Image on top: The Olympus teaser that was posted a few days before the [shoplink 14832]Olympus E-PL1[/shoplink] launch in February 2010

Usually January is a boring time for those of like me try to catch rumors. But the rumors I do receive in those days do prelude an even more exciting time than we had it at Photokina last year! Both Panasonic and Olympus will release tons of new stuff. It looks like Olympus had to make an unusual January announcement of the new [shoplink 18844]Olympus E-PL2[/shoplink] at the CES in Las Vegas to make “room” for the future product announcements :)

The french website “Forum Olympus France” had a smalltalk with Christopher Valentine (Marketing Director, Olympus France). At the end of the interview Christopher explains how Olympus will expand their market share in France (google English translation): “I think we can legitimately aim for the fourth place of the photo market in France (in volume). In order to do so, Olympus will be able to lever notably on the products presented today (Jan 6, 2011), but also on other particularly ground breaking novelties that we will be announcing shortly and throughout the year. Thus, announcements will be made next February and March, others will follow…..”

As you know Olympus will announce at least one pro Micro Four Thirds camera and three new pro pancakes within June!

I have a good news and a bad news. The good news is that we received new confirmations from other sources that the G3 is the next camera Panasonic will release. And the improvements the G3 will bring over the [shoplink 14834]G2[/shoplink] will be major than the improvements the G2 has on the G1.

The bad news is a no-surprise. Although the Panasonic G3 could be announced soon (February-March?) we were told that the camera will be available in Stock only months later! Seeing that in US the [shoplink 16254]GH2[/shoplink] is still continuously out of Stock this sounds again a little bit frustrating.

P.S.: Panasonic GH2 US shop checks -> Amazon US, Adorama, BHphoto

What a rumor. Pentax is about to announce a new mirrorless system which will de facto be the digital version of the [shoplink 18968 ebay]Pentax Auto 110 system[/shoplink]. Why should we care about that? The Auto 110 system had a frame size of 13 × 17 mm (0.51 × 0.67 in) which is almost exactly the frame size of (Micro-) Four Thirds sensor (13 × 17.3 mm). Now that part is just speculation. Does it not make more sense for Pentax to join the Micro Four Thirds world instead of making their own “Four-Thirds” system? That’s probably wishful thinking and never going to happen. Anyway we will know soon if those rumors are correct. The digital Auto 110 system will be announced in March.

More info about the Auto 110 system:
– History at Wikipedia
– [shoplink 18968 ebay]Auto 110 Cameras and lenses auctions on eBay[/shoplink]

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