Sony and Olympus’s further collaboration to turn around unprofitable compact-camera business.

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Let’s catch up with some financial news:

Wall Street Journal reports that “Olympus President Hiroyuki Sasa indicated Monday that the company might need further collaboration with Sony to turn around Olympus’s unprofitable compact-camera business.” And Panasonic said that “it will axe another 10,000 jobs” (Source: Reuters).

Overall by reading their reports you will notice that both companies are slowly recovering from the crisis and the forecast is positive. And coming back to Sony’s and Olympus compact-camera strategy…does it make sense to keep their foot in such dying business? The only kind of compact camera that still can stand up against the cameraphones may be the Sony RX100. P.S.: The XZ-1 sells fine (ranking here) but Olympus had to cut the price down to $199 and I doubt they will have some margin on this.

But again, I am not an expert in these kind of analysis. May you can add some more value to that discussion by commenting this post!

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New Olympus 17mm f/1.8 officially released! Costs $499 (or 499/549 Euro).

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And here it is the new Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens! This page will be continually updated with new info:

Preorders:
BHphoto for $499 (Click here).

Reviews and Image samples:
Street Shooting Review by Robin Wong. You can download his full size JPEG samples at Mediafire. He says:
– Bokeh is very smooth, creamy and pleasing to look at.
– autofocus performance of the 17mm F1.8 lens, used on the E-PL5, is exceptionally good
– no ghosting, no flare, no distortion and only very low CA.
– the level of fine details captured is very impressive.
Full test by Pekka Potka. Some of his interesting findings:
– Compared to the Panasonic 20mm lens the new 17mm lens shows practically no fringing. The Lumix shows more resolution but has also weaker (micro) contrast.
– Price and quality goes hand in hand. If you feel this is expensive, you will also find this lens being very good.
More image samples at Pen And Tell (German) and Petapixel.
The French website OpenPN posted the official Len MTF chart:

Press release:
Dpreview, ThePhoBlographer, DSLRmagazine (Spanish), Neocamera, Lepidi (French), Photoscala (German), Olympus (Japanese), OpenPN (French), Focus Numerique (French), Quesabesde (Spanish), Imaging Resource, Pixiq, SystemKameraForum (German).

European price: Some website write that the price is 499 Euro and some others write that the price is 499 Euro.

Poll:

Are you going to buy the new Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens?

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All new PEN’s in Stock at Amazon. 35-100mm X zoom too.

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Both new PEN cameras are in Stock at Amazon: The E-PM2 (Click here) and the camera without AA filter…the E-PL5 (CLick here). And this finally pushed the E-Pl5 on the top ten of the rankings (Click here).

Top rate seller Kenmorecamera has four new [shoplink 34885 ebay]35-100mm X lenses in Stock via eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. Of course you can wait two months to see if the rumor about the Olympus 40-150mm f/2.8 is real but first I am not sure yet if it is coming, second I doubt it would be less expensive than the Panasonic lens. Kenmorecamera also still has the best price on the GX1 with 14-42mm pancake X lens on [shoplink 34886 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. $200 less than what you have to pay for it on Amazon.

Now let’s see soon what the price of the new Olympus 17mm f/1.8 will be. Just heard that it actually will cost 499 Euro and not 550 Euro. Not sure yet about the final price in dollars!

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New image samples with the upcoming 17mm f/1.8 lens…

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The polish community Olympusclub (translation here) posted new RAW and JPG image samples taken with the soon to come 17mm f/1.8 lens. Here are the direct download links of the RAW files:

The lens press release with official price and specs will be released tomorrow (Tuesday November 15 at 5-6 am London time). Olympus Japan already added the lens in their database.

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By the way we already have two 17mm primes that you may consider to buy instead of the 17mm f/1.8:
1) If you don’t care a lot about high image quality but more about tiny size than you may go for the Olympus 17mmf /2.8 at [shopcountry 14798].
2) If a big lens and no electronic AF and aperture doesn’t bother you than consider the superb and super fast [shoplink 30452 eBay]Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 lens (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. To easily find the best price on eBay you can also sue our little Slidoo tool (login to change country). Right now for example you can find a good deal at [shoplink 34880 eBay]Fotomundus (Click here)[/shoplink].

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(FT5) Olympus announcement tomorrow!

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Image courtesy: Forumlumix.

Tomorrow (November 15th) at around 5-6am London time Olympus will release the new 17mm f/1.8 lens. The lens has been already announced at photokina. What you will get now is exact price, in Stock info, specs and image quality info. Will there be something else? For now  am not sure about it. The rumored 40-150mm f/2.8 lens is very likely scheduled for a January release. As usual stay tuned on 43rumors. We will follow the official lens release and give you live updates about news and reviews.

P:S.: Don’t miss any news. Join our group on facebook and follow our tweets!

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The current Olympus 17mm on eBay Europe (via Slidoo) and eBay US (via Slidoo).

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(FT3) 40-150mm f/2.8 Olympus lens coming in January?

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[shoplink 33626]

[/shoplink] Image on top shows the current [shoplink 33626]Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens[/shoplink] lens. The Olympus alternative is coming soon.

According to some anonymous sources Olympus is going to release a new High Quality 40-150mm f/2.8 zoom lens. I am not sure yet if the lens will be announced along the 17mm f/1.8 lens or later. I heard the lens will hit the stores in January. But I don’t know the announcement date yet.

This lens be compete against the just released [shoplink 33626]Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens[/shoplink]. For the record, Olympus already has a 40-150mm zoom but that one has a f/4.0-5.6 aperture and by no means the same build and image quality of the upcoming new lens.

This would be the first f/2.8 zoom lens from Olympus. I hope someday they will come out with some f/2.0 lens too :)

Anyway, please keep in mind that this is a rumor from anonymous and unknown sources (rated FT3). I hope trusted sources can soon confirm the lens release for January!

Meantime, stay tuned on 43rumors the next hours and days!

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The two superb Zuiko f/2.0 zooms:
14-35mm f/2.0 on [shoplink 25320 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and via Slidoo eBay.
35-100mm f/2.0 on [shoplink 25119 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and via Slidoo eBay.

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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

 

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GH3 review at Digitalcamerainfo. GH3 and E-PL5 comparison and almost identical IQ.

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Image courtesy: Digitfotopro.

Digitalcamerainfo posted their full GH3 review: “The Panasonic GH3 is the Micro Four Thirds system all grown up, and it’s hard to argue that it’s not the best mirrorless system camera to date. While we’ve seen impressive performance from other bodies like the Sony NEX-7, and incredible styling and control in the Olympus OM-D E-M5, the Panasonic GH3 brings all of that together with some exceptional video quality to boot.”

The full conlcusion page can be read here and you can read good things about the GH3. But who made the Gh3 sensor? The Dutch website Digitfotopro (translation here) posted a short GH3 vs E-PL5 ISO comparison. They converted the RAW files via Lightroom 4.3 RC and the result is that they are pretty much delivering the same image quality suggesting that both camera may use the same Sony sensor. And before someone starts to say that the E-M5 isn’t using a Sony sensor just read what Hiroyuki Sasa CEO of Olympus said about it at DC.watch :)

GH3 and PEN in Stock status check:
GH3 preorders at Amazon , Adorama, Bhphoto, Panasonic US and in Europe at Wexphotographic UK and Technikdirekt.
E-PL5 at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto. In EU at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK, Amazon France and eBay (via Slidoo).
E-PM2 at Amazon, Adorama, Bhphoto. In EU at Amazon Germany, Amazon UK, Amazon France and eBay (via Slidoo).

Reminder: New Gariz case on eBay:
[shoplink 34731 ebay]Black E-PL5 case (Click here)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 34730 ebay]Brown E-PL5 case (Click here)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 34733 ebay]Black E-PM2 case (Click here)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 34732 ebay]Brown E-PM2 case (Click here)[/shoplink].

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