Both, Olympus and Panasonic will announce their new Micro Four Thirds stuff on Monday September 17th. Yes, exactly in one week!

Panasonic will announce the GH3 (full specs here), the 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens and very likely show 2-3 more prototype lenses behind a thick glass. One of them should be a fast tele lens.
Olympus will announce the E-PM3 and E-PL5 PEN cameras with same E-M5 sensor. There will be a 15mm f/8.0 lens-cap, the 60mm macro and a 12mm Black limited edition lens. May more prototype lenses will be shown.
More m43 stuff is coming via Sigma, SLRmagic and other third party companies.

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On the competition front we know that:
Pentax will announce an unexciting new Q10 camera this week (more info here).
Sony will announce the NEX-6 and three new NEX lenses on Wednesday September 12th (more info here).
Samsung will surprisingly not announce any new NX stuff (more info here).
Nikon and Canon will have no major mirrorless related news. The only interesting thing may be their cheap FF DSLR which will set a new mark on the price of FF bodies (more info here).
Hasselblad may announce a large sensor mirrorless system camera on September 18th (more info here).

Huuu, that was close! Sony “almost” release the first mirrorless Full frame camera!  (I don’t count the Leica M9 is a rangefinder camera). What you see here on top is the Sony RX1, the big Full Frame brother of the current RX100. So it’s actually a fixed lens camera with a 35mm f/2.0 Zeiss. But the Sony guys didn’t have the smart idea to make it with an interchangeable mount. For almost $3000 this camera is way too expensive. But I am posting this because I would like to be in the head of the Olympus and Panasonic managers to see their reaction when watching this camera. Would it be worthy to risk to develop and launch a new system with larger sensors?

Purple Dance from Seb Farges on Vimeo.

There is not only Panasonic and Olympus releasing new m43 lenses at Photokina. We expect some news from Sigma, Schneider and others too. ThePhoBlographer (via Personal View) reports that “In a chat with SLR Magic today, the company confirmed to us that they are working on Anamorphic lenses (and not toys). They’re currently deciding on 1.33X, 1.5X, or 2X. They’re currently working on the idea of a 25mm f/3.2 1.35x or 35mm f/3.2 1.35x”.

As you know my friend Seb Farges made a lot of GH2 and anamorphic videos with the [shoplink 25880 ebay]Berthiot Hypergonard 1.75X (here on eBay)[/shoplink. The latest video can be seen here on top of this post.

P.S.: ThePhotoblographer also posted an article about the recommended Lenses for the Micro Four Thirds Mount Black Magic Cinema Camera

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Current SLRmagic lenses for Micro Four Thirds:
SLR Magic 12-36×50 ED Straight Spotting Scope lens (w/ hand grip) is now available on [shoplink 26994 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
SLR magic 11mm f/1.4 lens you can preorder on [shoplink 22154 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Toy Lens 26mm f/1.4 lens on [shoplink 18603 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
SLR Magic 35mm f/1.7 MC lens on [shoplink 14881 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Noktor SLRmagic 50mm on [shoplink 25691 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]

What you see on top is the front of the well known [shoplink 23568]Olympus E-P3[/shoplink] and this is more or less the same design you have to expect from the new E-PL5. I have been told the back of the camera still has a more [shoplink 23567]Olympus E-PL3[/shoplink] alike design and button layout. Basically what Olympus is going to do is to merge the best from the E-P3 and the E-Pl3 in one camera. Combine that with the [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink] sensor and you have a nice package! 599 Euro/Dollars fro body and kit lens is what you have to pay for it.

P.S.: Despite every new generation of cameras that came out the E-PL1 is as usual the most sold PEN camera at Amazon US (Click here). It even sells mroe than the new Fuji X-E1. May we don’t need new PEN’s after all :)

Image via ePhotozine.

There is a new post from the Olympus-ePhotozine teaser story. Now they showed to us the first piece of the new E-PL5 cameras showing us the…Hot Shoe :)

Image via ePhotozine

Olympus likes to tease us :) The nice guys over at ePhotozine revealed a cryptic message saying “we’ve been testing these new Olympus PENs for the last couple of weeks and thought you’d want to see them. So here’s a sneak peak at the colours available. There is also a green PEN available, but we were unable to show it, due to it being chewed by someone in the office. Feedback from those who have used the PENs has been extremely positive, with some office members saying it’s the best PEN they’ve ever used. They said they particularly liked the colours compared to other pens they’ve used.”

Now back to some real homemade rumor:
We have been told that the 15mm f/8.0 is officially marked as “accessory” and not as part of the Zuiko lens line. It’s a body cap lens that has three modes, covered, up to 30cmm focus and up to infinity focus..