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..

The patented Konica-Minolta 43mm f/1.4 lens design.

Egami spotted a patent with a surprising content! Konica Minolta patented the design of a 43mm f/1.4 Micro Four Thirds lens! The patent has been filled in 2011. Right now Konica-Minolta is not part of the (Micro-) Four Thirds group but this could change soon. Konica and Minolta have a long history of lens design for rangefinder cameras. Konica designed the [shoplink 33268 ebay]Hexanon M-mount Lens series (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. That includes the superb [shoplink 33269 ebay]Hexanon 50mm f/1.2 (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. Minolta made the famous [shoplink 33270 ebay]Rokkor M-mount lens series (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. That includes for example the [shoplink 33271 ebay]40mm f/2.0 pancake (here on eBay)[/shoplink].

This is just to say that Konica-Minolta would add a very high value to the whole Micro Four Thirds system! So let’s hope this is one of those few patents that will make it into…reality :)

Here are the images of the 40mm lens (left) and 50mm Hexanon (right):