A GX2 Mockup design made by 43rumors reader Mike (Thanks!).

Three announcements are expected to be made within early April and late April (or early May). Two from Panasonic and one from Olympus. Based on what we know so far we will get a GF6 and G7 with new 16 Megapixel sensor and usual improvements on AF, EVF resolution and so on. A new E-P5 with same E-M5 sensor and no integrated viewfinder, a new f/2.8 zoom form Olympus (maybe a weather sealed 12-40mm), a new Black 17mm f/1.8 and If we are really lucky maybe a GX2 with integrated viewfinder too.

So if the rumors are correct…

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I am not sure about this rumor yet but a trusted sources told me that it is highly unlikely the E-P3 successor will feature a completely new sensor. The E-P5 will almost certainly use the same E-M5-E-Pm2-E-PL5 sensor (16 Megapixel). It will be interesting to see if the camera will get rid of the Anti Aliasing filter to squeeze out the last bit of sharpness and resolution.

Anyway, for now those are the posisble characteristics of the new E-P5:
– 16 megapixel sensor
– No integrated viewfinder
– Price around $1,000 with kit lens
– New external viewfinder as optional (2,44 million dot)
– Announcement in late April/early May and availability in June

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Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds):
FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct
FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct
FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct

The original Speed Booster is cool but pricey. There may be a Mitakon clone soon?

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Many 43rumors reader can’t wait to buy the Micro Four Thirds Speed Booster adapter for (preorders here at Metabones). They are coming in April for Nikon, Leica R, Contax C/Y, Contarex, ALPA and Rollei lenses. Those lenses cost something between $399 and $550. If that is too much for you than you may wait for the Mitakon “Speed Booster clone” that are rumored to be released in July. It will be a manual adpater only and priced almost at half of the manual Speed Booster adapters ($200-250 versus the $399 from the Metabones).

This wouldn’t be the first MFT product from Mitakon. They already made a [shoplink 37365 ebay]Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 lens (you can find here on eBay)[/shoplink].

We all know Olympus said they will bring full Four Thirds autofocus support on Micro Four Thirds cameras. And obviously on sensor phase detection is needed to achieve this. But the issue with this is that you have a sort of “waste” of Megapixels because you have to give up some space for the AF pixels. US patent Application Number US20130016274 discloses such a sensor made by Olympus that seems to solve that issue: “To improve autofocusing performance, however, a relatively large number of AF pixels need to be arranged in the image pickup device, and lack of image signal of the AF pixel portions disadvantageously causes degradation of picked-up image quality. For this reason, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2007-155929 proposes a technique for reducing the number of AF pixels by using normal pixels to estimate pixel values for AF pixels.”

This may be the right solution for the high end bridge MFT-FT camera :)

As I told you weeks ago Olympus may introduce a contsant f/2.8 lens soon. Specs are yet unkown but Egami spotted a new Olympus patent that may describes exactly what’s coming. Basically the patent is about the sam lens but in two different variations:

1) 12-40mm f/2.8-40 lens:
39.100mm – f = 12.247 focal length
Fno 2.88 -. 4.08
31.11 ° – 2ω = 88.03 angle
BF 18.407 – 27.202mm
133.86mm – 136.25 Length
Mod 0.35m
15 sheets of 13 group lens configuration
Three six-sided aspherical
3 ED glass sheets

2) 12-40mm with constant f/2.8 aperture.
39.081mm – f = 12.249 focal length
Fno. 2.88
30.85 ° – 2ω = 85.27 angle
BF 16.194 – 16.192mm
131.16mm – 140.24 Length
Mod 0.35m
13 images in 11 groups lens configuration
5 three aspherical surface
3 ED glass sheets

That lens will be certainly weather sealed and a real competitor of the [shoplink 31225]Panasonic 12-35mm X lens[/shoplink].

Bradford at night – An hour at T0.95 from PThirteen DigitalMedia on Vimeo.

Richard just sent me the following message: “I ordered a SLRMagic 25mm hyperprime CINE for MFT on March 12th direct from their website. Even though it says Pre-order on the website, it was in stock in Hong Kong and shipped on the 13th, and I am getting it today! I am in California.” And as I told you before there is a rebate of $150 if you preorder it now (you will pay $650 instead of the original $799 price).

You can order the lens at http://slrmagic.com/products.php

According to multiple top sources we will have at least three announcements between early April and early May:
1) First announcement form Panasonic in early April
2) Second announcement from Panasonic in late April-early May
3) Another announcement from Olympus in late April-early May

Panasonic is likely going to announce a new G and a new GF model. I am still not sure about a possible new GX model although the recent massive price drops suggest that a new camera may be on the horizon. The 42,5mm f/1.2 and the 150mm f/2.8 lens are NOT going to hit the marked for the next 6-8 months.

Olympus is likely to announce the new E-P5 (with no built-in EVF), a new fast f/2.8 zoom, a Black 17mm f/1.8 lens and a new external viewfinder with 2,44 million dots.

What else can we expect? Maybe a new Blackmagic MFT camera with full electronic support, maybe one of the preannounced Schneider lens. Zeiss is NOT going to release a MFT version of their three new primes for the NEX and Fuji X system.

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Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds):
FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct
FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct
FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct