Good Morning!

I finally sleep 10 hours and I am a bit more relaxed and “lucid” today. Yesterday I had to work at -15 Grad Celsius and than we had all those sensor rumors and discussions. I hope I can give you soon more updates about the image quality. The only thing I can tell you know is that a trusted sources (not Olympus marketing guys) tested the camera and said video quality is better than GH2 and image quality is definitely improved in JPEG (he didn’t test RAW). Of course those test had been made by a single person and you know that can be very subjective. So forget discussions about who made the sensor, how good/bad are the specs….we have to see the real images to see if can be happy or not!

Ok, let’s start to talk about a very good news. Olympus will announce two new Micro Four Thirds lenses that will be available early summer:

1) The 75mm f/1.8. It has a metal design. I haven’t seen that lens yet but I guess it has a similar 12-50mm finishing. It’s a perfect portrait lens!
2) The 60mm f/2.8 macro is weather sealed like the E-M5 body and has a close focusing distance of 0.19m.

I have no info about the price yet but those are definitely nice addition to the already good looking Micro Four Thirds lens range.

For my European friends: Watch out the new refurbished items at [shoplink 22691 ebay]Olympusmarket (Click here)[/shoplink]. They have all new E-PM1, E-PL3 cameras on auction!

Personal note: Thanks for all discussion we had yesterday. Will learn from your critics and suggestions. I already have taken some good decisions. Will tell you more about that after the E-M5 announcements. Thanks!

The E-M5 will be the first Micro Four Thirds camera with external battery grip! Ahm…ok, we have a battery grip for some m43 cameras from [shoplink 27770 ebay]Ownuser (Click here to see them on eBay[/shoplink]). But that doesn’t count :)

Here are some new camera specs:

1.44 million dot viewfinder. Same specs as the VF-2 but with new “tweaks” -> Olympus seems to love tweaking…sensor and EVF :)
Fastest AF of any mirrorless AND DSLR camera!
MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 or Jpeg motion recording
9fps without the super fast AF. 4.2 with super fast AF enabled.
5-axis image stabilisation
610 million dot 3 inch OLED screen tilted by max. 80° upwards or max. 50° downwards
HLD-6 external battery grip
MMF-3 Four Thirds mount adapter
FL-600R electronic flash
Comes in a silver or black body.
In Stock in April 2012 for 1099.00 Euro ($1200 Dollars in USA) or with 12-50mm kit lens for 1,299.00 Euro ($1450)

That’s 500 Dollar less than the Fuji X PRo 1 ($1699 at Amazon).  $400 more than the GH2 ($800).  Will it sell well at that price? Everything depends form the final REAL image and video quality.

Sources are now reporting us that according to Olympus own words the E-M5 should have the “fastest autofocus of any interchangeable lens camera (including D-SLR cameras)“. So while the sensor is apparently the same as the GX1 the whole circuitry around it and the processor engine are more powerful. That could explain why Olympus can afford to make such statements like “fastest AF ever” or “extended dynamic range”  and put the highest ISO at 25600.

UPDATE: It has also “3D tracking for improved moving object tracking performance”

Stay tuned! More rumors coming soon!

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IMPORTANT UPDATE:

I just learned a couple of things with the upcoming Olympus release. While the rumors I reported here are almost any time correct the perception and meaning of the used words are sometimes very different:

1) Olympus marketing words:
I talked with my sources and it looks like Olympus marketing uses big words when describing the new camera performance but de facto they compare the E-M5 with their own current Olympus cameras. So when they say the sensor has an “extended dynamic range” we have to keep in mind that Olympus has a different idea than we have when using those words. We tend to imagine much more than what Olympus is really delivering to us. It’s like when Steve Jobs said “this is our best product ever”. An Android phone can have better specs but for Apple the newest iPhone is always the best.

2) The way to present rumors:
There is a discrepancy between what I write and the perception of many readers. Example: When I got the rumor about the sensor having an “extended dynamic range” I started to talk about possible sensor and technology scenarios. As you know I always said I don’t know how image quality improvement has been archived or what sensor is used (a part that it has 16 megapixels). The thing is that I didn’t “calculate” that this would increase the “emotional” side of the story and lead you to an eventual disappointment. In summary to much guesses and fantasy discussions tend to discredited me even if I made it clear that this are just discussions based on no-facts.

So I learned from this and I will now 100 times make you clear that one thing is Olympus marketing statements and rumors, another story is reality.

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We already know the new camera series name is “OM-D”. And the first camera name will be “Olympus E-M5“!

About the sensor:
Olympus marketing guys cleary say that the 16.1 Megapixel sensor has an “Expanded Dynamic Range“. But from what I have been told it looks like the E-M5 uses the same [shoplink 26836]GX1 sensor[/shoplink]. I am not 100% sure yet but it looks like all the video quality and image quality improvement are coming via TruPic VI engine, a weak AA filter and probably a better circuitry around the sensor (faster readout for example).

UPDATE: Next week you will hear BIG words form Olympus marketing about the image quality improvement, but I don’t know yet if those words are on par with the expectetions you and I have. Sources are telling em that there is a visible JPEG quality improvement. But I don’t know if the “expanded dynamic range” marketing statement from Olympus is justified.

UPDATE: Probably my biggest “not so good news” is that the viewfinder has the same specs as the VF-2. It’s not a bad viewfinder but Olympus Manager Mr. Ogawa. told Impressjapan (Click here to download the pdf of the magazine) that Olympus new camera will empathize a new viewfinder technology. So I was hoping to see this on the E-M5.