There have been some new rumors about the competition during the last 24 hours. Before that I can tell you that other soruces confirmed the Panasonic and Olympus announcement dates. June 13 for Pana and June 30 for Oly. So be prepared to follow the announcement live on 43rumors on those days!

1) Pentax will launch a 12 Megapixel APS-C mirrorless camera in August (MirrorlessRumors.com via Photorumors)
2) Sony NEX-C3 will be announced on Wednesday June 8 (SonyAlphaRumors.com)

The real suprise is that Canon seems to have no plan to make a mirrorless system at all! Anyway, I hope Olympus and Panasonic do recognize that they are not alone anymore. It’s time for them to bring some real r-evolution!

Zone-10 (Click here) wrote down his mix of speculations/predictions about the upcoming Olympus cameras:
“No less than two distinctly different prototypes have been seen in the wild. One has a built-in EVF, the other not. M43 line-up will be expanded to three cameras with presence in the low, mid and high price ranges”
But Olympus future success doesn’t only depend from the quality of their products:
“In fact, as Olympus market share and overall sales has continued to drop, even a successful product launch will most certainly still end up a failure because Olympus Sales and Marketing–especially Olympus America, is unable to get product out to where the buyers are.”
And to scare our Four Thirds readers the article ends with that sentence:
“It is very obvious that Four-Thirds is dead, dead, dead.”

Now let’s hope Olympus will not disappoint us on June 30. That would be a good start to get back some of the share they have lost during the last years!

So here we are, tomorrow (June 8) Sony will announce the new ultra compact NEX-C3 (you can follow the announcement on MirrorlessRumors.com). And five days later (June 13) Panasonic will launch the counterattack and announce the new ultra-compact GF3. A fully touchscreen oriented device which is around 15% smaller than the current GF2. It should have almost exactly the same [shoplink 22077]Panasonic G3[/shoplink] specs. We also heard that the price will be very similar to the original GF2 price ($699 with kit lens). The GF3 is that tiny that the mount is higher than the camera itself. Sources that have seen the camera said that it is an ugly looking camera :)

Panasonic will also launch the Panasonic-Leica 25mm f/1.4 Micro Four Thirds lens. Hope to get some info about the price soon. But it should be definitely cost less than the discontinued Four Thirds Leica 25mm which costs around $1000 dollar/euro on [shoplink 16340 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. Don’t know if many of you will buy the lens when you can get a much cheaper and unlike the Leica lens much more compact [shoplink 14796]20mm f/1.7 lens[/shoplink]. It will be interesting to see if that lens will become are hotseller or not!

Reminder -> 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

Image on top: The E-30 sensor (not the rumored new one!)

I got two small rumors from reliable sources. They told me that the real new highlight of the upcoming new Olympus cameras is the sensor. All new upcoming PEN’s will use completely new sensors. I want to remind you that a very reliable source told me weeks ago that Olympus has designed their first sensor which will be produced by Panasonic. So if one plus one makes two than my speculation leads me to believe (or to hope) the Olympus E-P3 could be the very first camera using an own designed Olympus sensor. But that has not been confirmed by my sources yet!
By the way, Olympus has the necessary sensor technology knowledge because they are already using own designed sensors for medical products (See endoscopic stuff). And you can find many sensor patents fulfilled by Olympus (See the last one here at freepatentsonline).

The other news is that the E-P3 will use a dual processor. It will become the very first Oly camera having that. Usually this should be a sign that noise reduction, fps and video quality will be improved. The [shoplink 16254]Panasonic GH2[/shoplink] and [shoplink 22077]G3[/shoplink] for example already do feature a triple processor. UPDATE: The [shoplink 22580 ebay]Olympus SZ-30[/shoplink] is already using a dual processor. It’s not a MFT camera as you knwo but it’s interesting to know that the camera can simultaneously capture full 16 Megapixel still photos and 1080p Full HD movies (Thanks Nomen Oblitum!).

P.S.: I have still no clue if the Olympus will have a built-in viewfinder a la [shoplink 22269 ebay]rangefinder style[/shoplink] or not. Some new sources do say yes, some say no. Sounds like Olympus isn’t sharing detail about that, making anyone guess based on Olympus staff reactions and smiles :)

Links to the:
Olympus SZ-30 at [shopcountry 22580] GH2 at [shopcountry 16254] G3 at [shopcountry 22077] See some rangefinder styled cameras on [shoplink 22269 ebay]aBay (Click here)[/shoplink]

Reminder -> 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

We don’t know the real E-P3 specs yet, so we are free to dream our own perfect E-P3 camera. Here is the question: How should your imaginary E-P3 be?

 Loading ...

According to our source (plus one external soruce at Digicam) Olympus will announce the new PEN mini and the new E-P3 cameras on June 30 (That’s a Thursday). The digicam source still believes that there will be an E-PL3 too. I am still not sure about that. Let’s see what I will get from my sources during the next days…

P.S.: I had three very busy days. I will now read all emails you sent me. Will answer you all :)

A fake E-P3 image made by our reader Leendert (Thanks!)

The most intriguing upcoming Micro Four Thirds product is certainly the new Olympus E-P3. Let’s start with a good news first. Two trusted sources contacted me to say that Olympus organized a huge event for the E-P3 launch. It’s a two day long meeting! Would you organize something like that for if the E-P3 would not be something more than just an updated [shoplink 14830]E-P2[/shoplink]? Certainly not!

And here are the last two rumors I got from new sources. As you can see there is a huge contraddiction:
Source_1: The E-P3 will be released in June. It has an integrated EVF and it will be smaller than E-P2. No on-board flash though.
Source_2: I also can confirm that no one will have an build in viewfinder. Design and features should be a small revolution I heard by Olympus PM.

That’s why I am always careful with new sources! Let’s hope my trusted sources can soon tell us more about the E-P3 and the other mini Pen camera!

P.S.: I got a TERRIFIC rumor about Samsung! Will post that on MirrorlessRumors as soon as I can! Pro photographers will be VERY happy with that news. And Canon-Nikon should be worried for the very first time! This could be the rumor of the year :)