Rumors summary (and message for all anonymous rumor sources)

First off: Thanks for sending me rumors! Every rumor you send helps me to get closer to the real Panasonic and Olympus intentions.

During the last weeks I received many anonymous rumors sent trough our contact form. Many of them I didn’t post because I am asking my trusted sources for more informations. Sometimes I want to write you back but if you don’t share your email address that’s impossible. If you want your rumor to be posted try to create a fake gmail account I can use to answer you and make you some questions. That would help me a lot. Thanks!

What kind of rumors did I receive? Some about the E-5 some about the next Olympus PEN some about the Pansonic MFT series and some about Sigma (yes Sigma). Maybe in one of our next posts I will post all this rumors under a “FT2 value” (from unknown and unreliable source).

And now the summary:

Panasonic:
I expect an announcement for early March, probably during the first week of March as I expect the new products to be shown at the Panasonic UK event. As you know the Panasonic G1 has been officially discontinued in Japan. Honestly I can’t imagine the G2 to be just a little upgraded “G1”. That wouldn’t be enaugh. With the recent release of the Olympus E-PL1 Panasonic needs to add a Low-Budget MFT camera in their line. And I expect Panasonic to fill the gap. A new compact camera (LX5?) could also be announced.
We will definitely see new Panasonic MFT lenses. There is no secret here, they already announced them a while ago.

Olympus:
After receiving a storm of E-5 rumors it has been really quiet since two weeks. This made me a little bit suspicious and I am trying to understand what’s going on. Anyway the latest info I received from a good source was that there will be a High-End FourThirds camera soon (probably late March).
Today we received some info about the next Olympus PEN camera. We still need to check the rumor with known sources but I believe Olympus could unveil one more PEN during the next 2-3 months.

I finish saying thanks to all of you supporting our website trough your shopping. If you start your shopping using our links to the affiliated shops you help us because we receive a small commisison for it. That’s a clever way to support us because you don’t need to give us any penny to enjoy our website!

Have a nice day!
Ale

Panasonic and Sony playing cat and mouse.


Panasonic and Sony are already BIG players in the video digital camera market. The problem for Sony is that the  Panasonic GH1 had an incredible success and Sony has nothing to compete against. As reported by SonyAlphaRumors Sony is waiting for the GH2 release before to unveil their direct competitor.

We made a comparison of the two future competirors based on the unconfirmed and unreliable rumors we recieved until today:

Panasonic GH2 Sony NEX7
14-15 Megapixel sensor 14 Megapixel sensor
1080 60/50p recording 1080 60/50i (or progressive?) recording
AVCHD at 28Mbit/s XDCAM at 35Mbit/s
Autofocus: contrast autofocus Autofocus: Sensor based phase detection?

March announcements summary…

We posted so many rumors during the last weeks that it might be a good idea to make a clarifying summary of the possible March announcements:

1) Panasonic will announce compact camera(s), MicroFourThirds camera(s) and Lenses on early March. Very likely the first week of March.

2) Olympus could announce one or more new FourThirds cameras in March (late March?)

3) Noktor will unveil the new 50mm f/0.95 lens with MicroFourThirds mount on March 1.

4) Samyang will release new FourThirds lenses in March

(FT4) Correction -> Panasonic announcement early March.

UPDATE: We just recieved more informations from our sources. The announcement will be made early March and not next week. There have been a mistake with two sources! It happens rarely but it happens.

Panasonic seems to be ready to announce a LOT of stuff! Compact camera/s new MicroFourThirds camera and lenses.

(FT3) Probably no GH2 with 60p/50p but a G2 with video recording is going to be unveiled. There is also a fair chance to see the new LX3 successor with backlight sensor.

If you want and can help us send us your news/rumors at 43rumors@gmail.com. Thanks!

(FT5) UPDATED: New Olympus teaser….for a new website :(

Olympus Malaysia launched a new website with the following teaser: http://www.evolve.com.my/.

But CNET Asia learned that this is not a teaser for a new product announcement:”We got back to Olympus Singapore which told CNET Asia that the microsite is just part of the company’s marketing scheme for the already-announced E-PL1 Micro Four Thirds camera. Also, no new dSLRs are expected on February 28.

[Thanks Sam and Thanks Leonard Goh from CNET Asia]

(FT3) New dual exposure technique sensor for the GH2?

The website EOShd.com reported what Panasonic engineer T. Azuma’s said during the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in San Francisco (which took place last week).

Basically Azuma says that Panasonic developed a sensor based on ‘dual exposure technique’ which improves the sensitivity by a factor of 4. This goal has been archived allowing green pixels to be read independently of the blue and red ones on the sensor. They are exposed four times longer than the red and blue pixels.

More details on EOShd.com.