A roadmap reminder (When to expect the next Olympus and Panasonic announcements)

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A few other sources confirmed us that Panasonic will announce the new Panasonic G3 camera and very likely also the new 25mm f/1.4 lens in late April. Before the Earthquake-Tsunami-Nuclear disaster Panasonic had the plan to ship the G3 within May. But I guess there could be now a few weeks of delay. The 25mm f/1.4 should hit the market in summer (July). A next Panasonic camera and lens announcement is scheduled for late August.

Olympus has the plan to release new PRO prime lenses in late May/early July. But there could be a delay with the worldwide lens shipment. We are also not 100% sure yet if they will announce a new PEN in late May/early July. We heard there will be a [shoplink 14830]E-P2[/shoplink] replacement but we didn’t get exact info about the final release. A new product announcement from Olympus will be made in early September (We are almost certain they will announce the high-level PEN).

 

Anyway, what I really hope now is that Japan can soon take under control the Fukushima nuclear power plant. That’s all what matters now.

 

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Next Stock of Nokton 25mm lenses in late April only

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[shoplink 15659 ebay][/shoplink]

Camerquest (Click here) is keeping us up to date with the [shoplink 15659 ebay]Voigtländer Nokton 25mm f/0.95[/shoplink] availability: “March 6th Update: The February shipment is indeed SOLD OUT. The NEXT PRODUCTION RUN is estimated in late April 2011.”

At least you find a few of them on [shoplink 15659 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. There are now more ongoing auctions than it was a few weeks ago.

One of our sources told us that Cosina doesn’t have any plan to increase the production of that lens. They do not have the capability to do that. So you can expect shortages for the whole year :(

P.S:: For our polish and European readers: Infoto.pl and Allegro.pl do list the Nokton as in Stock! Somewhat crazy if you think  that the rest of Europe doesn’t have it in Stock :)

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a little bit of everything…(GH2 does fashion!)

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Thanks Mike Kobal!

Goodgearguide tested the Olympus E-5: “The Olympus E-5 is definitely a beast of a camera, but its low-light performance isn’t as good as its competitors, and overall its images look a little muddy (although some users may prefer this). It also takes a while to learn how to use it effectively. However, it is fast when it comes to sequential shooting as well as focusing, and it has a useful articulating screen and Live View mode.” Get the E-5 at [shopcountry 17163].

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT3 Review (Photographyblog).

March 11 Earthquake in Tokyo taken with the GH2 (Vimeo). Get the GH2 at [shopcountry 16254]

Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ20 / ZS10 High ISO JPEG Noise preview (CameraLabs).

Panasonic GF2 review (Fotopolis). Get the GF2 at [shopcountry 17361]

3Dkraft tested the audio quality of the GH2 y doing a Bariton- and Sopran-Saxophon Live-cut. The quality is very surprising good and you should hear the video using good headphones!

 

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Mirrorless market share in Japan (Panasonic leads)

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Image courtesy: Megapixel

Last week Olympus stated that DSRL will become a niche market in 5-10 years. The future is mirrorless or as Olympus says the future are “Pen-type” cameras :)

There are two data that do confirm the increasing mirrorless popularity. Almost a quarter of all interchangeable lens cameras sold in the UK during January are mirrorless (That’s a 160% rise on the same month the previous year). In Germany 80.000 of all 960.000 system cameras sold in Germany during 2010 are mirrorless. And In Japan almost 40% of all sold system cameras are mirrorless.The market is lead by Panasonic 38.7% followed by Sony 32.2% and Olympus 29.1%.

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(UPDATE) SLRmagic 11mm Toy lens

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[shoplink 20919 ebay][/shoplink]Image on top shows the current [shoplink 20919 ebay]26mm f/1.4 ToyLens[/shoplink].

A short update about the upcoming new Toy Lens from SLRmagic. We have been told that it is a fast 11mm wide angle lens. Don’t know yet how fast the lens is. I guess there will be soon more news on their Twitter (Click here).

SLRmagic currently offers to manual, cheap not high quality lenses. They have the (only) advantage that you can use them without the use of any adapter:
35mm f/1.7 [shoplink 20923 ebay](Click here to see that lens on eBay)[/shoplink].
26mm f/1.4 [shoplink 20919 ebay](Click here to see that lens on eBay)[/shoplink].

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Olympus postpones the new product launch (Olympus converters)

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Image on top: The fisheye, wide and macro converters.

Olympus officially postponed the launch of the recently announced products (Source: DC.watch). That includes the new compact cameras and the three Micro Four Thirds lens converters.
We all have understanding for this!

If you want to make a donation to help the japanese people click here: http://www.google.com/crisisresponse/japanquake2011.html

Reminder: The other two PEN accessories are already on market:
– MAL-1 Led Light at [shoplink 20217 ebay]eBay[/shoplink], Amazon US, Amazon Deutschland, Amazon UK, Amazon France.
– PenPal bluetooth module at [shoplink 20218 ebay]eBay[/shoplink], Amazon Deutschland, Amazon UK, Amazon France.

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