As you know for months now rumors are floating around about possible alliances between Olympus and Sony or Samsung or Fuji or whatever else :)
Olympus is seeking a way to get some cash in the company. But today Reuters reports that “Olympus will not unveil an equity alliance at its major strategy briefing next month, despite speculation it might do so, sources said on Tuesday.” And there is also a surprise: “An investment banking source added that Olympus management hoped it could eventually raise capital on its own.” This would of course the best news if Olympus can stand on his own feet!

From a financial point of view the medical department is the one that matters but I hope their recent [shoplink 29074]E-M5[/shoplink] release and upcoming 75mm portrait announcement will help them to earn some money with the camera division too! That said I know from my top sources that Olympus didn’t expect that kind of success form the E-M5. particularly the Silver model is selling as good as the Black E-M5. That’s why it’s hard to find it in Stock. Here are all my search links to the E-M5. Links I check a couple of times per week to see where the E-M5 is in Stock:

As you know DSLRmagazine (Click here) tonight posted the first review 12-35mm X lens review. This post where I will sum all links and test I can found on the web!

Preorders
UPDATE: You can preorder the lens at Amazon (Click here)
The japanese shop Kitamura will ship the lens on June 21th.

Most interesting info:
It has Power OIS but no Powerzoom. Costs 1100 Euro or 999 pounds and be avilable in June. It’s almost half the price of a comparable FF lens like the [shoplink 31079 ebay]Nikon 24-70mm (Click here)[/shoplink]. Dpreview writes: “This impression of a quality product is reinforced by the wonderfully-smooth zoom ring action, that rivals Canon and Nikon’s top-end lenses for its silkiness of operation.”

(P-)reviews
Full review at Photographyblog.
Image samples at Dpreview.
Image samples at DCresource.
Review at ePhotozine: “Performance-wise, this lens delivers sharp, contrasty images with low CA and distortion, which should be expected of a pro-spec zoom.”
DSLRmagazine
Hands-on review at Dpreview.
Hands-on pics at Lumix.ro (Rumania)

Press release
Photographyblog, Photoscala (German), Focus Numerique (french). A super presentation page at Panasonic.

Video:

Poll

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Oh, I didn’t forget that little sexy new Panasonic GF5 :)  The camera just shipped to first Europea and American stores. The picture on top is from the dutch store FotoHansKeuzakamp. The body only is priced at 621 Euro at Amazon France. It’s a nice cameras but I feel like the recent GF3 price drops may will make it hard to justify the extra price you have to pay for the GF5. For example the GF3 body only costs a little over 300 Euro here a Digitech on [shoplink 31026 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and with the 14-42mm lens 379 Euro again on [shoplink 31027 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. And we Europeans as usual will get even more frustrated when checking the USA price of the GF3: You cna get the body for $249 only (180 Euro!) in [shoplink 31030 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 31029 ebay]White (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 31028 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink].

Today I want to catch up with some stuff I never managed to post before on 43urmors. In that case if you want to know a bit about Olympus future strategy look at Techradar that had a chat with Olympus about three themes:

1) Olympus: We’ve got the edge over competitors (Click here)
Thackara from Olympus affirms that Olympus has the edge compared to other mirrorless systems: “Some of the other compact system cameras have a very limited range of dedicated lenses, whereas we have now offer a choice of around 20, it’s a very good range of options and some of them are pretty serious“.
2) Olympus: Phones will never replace compacts (Click here)
Mark Thackara, Olympus UK marketing manager said: “The concern for us is that we have to keep giving people a reason why they should have a camera as well as a phone.”
3) Olympus: apps on cameras are coming (Click here)
In that case Mr. Thackara said: “It’s something that has been discussed, but because the emphasis is on image quality, they’re [Olympus] a little wary of opening up the OS. I think it’ll happen eventually, but things are not as easy as we think. The appeal of people being able to add to their cameras is big though. It’s on the list.”

Overall I think one of the crucial aspects will be the software. Sooner or later companies will have to allow the development and installation of third party application. Very likely Samsung will be the first company to release a camera based on the Android system.

I know guys, it’s not really the best news to start the weekend. But here it is. After Olympus also Panasonic announced a “record $10 billion annual loss” (Source: Reuters). The problem is the shrinking TV market. Also Sony and Sharp are having huge troubles within that segment. There is no word about the digital camera business and I don’t think their (major) problems have to do with that. The global crisis, the strong YEN and maybe the now (too) conservative handling of Japanese companies are the main cause. Almost all Japanese companies are facing tuff times.

A personal addition: The crisis affects the life around me too. It’s not just a perception, I see that around me prices of houses are falling, companies not paying bills and friends losing jobs. It’s hard to think how we should act and what we need to change. My girlfriends best friend lives in Greece and I get so many bad news form there. I will be there in September for a very personal short documentary about those friends. I want too understand more!

Is it just me or is that new Leica X2 having the same Olympus VF-2 external viewfinder? As you know the Oly EVF is made by Epson so this really could be the same…
That said, it’s interesting to see how much you have to pay for a camera with a unique Black And White sensor….$7999 at Adorama (Click here to read specs of the M Monochrome). I am wondering if Olympus and Panasonic should do a camera with B&W sensor too! Would be intriguing!

More reviews about the B&W madness at MirrorlessRumors (Click here).

USA deal: Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 in Stock at Adorama (Click here).

The new SLRmagic 25mm f/0.95 lens is in the middle between the Voigtlander and the Leica.

So here we are with the next super fast f/0.95 lens! After the Hyperprime 50mm and the two Voigtlander 25mm and 17.5mm SLR magic will develop another 25mm f/0.95 lens! It will very likely arrive on market by end of the year and have an extimated price similar of the [shoplink 25691 ebay]Hyperprime 50mm lens (here on eBay)[/shoplink].

They also send me some image samples which they told “are representative of 70% of what our final lens can produce. We noticed some purple fringing and we will try to address that issue before the production model“. They will show that lens at Photokina in September (Hall 3.1 at booth B059).

Below you can find an f/0.95 image comparison (Click on them to enlarge). On the left the SLRmagic and on the right the Voigtlander. The SLR Magic lens has thinner DOF. It is because it is a T0.95 lens and not a f/0.95 lens. Images may look blurry in some comparison photos but it is just because of thinner DOF. You can see the thin plane of focus is actually quite sharp. The ISO was 200 and shutter speed was 1/15 on a manfrotto portable tripod with WB at 3000K.

Comparison at f/0.95

Comparison at f/1.4

The advantage of the SLRmagic lens over the Voigtlander is the smooth aperture ring (perfect for cinematographers), it’s sharper wide open, and less purple fringing.

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This would become the fourth m43 lens with f/0.95 aperture. The other three are the:
[shoplink 15659 ebay]Nokton 25mm (here on eBay)[/shoplink] [shoplink 30452 ebay]Nokton 17.5mm (here on eBay)[/shoplink] [shoplink 25691 ebay]Noktor SLRmagic 50mm (here on eBay)[/shoplink]