3200 ISO Panasonic AF100 from Philip Bloom on Vimeo.

Philip Bloom just posted a short impression about the 3 days spent with the new [shoplink 16841]Panasonic AG-AF100[/shoplink]: “I have shot a little footage at 3200 ISO and it looks pretty damn good! Great to have features on the camera that I miss SOOOOO much on my DSLRs. Great to have a 4 setting ND filter wheel. Great to have a really good quality waveform, XLR inputs, zebras, headphone jack (!), the list goes on and on…stuff I struggle with not having on my DSLRs. It seems to have less digital noise than my 5dmk2”

The video he posted above has been made using the M mount Voigtlander 50mm 1.1 ([shoplink 17015]click here to see the current lens auctions and price on eBay[/shoplink]) and a Fotodiox adapter.

Filippo Chiesa compared the Panasonic AG-AF100 with the Canon 5DmarkII and said: “The new Panny is terrific: no aliasing, no moiré, the rolling shutter is present but minimum, great resolution.
The release in my hands, is not the definitive one and there are some bugs in the menu (the variable frame rate doesn’t work, for example) but I’m in love with this baby.“. You can see the comparison video on vimeo (Click here).

Reminder: You can preorder the [shoplink 16841]Panasonic AG-AF100 at BHphoto (Click here)[/shoplink]. BHphoto ships to Europe too and they can calculate the taxes and shipment costs for you.

Quesabesde published a complete Olympus E-5 review. They posted many RAW images you can download and analyze for yourself. Conclusion: “The E-5 is a good camera, but if all the hype mounted on the future of the system were not enough, the launch price is one of its main problems. Those 1,700 euros seem simply misplaced.”
Also the japanese website DC.watch.impress tested the new E-5. They published a huge ammount of image samples.
Olympus Japan confirmed the E-5 worldwide launch date. It’s October the 29th.
Baikal (dpreview forum) posted few pics taken with the new Olympus 40-140 lens: “My first impressions are that the lens can focus easily 2 to 3 times faster than the kit lens.”

Olympus E-5 preorders at: Amazon US, BHphoto, Adorama and Amazon DE.
Olympus 40-140mm lens is in Stock at Amazon and Adorama.

Panasonic GH2:

Diwa-awards tested the new Panasonic GH2. You can see the Lab-results here: www.diwa-awards.net. Compared with the GH1 lab results the GH2 shows a less noice and higher dynamic range. Color fidelity is about the same with the GH1.

Panasonic GH2 preorders at: Amazon US, BHphoto, Amazon UK, Amazon France.

GH2 Pre Prod SW V.0.2 loded as .mts org at 1080 24P from katten bjornen on Vimeo.

Katten Bjoernen used the new Panasonic 100-300mm lens. He also alerts you that: “This is not proper way to make any conclusion. This is prematur in all what that words stands for.
When i get 1.0 SW there will a better version to make conclusion out from.” Meanwhile also Hybridcams.fr posted some image samples taken with the new Panasonic GH2.

Panasonic GH2 preorders at: Amazon US, BHphoto, Amazon UK, Amazon France.

Panasonic 100-300mm preorders at: Amazon US, Amazon Deutschland.

Below a new Olympus E-5 video taken in Iceland!

Some more E-5 news: Ibarionex Perello posted the second part of his Olympus E-5 review and Fotopolis posted a nine page long E-5 review. On dpreview forum a user posted a E-5 vs E-620 vs Canon EOS 1D Mark IV ISO 3.200 comparison. Another comparison has been posted on Fotoactualidad.

Olympus E-5 preorders at: Amazon US, BHphoto, Adorama.

The [shoplink 16930]TTH Cooke Vidital 1.3/30mm lens[/shoplink] is handamade lens and this is the first time we see a UK made lens on a Micro Four Thirds camera! As the author says: “You can´t find a second of this lenses in a helix like this, it is nearly unpossible to find a 30mm Vidital. It is a really unique lens.” You can see a set of image samples on Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cinegon/

That is the tetx posted by the author on [shoplink 16930]eBay[/shoplink]: “I made a helicoil by my self, I´am using a brass/alumium combination to make it very solid, this helix allows a focus range between infinity- ~ 12cm. So it is useable as a macro lens too. The helix has no stop position to close focus, so it is possible to use the full lenght of it, for the future it is easy to unscrew it when a cleaning or new lube is needed. The focus ring has six screw sticks for an easy handling, the aperture ring has a large diameter too, believe me, it is perfect for handlig, specially for movie making. The lens is useable with MFT cameras without any dark corners in all modes. The lens has a wonderfull bokeh, better then the Speed Panchros has. The lens is 100% made in England.

The lens were made in a time when TTh and the American lens makers decide to engrave the lenses with the transmitted speed, so it is marked with T1.5 the F speed is F1.3 Later TTH went back to the F stop engraving because the Japanese and German lens makers do it also and a lens with F1.3 is better for selling than one with T1.5.”

Quesabesde tested the new Panasonic GH2 (Click here to read the google english translation). You can download many images taken with the new Panasonic lenses (The [shoplink 16264]12.5mm 3d[/shoplink] lens, the [shoplink 16258]14mm[/shoplink] and the [shoplink 16261]100-300mm[/shoplink] lens).

The most interesting news are:
– The GH2 will be available in December (In Europe)
– The camera has the firmware version 0.2
– Panasonic ensured that the redesign of the circuitry of the sensor and image processor has improved sensor performance over the previous model in regard to noise control.
– The contrast autofocus speed is over four times faster than the contrast AF of the Canon 5D and seven time faster than the [shoplink 14908]Sony NEX-5[/shoplink]!

There are three more new GH2 videos on vimeo:
http://vimeo.com/15826890
http://www.vimeo.com/15734423
http://www.vimeo.com/15735420

Preorder the GH2 at:
Amazon US, BHphoto, Amazon UK, Amazon France

Preorder the new 12.5mm 3D lens at:
Amazon US, BHphoto, Amazon Deutschland, Amazon France

Preorder the 14mm f/2.5 lens at:
Amazon US, BHphoto, Amazon Deutschland

Preorder the 100-300mm O.I.S. lens at:
Amazon US, Amazon Deutschland

Panasonic AG AF-100 01/02 evaluation footage by CREWS.TV from Yves Simard on Vimeo.

Finally we have a first AG-AF100 sample footage! The video has been posted by CREWS.TV on vimeo and that’s what they have written:

“This is an independent evaluation by members of CREWS.TV of the [shoplink 16841]Panasonic AG AF 101/102 micro 4/3 camera[/shoplink].

This test was done purely as an experiment to evaluate its performance as a Film making /Television production tool. We did not test it against charts or other cameras, we simply took it for a test drive in what we thought would be its optimal conditions. Our goal was not to find its faults or decide its place in the market nor was it to choose sides in the ever political best camera debates. We are cinematographers who love their craft and love the tools that give us this ability.

We only had the camera for a few hours so we decided to keep it simple.

The camera is capable of 35mm lenses, so we used a [shoplink 16898]PL adapter[/shoplink] and [shoplink 15756 ebay]Zeiss Ultra Primes[/shoplink] , choosing from our set as we saw fit on the day. We chose to record on the on-board SD cards with the AVCHD codec at 24 mbs but we also opted to use the HDSDI output, recording at 100 mbs on the AVC Intra HD codec to P2 cards. We opted to do this rather than recording to Nanoflash simply to keep it all Panasonic native.

We chose this work-flow as we simply wanted to see this camera in the very best light possible.

We also had a sound recordist on location who used a dual channel radio link to the camera via its standard XLR inputs.

This is a prototype, so there were some technical issues, Panasonic assured us that it would be rectified in the production model. Our test scenes had to be limited to indoor locations as a consequence. It was a temperature related issue.

This footage is edited from the 100mbs files, ingested and edited natively mainly because it was easy. This footage was not graded, altered or manipulated, straight off the files and exported to Vimeo for your viewing pleasure. In fact we even used the natural sound rather than using music so that you can evaluated the footage for yourself.

A full report on our website crews.tv

Click here to read it AF-100 storm gathers. crews.tv/​blog/​2010/​10/​12/​af100-storm-gathers/”

Reminder: [shoplink 16841]BHphoto has an exclusive preorder offer on the AG-AF100 (Click here)[/shoplink]!

A fake GF2 created by blog.livedoor.jp

In an interview with DSLRmagazine Sven Dabelstein, Anne Guennewig and Monica Puértolas from Panasonic confirmed that the upcoming Panasonic GF2 will not have the new GH2 18 megapixel multiaspect sensor. They also said that they didn’t want to give that sensor to Olympus for the Olympus E-5 because “each firm should reserve a space to develop differentiated products with unique technologies.“. They cannot say now if the Micro F0ur Thirds 25mm f/1.4 will be a Leica labeled lens like the current [shoplink 16340]Panasonic/Leica 25mm f/1.4 for Four Thirds[/shoplink]. They are also playing with the idea to make Tilt-Shift lenses.