The polish website Optyczne (Click here) interviewed Mister Michiharu Uematsu from Panasonic. The most interesting points are:

1) When asked why they made use of a 16 Megapixel sensor for the GH2 he answered: “Mainly it is our response to market needs. In the future we want to balance the sensor and optics capabilities.“. So will Panasonic not participate the Megapixel race anymore?

2) And here is the reaosn why you want never see a Panasonic camera with built-in stabilization: “So far, no plans to assemble in a body-stabilized matrices. When recording movies acting to stabilize the matrix generates unnecessary noise on the soundtrack, and increases power consumption, and for all of our equipment we want efficient energy consumption.”

3) Panasonic is also aware that there is a need of more video zoom lenses (like the [shoplink 14802 ebay]Panasonic 14-140mm[/shoplink]) but they will NOT introduce a PRO camera :(

Correction: Gogole translation tool made a huge mistake. Panasonic will NOT(!) make a Pro camera (gogole translation tool didn’t add the “not” word).

The administrator of the Nwpphotoforum (Click here) posted an interview made with Sally Smith Clemens (Product Manager at Olympus USA). Sally talks about the future of the two systems, Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds. Those are the “highlights”:

1) “I want to make sure that we convey the strong sense of responsibility that we feel towards people who’ve adopted our Four Thirds system. We believe in the Four Thirds system – not just as a precursor to Micro Four Thirds, but in the Four Thirds System itself.”
My opinion on that: Interesting that they used the word “responsibility”. It has some negative meaning here because it suggests that they keep the FOur Thirds system alive not becuase of technology reasons but because otherwise current 43 owners would get very angry.

2) “We now have a large array of optics from 16mm to 600mm (thinking in 35mm format). We feel that it is fully matured in that aspect – which is why product releases for Four Thirds have been slower than Micro Four Thirds. There is still quite a lot of room to grow Micro Four Thirds in order to catch up with the Four Thirds System in terms of both product capability and breadth.”
My opinion on that: Compared to Nikon and Canon the Four Thirds lens range is far from being “mature”. Anyway, does it mean there will be no more Four Thirds lenses?

3) “we believe that the market for most of the compact dDSLRs, such as the 420 and 620, is best met by the Micro Four Thirds System. The area which remains in question for some people is the mid range category, such as the E-30. We believe that if they were given a choice, these people would really prefer an E-5.”
My opinion on that: So people looking for the E-30 successor should buy the E-5?

4) “The first thing is that it is important to get beyond the idea of ‘which system will Olympus support and develop.’ Ultimately there is only one system – Four Thirds. While Micro Four Thirds and Four Thirds differ in some aspects, they are ultimately the same thing in terms of image quality and sensor format. Four Thirds is Four Thirds, whether or not it is a dSLR or Mirrorless camera body.”
My opinion on that: Sounds a bit confusing or not?

Like it or not, when I talk with dealers they all say that for them Four Thirds is dead. They do sell Micro Four Thirds only.

[/shoplink] The image on top shows the [shoplink 15864]Olympus 40-150mm[/shoplink] lens against Panasonic wants to compete with the new 45-175mm.

I got this rumor from three different soruces. According to them Panasonic developed a new 45-175mm m43 zoom lens. Apparently the main characteristic of the lens are two:
1) Extremely compact design
2) Cheap in price
It will compete against the Olympus 40-150mm f/4.0-5.6 which is priced at around $220 (250 Euro). You can check the price of the Olympus lens at [shopcountry 15864]. But the Panasonic lens should be more compact than the Olympus. What I don’t knwo yet if that is the lens that will be announced in late August or not. Hope to get some more news about that soon!

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