43 Rumors – Page 2259 – Panasonic and Olympus Digital Camera News

Fuji X100 Hands-on at Dpreview!

January 25, 2011
reviews
49 Comments

Dpreview posted a new Fuji X100 hands-on! And they were very impressed by the camera. They body quality of the working prototype is “absolutely superb“. But the most impressive thing about the X100 is “the way Fujifilm has managed to build a high quality EVF into a relatively compact body“. The hybrid EVF/OVF viewfinder gives “the best of both worlds“.
The X100 should be available in march for $1.200. Sadly both both Adorama (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here) do not accept preorders anymore! You can still sign up at Amazon (Click here) to be notified when it becomes available for preorder.

UPDATE: There is one more hands-on at Akam.no!

There are three reasons why we talk about that camera on 43rumors:
1) Fuji is part of the Four Thirds product
2) We were told by an anonymous source that Fuji is getting help from one of the current Micro Four Thirds members (which is making some part of the cameras).
3) Because many 43rumors readers do like innovative concepts and well made cameras and I hope Panasonic/Olympus will take notice of our interest to make a [shoplink 17020]DMC-LC1[/shoplink] or [shoplink 17129]Olympus 35RC[/shoplink] version fo the X100 (of course with interchangeable lenses!) :)

Olympus E-PL2 in Stock in Europe (+ Kirk’s Definitive Opinion about the E-PL2)

January 25, 2011
deals, reviews
26 Comments

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Olympus is much faster than Panasonic in making announced products available in stores. Three weeks after the announcement many european stores do have the E-PL2 in Stock! Click the shop links to visit the shop links:
Germany -> Amazon.de, eBay.de
France -> Amazon.fr (available next week), Pixmania.fr (available next week), eBay.fr
UK -> Amazon.uk (available next week), eBay.uk
Italy -> Pixmania.it, eBay.it
Austria -> Amazon.de, eBay.at

Feel free to comment this post to add your shop links.

Kirk Tuck posted his final view over the new Olympus E-PL2: “While I like the EP2 I find that the real reason to want the EPL2 is its sheer stealth. The matte black finish is less showy and more businesslike. The lines of the design serve to visually reduce it’s profile. It fits in my hand with very little to spare around the edges and when I wear it against my chest on a black sweat shirt its aspect nearly vanishes. I can barely feel its weight on the strap. Little more than the premium compacts in size and weight and price but a huge step up in performance. At $599 it’s hard to make a case against it.” Please visit his website to read the very long article!

Help Vitaly to hack the new Panasonic GH2! (and maybe the AG-AF100 too)

January 25, 2011
news
11 Comments

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The well known [shoplink 14826]GH1[/shoplink] hacker Vitaly (or tester13) asked me to make a support call on 43rumors. That is the text he sent me:

“As you may know, I have [shoplink 16254]GH2[/shoplink] firmware now. But it is encrypted, and uses compacts UPD format. It’ll require bunch of resources and expertise to try to dump compacts firmware and learn how encryption is performed. Please publish this info with bold request all engineers NOR flash (and especially LSI with NOR) experience contact me. I can guarantee anonymity if they want.”

If you can help him please contact Vitaly at the following address: info@pentax-hack.info. More info are available here: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?236360-News-about-GH2-firmware

And Vitaliy is also working on a hack for the [shoplink 16841]AG-AF100[/shoplink]. Here is the link to the thread: http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?236194-Good-news-about-AF100-firmware

Thanks Vitaly for your great job!

a little bit of everything…

January 25, 2011
news
4 Comments

HILLS GREEN teaser trailer from Ryan Glover on Vimeo.

Voigtländer 25mm f/0.95 for m4/3 (suwenchee.blogspot).

E-P1 Birthday Cake (E-P1.net).

Olympus PEN E-PL2 Test Images (Imaging resource).

Short Olympus E-PL1 review at Photocomment.

How to Launch a Camera: The Fuji X100 (arcrental).

Olympus camera service menu for E-5 and PENs:

Hold ‘menu’ button and power on the camera,
Go to LCD brightness page,
Press ‘OK’ and ‘Info’ together,
a display of your model number will display,
Then press N,S,W,E (the four direction button), press shutter and N again,
The service menu will show.

Panasonic introduces four new compact cameras

January 25, 2011
news
10 Comments

Panasonic just announced new compact cameras (Source: Dpreview):
1) The ZS10 and ZS8 compact superzooms.
2) The TS3 (FT3 in Europe) rugged compact camera
3) The FX78 ultra-compact with an F2.5-5.9 5x zoom lens starting at 24mm.

That’s it ;)

Panasonic GF2 in Stock in Europe (+ new review at Clubic)

January 24, 2011
deals
8 Comments

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[/shoplink] Good news from Europe. The new Panasonic GF2 is in Stock at Amazon.co.uk (Click here). In USA you can preorder the camera at Amazon US and Adorama and should be available soon.

Meanwhile the french website clubic.com tested the new Panasonic GF2 and the new 14mm and 12.5mm 3D lens. They posted lot of videos and image samples. They like the camera but do miss the manual controls from the GF1.

P.S.: As you know the GF1 has been discontinued so this is one of the very few deals that are ongoing now: BHphoto (Click here) has the GF1+14-42mm lens in Stock for $649 (Offer ends 01/29/2011).

(FT3) Coming soon: A mirror tele lens from Panasonic?

January 24, 2011
Rumors
45 Comments

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That is a surprise! One of our very good sources just told us that Panasonic is developing a new 500mm mirror(reflex) tele lens! UPDATE: The source doens’t know if that lens will be announced within 2011. The picture I posted above shows the [shoplink 19263 ebay]Minolta 500mm reflex[/shoplink]. According to the source Panasonic is working with some of the minolta specialist that made that lens. The Panasonic version will have AF (autofocus), O.I.S. (in lens stabilization) and be smaller than the Minolta version. What I don’t know is if there is really a “market” for such a lens. That’s why I added a poll at the bottom of the post to ask you if you would be interested in buying such a lens. And if you know more about that lens drop us a line at 43rumors@gmail.com or use the contact form on the right sidebar. Thanks!

For reference:
– The Minolta 500mm lens is out of production. You can get it for $500-$700 at [shoplink 19263 ebay]eBay (Click here to see the current lens auctions)[/shoplink].
– The new verison of the Minolta lens is the Sony 500mm f/8. Price $750 at Amazon (Click here to see it).
– Opteka offers a 500mm lens with Four Thirds mount. You can get them on [shoplink 19264 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] or Amazon (Click here).

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Reminder: Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds):
FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct
FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct
FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct

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