Wow guys! I am astonished. I honestly never thought that we would ever see a such small Micro Four Thirds zoom lens!!! It’s actually just a bit bigger than the [shoplink 14796]20mm f/1.7 pancake[/shoplink]!!! And you can easily see the powerzoom button on the lens! The lens name is Lumix X 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6. It is an aspherical lens and voilà…it has O.I.S. (Optical Image stabilization!).

I am not a zoom fan but THAT lens could be one of the best news for Micro Four Thirds ever! Compare that tiny zoom with all other kit lenses from Samsung, Sony and whatsoever is coming from Nikon. The Panasonic lens is smaller and has many new features (see powerzoom, OIS, inner focusing and so on!). That is really a revolution more than an evolution. Dear Panasonic, you impressed me! A hug to all Panasonic engineer’s! As you knwo that lens will be announced on Friday along the new 45-175mm lens!

Thanks Ignazio for sending me that. I do not post the link to the source yet as I am sure Panasonic would force them to shut down the site and I want to search for more info first :)

Our friends over at Digitalcamerainfo (Click here) confirmed that the new Panasonic lenses will be announced on Friday afternoon (Tokyo time). I am still waiting to get more details from sources. All I know is that the lenses are quite a revolution in the sense that the lenses will be extremely compact. I think Panasonic’s goal is to kick in the butt of the upcoming new Nikon mirrorless camera. As you know those cameras are rumored to have a smaller than Micro Four Thirds sensor in order to allow a more ocmpact lens design. But it looks like Panasonic has been able to make the 14-42mm and 45-175mm zoom lenses smaller than the Nikon expected. Imagine if the rumors are true. Micro Four Thirds could have a larger sensor (which theoretically should allow a higher image quality) and smaller lenses! If that turns out to be true than Nikon may made a mistake?

Tomorrow Sony and Nikon will announce their new mirrorless cameras and lenses. You can follow the news on Mirrorlessrumors!

Image courtesy and source: blog.livedoor.jp

Sorry If I fooled you for a moment by showing the picture on top :)  We heard that Fuji will make an announcement in two weeks but according to rumor coming in from our sources (and from Quesabesde and Photorumors) will not be a Micro Four Thirds cameras! It will be a fixed lens camera with a smaller than Four Thirds sensor. Now, Fuji said there will be an interchangeable camera coming this year. So there might be a second announcement by very end of 2011? So hope is still alive althaugh very weak…

P.S.: The new X10 will look very close to the actual [shoplink 19929 ebay]Fuji X100 (Click here to see that cam)[/shoplink]. It has a4x manual zoom lens with fast f/2.0 aperture ad it will be priced at $599.00.