The E-P1

Finally the E-P1 has been revealed. I am going to buy one only because I need a compact high quality camera I can carry with me all the time. Yes there are features I like and features I do not like (or miss). But I am very minimalistic in my photographic needs so the “dislikes” doesn’t matter at all. I hope to get the camera for mid July but I do not know if there will be big shipment delays because of the high request.

Why we made 43rumors
Since years I daily check for Olympus Panasonic and Leica news. And I thought it would be nice to create a website to sum all this news and to make it easy for you to find all the latest news and rumors. In this months people began to help me by sending links and someone became a 43rumors poster. Many thanks you all!

Our rumors

Frankly I am surprised that our rumors were so close to the real E-P1 specs. Initially we “only” reported rumors from other websites. But then we began to receive many emails with “rumors” and of course I got some wrong rumor (Initially we thought there will be a built in flash). And I received a lot of false E-P1 images but I always tried to ask for confirmations from all sources in order to prevent big mistakes and fakes. It worked well. I got some help on how to deal with that information from the nikonrumors.com owner. A very friendly guy!

Our next rumors target

I want to focus my attention to the compact Panasonic MicroFourThirds camera. I am really excited to see what Panasonic will show us!

Our next 43rumors changes and ideas brainstorming!

We are always trying to make this website better and better.

We will work on some minor design tweaks, we will add some new content. We are not going to build a 43rumors forum (we have better ideas!).

That’s why I ask you to comment this post with all your ideas wishes and critics!

thanks folks!

Alejandro

43rumors

3 months ago we posted the link to the amateur photographer article. We re-post an interesting excerpt and the link.

http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk

“Ichiro Kitao general manager at Panasonic’s Products Planning Group, said: ‘It is one of the choices – a more entry-level piece than the G1 or a step up piece…In the coming years we would like to expand our G Micro [Four Thirds] system.’ ”

I believe Panasonic is working hard at a compact m4/3 camera which could probably be announced the end of the year. It will be interesting to see if they will make the same feature cut (No-Evf, No-Flash) like Olympus has done with the E-P1.

The m4/3 announcement (and probably success) regurgitated a big question…. Will Olympus still maintain the same commitment and development resources for normal four thirds cameras and lenses?

I asked some of our sources.

All confirm that Olympus has a clear four thirds camera and lens roadmap. They are still designing new four thirds cameras and lenses. Nothing has changed. The E-3 successor is planned to be released this year and you will certainly see new four thirds cameras next year. From now until spring 2010 Olympus will release new lenses (most of them are primes).

This sounds good, but I believe  a huge m4/3 success will probably distort these plans. Olympus is a small company (compared to the bigger Canon, Nikon and Sony) with limited resources….perhaps the time has come for a big choice?

I received an unofficial confirmation that the E-P1 will be available late July in Europe.

Soon redcoon and pixmania should have the E-P1 available for pre-order. I will post links for every European country to them as soon as the E-P1 is listed… How many countries are there in Europe? It’s going to be a long slog:)

Get it here! (Same prices as amazon)

Bhphoto E-P1

Adorama E-P1

We all have been busy looking for E-P1 news, images, samples and previews. That’s why we make a small summary of all the NO-E-P1 news :)

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There is a new Olympue E-620 review at

http://www.trustedreviews.com/digital-cameras/review/2009/06/17/Olympus-E-620/p1

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Panasonic GH1 gets his review at photographybay and quesabesde (spanish)

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A very long list of Panasonic compact camera should take an advantage from the new firmware…but a very little one!

But there is a Warning!
“After this firmware update your Panasonic Digital Camera cannot be operated by 3rd party batteries (non genuine Panasonic batteries).”

http://panasonic.jp/support/global/cs/dsc/download/

• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS15 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS25 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS4 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS42 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS6 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS62 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS7 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FS8 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FX40/FX48 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FX550/FX580 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-FT1/DMC-TS1 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-TZ6/DMC-ZS1 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-TZ65 Firmware update service
• Jun 15, 2009 | DMC-TZ7/DMC-ZS3 Firmware update service

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Noisycamera reports some new Olympus 3CCD Trine sensor speculation

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From engadget:

Update: We’ve heard conflicting word on auto focus. According to Photography Review‘s preview, the camera doesn’t have auto focus in video mode, but according to the Olympus press release, as Super Marxio pointed out in comments, there is auto focus during recording. Perhaps Photography Review was looking at a non-final version of the camera. We do know that the camera does auto focus using contrast detection, like a regular compact camera, and while that’s the same method used by the GH1, DP Review claims it’s slightly inferior — though they did state they were working with a 0.9 firmware.