Click here). In detail:
Black GF5 with 14-42mm or 14-42mmX lens at Amazon (Click here and choose the lens).
White GF5 with 14-42mm or 14-42mmX lens at Amazon (Click here and choose the lens).
Red GF5 with 14-42mm or 14-42mmX lens at Amazon (Click here and choose the lens).
There is no body only option yet :(

Previews

ePhotozine
Openpn (french)
Techradar
Imaging Resource
Which.co.uk (including a video)
Dpreview
Photographyblog

Image samples

ISO test by Openpn (Click and scroll down)
ISO test by Fotopolis
Techradar
ePhotozine (Click and scroll down)
Photographyblog

Videos

Actual Shooting Video on youtube.
Introduction Video on youtube.
preview and hands-on in dutch on youtube.
Test video on youtube.
Miniature Effect in Creative Control on youtube.

Press release

Amateur Photographer
Four Thirds User
Imaging Resource
Systemkameraforum and Photoscala (german)
Bestproduct (dutch)
Focus Numerique (french)
Dpreview
DSLRmagazine and Quesabesde (spanish)
Panasonic Japan and DC.watch (japanese text)
Photographyblog

Poll

Please wait and read carefully the previews and news before you vote and decide!

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Camera images (Click on the them to see the full size image)

Two great cameras side by side. The [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink] and the now in Stock Fuji X PRO 1.

Our reader Berend just sent us the link to the well known German magazine Der Spiegel (Click here). The new Olympus president Hiroyuki Sasa officially reported that he has more than three partnerships offers on his table including Sony, Fujifilm and Terumo! After months of rumors and speculations it is official that two giants like Sony and Fujifilm want to work with Olympus. I know from a poll I posted here months ago that you would prefer a Fuji partnership instead of a Sony. And honestly, I also think so!

I know Fuji is more interested in the medical business but I hope there will be a great partnership in the digital camera business too! Fuji could share his sensor technology with Olympus…that would be great! A Fuji X PRO 1 in m43 version :)

By the way, for those of you interested in the X PRO 1. it’s now in Stock at Amazon US (Click here) and in UK at Jessops (Click here). grwta camera, but with many quirks and flaws (see autofocus for example).