The Olympus “Pen Magazine” is online. And Olympus America launches a new challenge!

Share

Source: pen-emag.olympus.eu/

OLYMPUS LAUNCHES THE “PEN YOUR STORY CHALLENGE”

Submit Your Proposal on YouTube for an Opportunity to Win an
Olympus PEN E-PL1 Camera and $5,000 to Show What You Can Do

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., May 3, 2010 – Olympus wants to know: What you would do if you had the amazing new Olympus PEN® E-PL1 portable camera featuring professional digital single lens reflex (DSLR) image quality, point-and-shoot simplicity and high-definition (HD) video, along with $5,000 to bring your creative vision to life? The PEN your story challenge starts right now, so it’s time to find out.

Your “vision” can be anything that you could produce with the high-quality PEN and $5,000 budget. Whether your dream is to direct a short film with HD video, produce a fashion spread of pro-quality still images, chronicle an adventure or to create an amazing photomontage, you can submit your video proposal to www.youtube.com/getolympus and enter to win the PEN, the funds to make your project reality and a crack at the grand prize.

After the proposal submissions have been narrowed down to 20 semi-finalists selected by the community via thumbs up “likes” (be sure to tell your friends to watch and like your submission!), six of the best proposals will be selected by a panel of judges from Olympus, as well as the YouTube community. Those six individuals will receive the PEN, the funds and time to bring their proposals to life.

Once the six finalists have uploaded their final creations to YouTube for the world to see, one lucky Grand Prize winner will be selected based on a combination of popular vote and the panel of Olympus judges. The Grand Prize winner will receive an all-expense-paid trip for two to New York City to attend the Olympus-sponsored US Open National Championships on Olympus Day. The winner’s work will be displayed on the giant video board at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center before an audience of thousands.

Get professional tips to make your filmmaking dreams become a reality from multi Webby-Award winner Erik Beck, executive producer of the online DIY filmmaking network Indy Mogul (http://www.indymogul.com/). Beck has produced a how-to video with tips and tricks to assist you with the production of your submission for the PEN your story challenge. View the video here: www.youtube.com/getolympus and www.facebook.com/getolympus. The challenge is open to residents of the United States and Canada.
MAKE YOUR CREATION SHINE WITH THE PEN
When submitting your video proposal for the PEN your story challenge, explain how, as a finalist, you plan to use the creative features of the Olympus PEN E-PL1 for your project.

For more details about the PEN your story challenge and the Olympus PEN E-PL1 visit http://www.youtube.com/getolympus and http://www.getolympus.com, and connect with us on http://Twitter.com/getolympus, http://www.Facebook.com/getolympus and http://www.Flickr.com/groups/getolympus.

Share

Small update about Sigma

Share

As you know Sigma could soon produce new MicroFourThirds lenses. I just recieved an email from a new but very good source. He told me that “Sigma is already manufacturing lenses for FT-companies – for example the 45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica45/2.8 Leica“. That’s strange! The lens is sold by Panasonic, with quality control from Leica and manufactored by Sigma :)

Can’t wait to get some rumor about the future Sigma MFT lenses!

Share

Olympus 9-18mm lens in Stock and reviewed on SLRgear

Share

Good news: Amazon will have the lens in Stock on May 6!
Preorder-Order the lens on Pixmania UKAmazon JapanRedcoon ItaliaRedcoon Deutschland / Amazon DeutschlandRedcoon Poland / Pixmania PolandAmazon France / Pixmania FranceAmazon US / Adorama / BHphoto

And SLRgear tested the lens! The verdict: “For its size, the Olympus 9-18mm ƒ/4-5.6 provides impressive performance.”
The only flaws are Cromatic Aberration and Distortion. But both are easy to crrect in postprocessing.

Share

(FT3) Nobody else will join MicroFourThirds (no Fuji, no Sigma, no Kodak, no Leica)

Share

As you can see here on four-thirds.org many companies joined the Four-Thirds coalition a long time ago. The current question is: will the same companies produce a MicroFourThirds camera?

Sigma:
We received the rumor from two different sources. Both do confirm that Sigma will not make any MicroFourThirds camera. This doesn’t mean that they will not make MicroFourThirds lenses. But the interesting thing is that apparentely Sigma developed a MicroFourThirds camera! Sadly the final decision has been to not produce it for the mass market. We already told you that Leica and Fuji were also playing with the idea of joining MicroFourThirds but they have choosen not to do so. According to one of our sources Fuji developed a FourThirds sensor.

It is very difficoult to get reliable rumors from other companies but if the (many) rumors we received during the latest months are correct no other company beside Olympus and Panasonic will make a MicroFourThirds camera. No Kodak (read our Kodak rumor), no Leica (Leica rumor), no Fuji (Fuji rumor) no Sigma.

Not good news.

P.S: Please contact me at 43rumors@gmail.com if you can confirm/deny the rumor.


Share

The need for speed: Voigtländer 50mm f/1.1

Share

Now that I am testing the Noktor 50mm f/0.95 lens I wish to own the Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1 to make a comparison. The Voigtländer is only half a stop slower but covers the whole fullframe sensor (It is an M-mount lens -> you can use it on the Leica M9!). But unlike the Noktor you need a M-mount to MicroFourThirds adapter and the lens itself costs $400 more than the Noktor ($1.149 ar BHphoto). So I googled around an this is what I found:

Steve Huff wrote a complete Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1 Lens review
– E-PL1 + Voigtländer 50mm f/1.1 test on pen-and-tell.blogspot.com
– Image samples on flickr
– Olympus E-P1 + Noktor on e-p1.net
– Olympus E-P2 + Noktor on flickr

Check out the price on Ebay: Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1Voigtlander 50 Nokton f/1.1

Do you have any experience with the Voigtländer lens? Let us know what you think!

Share