This is the first time I see the Olympus 75mm lens in Stock via third party resellers at Amazon (Click here). A new price drop on the Olympus XZ-1 which now sells for $289 again at Amazon (Click here).
43rumors note:
If you are visiting Photokina and want to share some videos and images you took of the Panasonic and Olympus booth send me a message at 43rumors@gmail.com. I will post links and/or images on 43rumors. Would be nice if you cans end me your name and website link too for an appropriate credit! Thanks!
The video on top has been made by Discovermirrorless (and found ot Smallcamerabigpicture). It is a registration of a live session with Panasonic US managers talking about the GH3. They admit some things about hacking, clean video out and focus peaking (that could arrive via fw update!). UDPATE: Giulio Scorio made a sum of the new info got throught this video:
The GH3 “unofficially” has uncompressed video out. Meaning while its a hardware feature its not one that will be advertised by Panasonic.
The GH3 has multi aspect ratio sensor! But don’t get too excited as the multi aspect function is disabled in the original firmware.
WiFi mode will allow wireless monitoring of video or stills with a tablet or smart phone.
WiFi mode will transfer either raw or jpegs to a tablet or smart phone but if you shoot raw+jpeg you can’t just transfer jpegs, you must transfer both.
WiFi mode can automatically upload jpegs to social media.
UPDATE: Uematsu confirmed at Techradar that “focus peaking could be added with a firmware upgrade“.
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Something else. Got a mail from 43urmors reader Jupiter: “My video made it to the finals @RODE ROCUMENTARY and it’s the only one made on a Hacked GH2. Bruce Logan ASC commented it as “unique look”. Right now, it’s all down to voting. Any way you can help out?? ink: http://www.rodemic.com/rockumentary/47866136 (via Personalview)”
It doesn’t happen often that I find super deals in Europe. Those kind of huge price drops I usually find in US stores. This one is really strange. While the normal E-M5 body price in Europe is around 1100 Euro (see Amazon Germany) you can get crazy low prices in one country only….Italy! There is now a 300 Euro price drop on Pixmania Italy (Click here). I checked and there is o such deals on the other Pixmania Europe stores. Another italian store having good prices and shipping to Europe is [shoplink 33660 ebay]Bartoletti eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
The best 75mm lens prices are in France eBay [shoplink 33662 ebay]here[/shoplink] and [shoplink 33660 ebay]here[/shoplink].
GH3 and the semi pro market:
An interesting news comes via Handelsblatt (Translation here / via SKF). They talked with Mr. Izumi Tomozawa from Panasonic and he said:
– Unlike the cellular and TV market the Camera market has still a profit margin. But the profit margin is in the high end amateur and Semi-PRO market (not on very consumer level cameras).
– The old Panasonic strategy was to focus on the amateur market. But this is about to change. We want to go on the high end amateur (or semipro) market where the margins are higher.
– The GH3 is considered by Panasonic as the first semi-pro m43 camera.
I guess the GX2 will be the next semi-pro camera to come!!!
Olympus roundup:
The GH3 has stolen the show of the new PEN cameras. It even shows up in the Amazon rankings (GH3 on top and PEN’s lost somewhere). I have to catch up and here is a short Olympus news roundup from today: In Japan the 15mm lens cap comes for free with the new PEN cameras (Source: DC.watch). Some pics of the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 prototype lens have been posted on DC.watch. Image sample taken with the 15mm Olympus lens cap at Petapixel. XZ-2 hands-on at Popphoto. Macro lens hands-on at ePhotozine. Olympus stand report at Dpreview.
Now that’s a hell of a deal! You can buy the GF3 with 14-42mm lens for $299 only at Amazon (Click here). Be fast! Deal will be over soon. And there is a second gold box deal on the 45-175mm X lens that now sells for $199 at Amazon (Click here).
There were some errors on press releases here and there and this caused some discussions on 43rumors. As you can see from the nice comparison on top (Click on it to see a bigger version) the GH3 has NO(!) multiaspect sensor. The GH3 also has uncompressed HDMI output with 4:2:0 (and not 4:2:2) Chroma subsampling according to the German website Slashcam. But I would expect an official Panasonic statement before to be sure of that!
Those of you concerned about the pure photographic qualities of the camera should check out these nice samples at Panasonic.net. And RWA files are available at Personal View. A Panasonic stand report is available at Dpreview.
And now there is the tricky question for you. Is the Gh3 using the same [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink] Sony sensor? ;)