As you know recently Olympus France first confirmed than denied the fact that the latest MFT models may have no AA filter. So is the story over? Nope! Well connected Olympus photographer Tanaka now says (via Twitter) that his sources told him that “recent Olympus cameras” have no AA filter.
Confusions is back!
Image: Dpreview
The worldwide largest forum community at Dpreview picked up the Olympus E-m5 as the camera of the year 2012. I think back 1-2 years when many blogger and experts forecast a decline of the Olympus camera system. Nevertheless Olympus was able with their limited resources but very creative engineers to develop and launch an extraordinary camera. I hope both Panasonic and Olympus will continue to create useful and well made cameras like this. 2013 should be the year of the new advanced PEN, OMD and GX models. This is going to be (again) and intriguing year!
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Two unusued E-M5 for $879 on eBay US (via Slidoo). 829 for the refurbished E-M5 at Cametaauctions (via Slidoo). 899 Euro is what you pay for the OMD in Europe (via Slidoo). E-M5 at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.
E-M5 Case:
There is the official [shoplink 31898 ebay]CS-36FBC Olympus case[/shoplink]. A [shoplink 31899 ebay]leather half case from Hong Kong[/shoplink]. A full [shoplink 31900 ebay]leather case with strap from Cina[/shoplink]. Than we have half cases from two well known producers, [shoplink 31901 ebay]Zelenpol[/shoplink], [shoplink 31906 ebay]Kaza[/shoplink] and [shoplink 31902 ebay]Gariz[/shoplink].
E-M5 Batteries, and other things:
The [shoplink 31905 ebay]Olympus GS-4 strap[/shoplink] and the [shoplink 31903 ebay]DSTE E-M5 batteries[/shoplink] you have to use with an extra charger. There is an [shoplink 31903 ebay]E-M5 car charger[/shoplink] a [shoplink 31908 ebay]new E-M5 LCD screen[/shoplink] and a [shoplink 31909 ebay]Front Cover+ Top Panel[/shoplink].
Image source: BCNranking.
BCNranking disclosed the full camera sales rankings in Japan from January 1st til the December 24th. By watching the ranking there are multiple surprises. Of course, the first one is seeing that the Nikon J1 is actually on top of the ranking. As you see a good marketing sometimes works better than the camera “WOW” factor. The bets selling Olympus and Panasonic MFT cameras are right behind the Nikon and these are all GF and E-PL entry level cameras. The more advanced E-M5 and GX1 models lag behind them and are even behind the Pentax Q! Hands-up if you ever thought the tiny Pentax would outsell the E-M5!
Of course the Japanese market is quite different from EU and US markets. But outside Japan we usually don’t get these kind of exact camera sales numbers. You only get purely unscientific rankings from Amazon. But they change hourly and often reflect current deals status:
US ranking (Click here).
DE ranking (Click here).
UK ranking (Click here).
FR ranking (Click here).
Anyway, this year is now over and 2013 will quite an important year for all camera makers. There is a complicated economic situation that will force plenty of companies (and I mean all worldwide companies) to take some drastic if not dramatic decisions. I hope we can recover from the troubling times we are having now.
I Wish You a Happy New Year!
BCNranking (translation here) interviewed MR. Yoshiyuki Inoue from Panasonic. He didn’t deny that Panasonic is considering to create a camera system with larger sensors (no word if this would be APS-C or Full Frame). But to do this they would need to plan a lens road map at least five years ahead.
It’s not the first time Panasonic talks about the possibility of using bigger sensors. But this may be just simple talk and not a hint about a real plan…
Both, the Black and the White are now for sale for $299 at Amazon (Click here).
And the bests elling MFT cameras of the moment are the disocunted G3 ($249) and G1X kit ($499). Full Mirrorless ranking can be seen here.
Still no GH3 in Stock in stores. There is only one on auction on eBay (via Slidoo).
Image courtesy: Photozone
The Olympus 40-150mm has been tested by Photozone (Click here). The lens has no spectacular specs but “it is a quite good entry-level telephoto zoom lens. It may not be a cracker in terms of delivered resolution but it is no show-stopper either. The image quality is quite impressive in the low to mid portion of the zoom range. At 150mm it is somewhat weaker but not terribly so.”
Welld odne Olympus…and now give us some f/2.8 Zuiko! :)
More new reviews:
Winterimpressionen – Sigma 19 mm F2.8 EX DN (PenAndTell).
Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 zoom at 100mm – GH3 EVF and Screen (Soundimagesplus).
Olympus 75mm f/1.8 compared to Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 at Soundimagesplus.
60mm macro test at SLRgear.
Lumix X 12-35mm f/2.8 sharpness evaluation (M43blogspot).
