Surprise: Nokton 17.5mm is already in Stock!

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[shoplink 30300 ebay][/shoplink]

Surprise! The new Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 lens which actually was supposed to ship on April 29th only is already in Stock on [shoplink 30300 ebay]eBay Germany (Click here)[/shoplink]! It ships worldwide!!!
It is also available as kit lens in combination with the [shoplink 30301 ebay]GF3 (Click here to check)[/shoplink] with the [shoplink 30302 ebay]E-P2 (Click here to check)[/shoplink] and with the [shoplink 30303 ebay]E-P3 (Click here to check)[/shoplink].

The store is well known and trust worthy. And they ship worldwide! So be fast and grab the lens if you want it now!

P.S.: The only short test you can find about that lens has been made by OpenPN (Click here to read the google translation).

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(UPDATED) Panasonic announces new AVC-Ultra (no new m43 camcorder yet)

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As you know a couple of days ago I posted a FT3 rumor (50% chance the rumor is correct) to say that there could be a new Panasonic camcorder announcement. Panasonic advertised the event as “camcorder presentation” but in fact it turned out to be more  “a look into the future discussion” than a real product announcement. Here are the news:

1) AVC-Ultra compression scheme. Panaosnic said: “So we have AVC-Intra Class 200, AVC-Intra Class 4:4:4, up to 2K and 4K resolution, and we also have a technology called AVC-LongG, which can get down to 25 Mbps. All of these are recordable on a Panasonic P2 media card.”
2) Panasonic will introduce new cameras at NAB that can be upgraded to AVC-Ultra in 2013. There are not many details about the products that will be shown at the NABshow.

Source: Tvtechnology

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Lens poll results. Short analysis (fast zoom lens needed!)

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Over 6,400 unique voters selected the favorite future Micro Four Thirds lens wish list. You can see the poll and full results here: https://www.43rumors.com/poll-vote-your-future-micro-four-thirds-wish-list/.

While this doesn’t pretend to be a scientific analysis there are certainly some general tendency we can extract from the results:
1) There is a high need for high quality zooms. Currently the m43 systems offers many zoom lenses but none is really fast. And that is something our m43 readers highly do miss.
2) The most requested lens is the Micro Four Thirds version of the popular [shoplink 23681 ebay]Four Thirds 12-60mm f/2.8-3.5 weather sealed[/shoplink]. The current 12-50mm slow zoom isn’t enough for you!
3) While Panasonic is about to launch their f/2.8 X zoom lenses the 43rumors readers are still demanding faster f/2.0 zooms. Probably influenced by the superb (and expensive) [shoplink 25320 ebay]Olympus 14-35mm[/shoplink] and [shoplink 25119 ebay]35-100mm f/2.0[/shoplink] lenses you asked for new m43 12-35mm f/2.0, 12-50mm f/2.0 and 35-100mm f/2.0 zooms. I asked you to take into consideration that those lenses would be very expensive. I hope your emotional part of the brain didn’t fully overrun the logic :)
The Olympus 14-35mm f/2.0 costs over $2,000 at Amazon right now (Click here). So be prepared to pay a lot for these lenses if Olympus/Panasonic will ever release them for real!
4) The most requested prime lenses are the 17mm f/1.4 and 25mm f/1.2 weather sealed high quality lenses. I voted for them too ;)
5) Interesting to notice that the most requested pancakes are again having the same focal length of the top quality primes: 17mm f/2.0 and 25mm f/1.8 pancake.

 

Overall high quality and weather sealed lenses with wide up to normal focal length and fast aperture are requested. Surprisingly there is not a high demand for tele lenses. Do you found other interesting aspects from the poll results?

P.S.: Thank you all for the talking part in this. If I get soem feedback from Olympus/Panasonic soruces I will let you know what they think about it!

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E-M5/GX1 and lens review roundup (E-M5 again in Stock at eBay UK).

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Washing test by 20minutos (Click here / via 100nyc / Thanks Jeff)

One week to go until the E-M5 hits the stores in USA and Europe! Although in some single cases the E-M5 can be found in Europe like it is now on [shoplink 30282 ebay]eBay UK (Click here to grab one of the five E-M5 that are in Stock right now)[/shoplink]. I am really curious to see if the Olympus can surpass both current most requested cameras like the NEX-7 and Fuji X PRO 1 (at least according to A. ranking).

Meantime read some of the latest reviews of the GX1/E-M5:
Imaging Resource (Click here) posted the final Panasonic GX1 review: “Though they missed a few key features users were hoping for, like dual manual control dials as seen on the Sony NEX-7, the Panasonic GX1 is a good start toward making a camera that enthusiasts will appreciate. An increase in resolution comes with an improvement in high ISO performance too”
DC.watch (Click here for the translation) posted a set of GX1 + the new Sigma 19mm image samples.
E-M5 preview and image samples at DC.Watch (Click here). The 12-50mm lens got tested by Quesabesde (Click here for the translation).

Links to preorders of the mentioned cameras (Just click the shop name to check availability and price):
GX1 at [shopcountry 26836].
E-M5 at Amazon USA, Adorama, B&H, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.
Sigma 19mm at Amazon USA, Amazon UK, Amazon Germany, Amazon France.

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Video quality test reloaded: GH2 on par (or better?) than the new Canon markIII.

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Andrew from EosHD (Click here) posted a new markIII versus NEX-7 versus GH2 video quality comparison: “In my opinion unless you really need a full frame sensor the GH2 is still the best ‘DSLR’ to do video on. If only it had the same build and pro-looks as the 5D Mark III it would be taken more seriously. It isn’t a robust camera to throw around or rent out. The articulated screen (that only consumer cameras seem to have embraced) is a must-have though and the image quality is unbelievably good.”

That’s bad news for Canon as the new 5DmarkIII really should have continued the 5DmarkII success story by setting a new standard of video quality. Add the fact that it seems that the camera has Light Leaking issues (Read more about it at Canonwatch.com) and that it is currently being outsold by the Nikon D800 (See the ranking here).

I think it’s a great chance for Panasonic to grab the momentum with the upcoming GH3. All we know for sure is that the GH3 is weather sealed and that it comes in late August/early September. Weeks ago unconfirmed rumors (from unknown Asian sources) shared these specs:

Sensor: 15.5 mega-pixel sensor
Iso: Iso 160-12800, extends to 80-51200
Speed: 6.7fps
Body: Magnesium alloy body, weather sealed, thinner and lighter than GH2
LCD: 3.2″ ips, 1050k-dots, with capacitive touch screen (multi-touch depending on final setting in firmware). LCD tilt-able
EVF: new EVF with 2.06 mega-dots

Probably too good to be true?

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Panasonic RGBW sensor and Olympus pancake patents.

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This is the new RGBW pixel array of the patented Panasonic sensor.

Panasonic patented a new RGBW sensor design (Click here to see the document). It adds a White pixel on the usual Red-Green-Blue array. This should increase the dynamic range of the image. I heard from my sources that many companies are working on such an array and it is very likely that it is going to be used first in compact cameras.

Olympus also issued a new patent for 14mm, 16mm, 17mm and 22mm f/2.8 pancakes (Click here to see it). I believe the 14-16 and 22mm lenses are just modifications of of the already released 17mm f/2.8 pancake. If Olympus really plans to do such pancakes they should be at least as fast as the superb [shoplink 14796]Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 pancake[/shoplink]!

As usual with patents keep in mind that most of them are here just to protect intellectual propriety. A company may not use them at all in a real product!

P.S.: Links to the superb and very likely most sold m43 lens ever, the Panasonic 20mm f/1.7 at [shopcountry 14796].

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