Click on image to enlarge

KTF-Turbo posted many new image samples of the SOnnetar 25mm f/1.1 Micro Four Thirds lens: http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/ktf_turbo/28265046.html. As you can see the image quality drmatically increases at f/1.4 aperture. F71.1 has a creamy effect and may be used for emrgency (or creative) reaosns only. I think it’s an impressive performance for such a tiny lens.

Reminder: The designer of the lens is designer Mr. Miyazaki. He is the creator of the well known [shoplink 29386 ebay]Leica Triplet lenses (here on eBay)[/shoplink] and already made a Sonnetar lens for [shoplink 29387 ebay]Pentax Q mount which costs $650 on eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]

Robin Wong (Click here) finalized his long and very discussed Olympus E-M5 review. No matter how much you like Robin work, you should give him a nice credit for doing a job that none of the big websites has done! In short what he liked about the E-M5 is the image quality,  the 5 axis IS and the handling. But he also listed some smaller issues. Interestingly the viewfinder gets foggy when shooting in rainy conditions, 3D tracking misses a lot of focus points and the electronic viewfinder still is not on par with the “real light” experience of the optical viewfinder.

Meantime Damian MCGilliCuddy had to return the [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink] to Olympus but he now keeps shooting some nude portraits with the [shoplink 18844]Olympus E-PL2[/shoplink] (Click here to see his pictures here). Those are nice shots taken with the supertiny [shoplink 14798]17mm f/2.8[/shoplink] and the super good and cheap priced [shoplink 23577]45mm f/1.8[/shoplink] lens. Amazing what you can do with these two little cheap lenses!

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E-M5 preorders (Click on the names of the stores to see the product page):
Black E-M5 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Warehouse UK, Redcoon Germany and Amazon Japan.
Silver E-M5 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Warehouse UK, Redcoon Germany, and Amazon Japan.
Black E-M5 body with 14-42mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and J&R.
Black E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Jessops, Redcoon Deutschland, Amazon UK, Amazon Deutschland and Amazon Japan.
Silver E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Deutschland and Amazon Japan.

Comparison at 1.600 ISO

Canon first attempt to fight against the mirrorless world is represented by the fixed lens Canon G1X camera ($800 at Amazon).The camera uses a Four Thirds ratio sensor that is just a tiny bit bigger than our Panasonic/Olympus Four Thirds sensors. Being used to compare our m43 image quality with the larger APS-C sensor I thought it might be interesting to see how the image quality of the two almost equal sized sensor would be (18.7 x 14mm vs. 17.3 x 13mm)

DCfever (Click here) compared the JPEG quality of the Canon with the one of the [shoplink 26836]Panasonic GX1[/shoplink]. Please notice that Panasonic has an average JPEG engine while Canon is known to be much better. A RAW image comparison would probably show a more “real” sensor performance. The JPEG comparison show a slight advantage of the Canon at Low ISO while at High ISO the difference is less pronounced. I think you want see any difference when looking on real printed images.

The Canon G1X is a very strange concept I can’t fell in love with. It will be much more interesting to see if Canon will launch their new interchangeable lens mirrorless system with exactly the same sensor size of the G1X! …P.S.: Don’t even think Canon would join the m43 system, that’s impossible…or not? :)