USA deal: Olympus for Mom action! (E-PM1 for $399! GF3 for $395)

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Olympus sent me that flyer which promotes a new “For Mom” deal action :)
Here is the list of the deals they offer in USA (P.S.: Why not in Europe and Asia too?). Particularly interesting is the E-PM1 price ($399 with lens!):
$100 price drop on all Olympus E-P3 at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here). Combine it with the 40-150mm lens and the total rebate is $150!
$100 price drop on all Olympus E-PL3 at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here). Combine it with the 40-150mm lens and the total rebate is $150!
$100 price drop on all Olympus E-PM1 at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here). Combine it with the 40-150mm lens and the total rebate is $150!

And Panasonic also launched some great deal:
Panasonic GF3 with 14mm pancake lens sells for $395 at Amazon (Click here). Consider that the 14mm pancake alone costs $310. It means you get the camera for less than $100!
The Panasonic 45-200mm lens is now in Stock for $199 only at Amazon (Click here).

E-PL1 Hotseller:
Despite all those great deals the most sold m43 camera remains the E-PL1 (Click here to see the ranking).
And the body only sells for $149 at Amazon (Click here to get the cheapest of all m43 cameras).

UPDATE: The Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 is back in Stock at Bhphoto (Click here).

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Adobe RAW support for the E-M5! And 17.5mm at BH.

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Here are the latest E-M5 news:
The Lightroom 4.1 beta (CLick here) now supports the E-M5 RAW file. Time to make new testings with one of the best RAW converters :)
Meantime Engadget (Click here) posted the Fuji X PRO 1 review but talked a lot about the E-M5 too: “We haven’t reviewed the OM-D yet, but our preview hinted at promises of much better autofocus. It also has five-axis image stabilization and our few test shots revealed very good high ISO performance too. The OM-D also has a faster 9fps burst mode, is drastically cheaper and overall promises to be a real challenger to the X-Pro1’s perhaps more emotional virtues.” Yep, the E-M5 may be the better choice in terms of price-quality. But I would like Olympus doing a special edition liek the one you can see here at Fujirumors :)
More E-M5 bits: Fuji X PRO 1 versus Olympus E-M5 at Soundimagesplus (Click here). E-M5 versus NEX-5N versus G5 at Itmedia (Click here). E-M5 flower test at DC.watch (Click here).

UPDATE now Sold Out! The Black E-M5 with 14-42mm kit lens is (now was!) in Stock at Amazon US (Click here). A first Black body only is available at [shoplink 30578 ebay]eBay US (Click here)[/shoplink]. And our reader Marc just wrote: “Picked up the black body only version of the om-d from Jessops in London. I was on a pre-order and I didn’t notice any in store on display so maybe they’re only fulfilling the pre-orders at the moment?

The Super new Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 is in Stock for the first time at BHphoto (Click here). Another hot deal is the GX1 body at Amazon (Click here) which just got another $20 price drop.

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(FT4) No electronic global shutter for the GH3!

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Finally I am getting first info about the upcoming new Panasonic GH3. A trusted sources told me that while it is true that Panasonic is working hard on the electronic global shutter technology they will not implement it within the new GH3. When the GH3 development started they had some hopes that they might achieve that goal but this will not happen. And he also told me that:
1) the camera is weather sealed
2) the major improvement will be the new Electronic Viewfinder and Autofocus speed
3) That the GH3 will arrive in late Summer (right before the Photokina show in September).

P.S.: Reminder: The Panasonic G5 announcement should be in May!

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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New reviews roundup (E-M5, GF5, 12mm)

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The GF5 and E-PM1 size comparison from Quesabesde.

Soundimagesplus (Click here) has plenty of E-m5 testing articles. PCmag (Click here) posted a full E-M5 review: “The Olympus OM-D E-M5 is the best Micro Four Thirds camera we’ve tested.“. Sample photos at ePhotozine (Click here). E-M5 image smaples at Pantip (Click here). Another ISO test at Lepidi (Click here). E-M5 (Pre)order links (Click on store name): Amazon, Adorama, B&H, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.

Japanese Olympus 12mm lens review at Itmedia (Click here).

Panasonic GF5 review at Quesabesde (Click here for the translation). Full GF5 image samples at Focus Numerique (Click here).

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DxOmark: Canon Four Thirds versus Panasonic Four Thirds.

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We are used to read comparisons between “our” Panasonic Four Thirds sensor versus other larger APS-C sensors from Samsung, Sony or Fuji. Now for the first time we can see the Micro Four Thirds sensor compared with the very similar sized Canon Four Thirds sensor. DxOmark (Click here) just published their Canon G1X test. As usual with DxOmark tests keep in mind that they don’t take into account the resolution as variable for their scores. The test shows that the Canon Sensor is more or less on par with the Panasonic. A tack better than the [shoplink 26836]GX1[/shoplink] and a tack worse than the still best result from the “old” [shoplink 14826]GH1[/shoplink]. Soon DxO will post the [shoplink 29074]E-m5[/shoplink] results and I am curious to see if it really will surpass the GH1.

Reminder: David Parry, from Canon UK explained at Techradar (Click here) why they didn’t opt for the APS-C sensor: “We managed to create a four times zoom in a very compact body, and really it has the biggest sensor that we could use and also get decent coverage from the lens. If you made the sensor any bigger, the lens would have to be a lot bigger and it would be much more difficult and expensive to produce.

I am wondering if the upcoming Canon interchangeable mirrorles system will use the same Four Thirds sized sensor! Would be once again the confirmation that the sensor size Olympus and Panasonic have chosen is the right one for the mirrorless system. Sony has the impressive APS-C sensor but the lenses are much larger and the corner quality of the image mostly suffers with the NEX lenses.

P.S:: The Canon G1X is a fixed lens camera and costs $799 at Amazon (Click here). Probably too expensive to compete against the [shoplink 26836]Panasonic GX1[/shoplink].

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