Micro Four Thirds lens poll evaluation

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A few weeks ago I collected your lens suggestions and put them on a poll. That poll neither pretends to be very detailed nor scientific. It should only help to give Panasonic /Olympus/Voigtländer a global idea of what 43rumors reader are looking for. I analyzed the results and those are this is my very personal (and limited) evaluation. Feel free to add your considerations to make that evaluation more detailed and correct. Thanks! (Click here if you like to see the full poll results)

1) The most requested single lens is the 25mm f/1.2. I confess that’s a bit of surprise for me. I didn’t include the 25mm f/1.4 lens option because that lens is already coming from Panasonic (and I told you that, but probably only a minority read it). 23% of you kept voting the faster option f/1.2! Very interesting indeed.

2) There is a general need for zooms that do start with a 12mm focal length. There were many 12mm zooms option and almost any of them made it into the top.

3) The most requested compact prime is the 12mm f/2.0 (18%). After that we have the 50mm f/1.8 (11%) and the first compact zoom is the 12-75mm f/2.8-4.5 (10%). Although I think such a “real” zoom lens would be likely to start with a much less brighter aperture.

4) There is a general “perception” that zoom lens should have a constant and as fast as possible aperture. Those lenses are expected to be big and heavy. Honestly I don’t know if you would really buy a big lens like that! Maybe the results are influenced by the need of video lenses (they are by far more interested in having a constant aperture).

5) Wide angle fast primes are the most requested. 12mm, 14mm and 17mm f/1.4 are on top of the list.

6) No real BIG need for normal-tele lenses. Someone told me that there were only a few normal-tele lens options inside the poll and that this is the reason why there are no tele-lenses on top. Honestly I would have expected the quite opposite! Having a less wider lens range option would have made it easier to bring the long-focal-length lenses on top of the list. That didn’t happen!

7) The exotic focal lengths (like the 42mm and 76mm lenses) didn’t get a lot of attention.

8 ) There is a need for high quality tele converters. 9% voted for the 1.4 TC and 8% for the 2.o TC.

9) There is almost no need for Tilt-shift lenses. Only 5% voted for the 10mm and 4% for the 12mm Tilt-shift lens.

POLL info:
– We had 4,322 unique voters (IP-address and browser type have been stored). 27% of the voters are coming from North America, 30% from Europe, 22% from Japan.
– The percentage explanation: Every voter had a maximum of 10 votes so when you read “23%” than it means that 23% of you voted that lens.
– The lens options have been submitted by our readers.

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New Camera RAW 6.3 + Panasonic GH2 test (+GH2 at Pixmania)

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Image Courtesy: 3Dkraft.de

As you know Adobe announced the new Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. Support for the [shoplink 17163]Olympus E-5[/shoplink],  [shoplink 17361]Panasonic DMC-GF2[/shoplink] and the [shoplink 16254]Panasonic DMC-GH2[/shoplink] has been added. 3DKraft.de (Click here) tested the new Camera RAW with the Panasonic GH2. The Silkypix DS 3.1 software doesn’t retain the same detail as Camera Raw can do: “The guys at Adobe are master of their trade whereas the software engineers of Panasonic’s JPEG engine and SilkyPix’ raw processor still may have some homework left for my taste!

One more news for us europeans. Pixmania will have the GH2 in Stock by next week! You can preorder now:
Pixmania.de (should be on list in a few hours). Is in Stock at Amazon.de!
Pixmania.fr
Pixmania.uk (should be on list in a few hours). Is in Stock at Amazon.co.uk!
Pixmania.it
Pixmania.pl
Pixmania.es
Pixmania.at (should be on list in a few hours)
Pixmania.be (should be on list in a few hours)
Pixmania.nl (should be on list in a few hours)

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Thom Hogan: “Short opinions about the current m4/3 lenses”

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Our friend and 43rumors reader Thom Hogan posted an article sharing his “Short opinions about the current m4/3 lenses“.

Lenses that are highly recommended:
[shoplink 14822]Panasonic 7-14mm f/4[/shoplink] -> “Expensive. But it performs quite well in almost every situation I’ve used it in.
[shoplink 14792]Panasonic 45-200mm f/4-5.6[/shoplink] -> “This lens was the biggest surprise of the bunch for me. Optically it delivers very good performance for a low-cost telephoto.

Lenses that are recommended:
[shoplink 14818]Olympus 9-18mm f4/-5.6[/shoplink] -> “As it turns out, the 9-18mm spends a lot of time on my m4/3 bodies.
[shoplink 14816]Olympus 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6[/shoplink] -> “Optically very good, and a good match for most users.”
[shoplink 14796]Panasonic 20mm f/1.7[/shoplink] -> “Thus, this lens really starts to shine when you’re shooting in low light, as it slows you from bumping the ISO on the body too much.”

Lenses that are qualified recommended:
[shoplink 14814]Panasonic 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6[/shoplink] -> “it’s a modestly specified lens.
[shoplink 14802]Panasonic 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6[/shoplink] -> “The lens’ mediocre aperture specs do hurt low light use of the m4/3 bodies.

Lenses that are not recommended:
[shoplink 14798]Olympus 17mm f/2.8[/shoplink] -> “All you get is a smaller, less flexible lens over the kit lens, and it doesn’t really seem like that’s worth the money.
[shoplink 14794]Panasonic-Leica 45mm f/2.8 macro[/shoplink] -> “The question becomes one of price versus expected performance, and I think this current iteration fails.”

Read the full opinions at http://bythom.com/m43lenses.htm

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New Panasonic 14-140mm firmware update (+ Camera RAW update)

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[shoplink 14802][/shoplink]

Panasonic announced a new firmware for the [shoplink 14802]Panasonic 14-140mm[/shoplink] lens. The new FW improves the stability of O.I.S.(Optical Image Stabilizer) and AF(Auto Focus) in movie recording. According to a first 43rumors user report the “OIS does seem to be more efficient at the long focal length“.

Download: http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/fts/index2.html

Thanks Rotislav, Helge, Forum Olympus France for sending me the link!

Adobe announced the new Photoshop Lightroom 3.3, Camera Raw 6.3 and DNG Converter 6.3. Support for the following Olympus/Panasonic cameras has been added:
[shoplink 17163]Olympus E-5[/shoplink] [shoplink 17361]Panasonic DMC-GF2[/shoplink] [shoplink 16254]Panasonic DMC-GH2[/shoplink]

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The Olympus E-5 with a new positive review!

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Olympus E-5 Video Sample 1 from ykkok on Vimeo.

The next positive [shoplink 17163]Olympus E-5[/shoplink] review has been published by the German magazine colorfoto.de (click here to read the google english translation). The camera gains 73/100 points. By comparison the Nikon D7000 has 69.5/100 points only. The real strength of the camera is the new Truepic V+ imaging processor. And the only major weakness is the high price. You can download all image samples and chart results here: http://www.colorfoto.de/produkte/olympus-e-5-1036192.html.

Also the hungarian website Pixinfo.com posted a new E-5 review (google English translation toll doesn’t work here).

E-5 direct shop links:
Amazon US, BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon Deutschland.

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