Amy Davies from Techradar (Click here) had a chat with Mark Thackara (Olympus UK marketing manager). Mark said that: “Pre-orders are the highest we’ve ever had, it’s a lot higher than the [PEN] E-P1, and even the biggest pre-order level for many years, which I think shows how people are responding to the camera.”

Also my sources told me that there is a chance this will very likely become the most sold digital Olympus system camera ever. That’s not bad for a company we all thought would be close to dead three years ago only. It one more time proves that making right products can pay off. The bad news for us is that today a source told me that most of our readers will have to be patient to get their E-M5. Production is fully ongoing but cannot expect the high demand.

P.S.: Pekka Potka (Click here) posted a E-M5 stabilization and continuous auto-focusing test. Olympus Europe posted that Live Bulb Function in Action video on youtube (Click here). For US readers, here is the E-M5 free accessory deal info: http://www.olympusamerica.com/crm/rebates/e-m5_accessory_mir_form.pdf.

Preorders:
USA: Amazon, Adorama and B&H.
Europe: Jessops, Amazon UK and Amazon Germany.
Asia: Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.

Rankings:

USA: E-M5 on position 7/8/15/18 (Click here)
UK: Silver E-M5 on position 9 (Click here).
Germany: The E-M5 is too expensive and not on top (Click here).
France: not available (Click here to see rankings anyway).
Japan: E-M5 on position 5/7/8 (Click here).

It doesn’t happen often to see such a (mostly) positive discussion about a new m43 products. We saw the nice tests from Pekka Potka, the videos from Olympus Australia, the ISO comparison with the E-P3, the RAW files from Focus Numerique, the Studio samples Dpreview (Click here) and MR Terada making a superb job answering all journalists and your questions (Thanks Mr. Terada!). While I know it’s impossible to really judge a camera until you have it in your own hands I want to ask you what you think based on all reviews and image samples you saw. What are the single aspects of the camera you like most?

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The highest ranked E-M5 in USA (Click here) is the Silver body with kit lens. In Germany (Click here) is the Black body and kit lens. And in UK (Click here) is the Silver body with kit lens.

E-M5 preorders (Click on the names of the stores to see the product page):
Black E-M5 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Warehouse UK, Digitalrev and Amazon Japan.
Silver E-M5 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Warehouse UK, and Amazon Japan.
Black E-M5 body with 14-42mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto , Digitalrev and J&R.
Black E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Deutschland , Digitalrev and Amazon Japan.
Silver E-M5 body with 12-50mm lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, J&R, Jessops, Amazon UK, Amazon Deutschland and Amazon Japan.

Olympus Japan announced a new firmware update for the E-Pm1, E-PL2, E-PL3, E-P3 and the E-5. It adds support for the new [shoplink 29838]SDXC 48GB cards (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. It also improves the external flash functionality on the E-Pm1 and E-PL3.

One more thing. Amy from Techradar (Click here) had another small talk with Claudia Baehr, European Product Manager for Olympus. She said the mirrorless market  share in Japan now surpassed the 50% beating for the first time the DSRL camera sales. In UK mirrorless sales climbed at 30% while USA seems to be the most conservative market with mirrorless cameras having a 20% only. Claudia said: “the reaction in the States is a bit more mixed – the Americans seem to prefer bigger cameras, such as ultrazooms.”

Maybe the [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink] si the right camera for the US market? :)

Dear readers!

You can help Vitaly Kiselev to collect some money for an appropriate and independent NAB coverage: http://www.personal-view.com/talks/discussion/2466/nab-2012.

As you may know the biggest surprise for the m43 system could be the new Super 35mm Micro Four Thirds camcorder. It may will anticipate some of the new video features of the GH3 too!

Over one year ago we conducted a POLL to see what kind of lens would be needed for the new Micro Four Thirds system (Click here to see the results from the December 2010 poll). During that time (December 2010 until today) Panasonic and Olympus announced many new lenses:
The [shoplink 23110]Panasonic 25mm f/1.4[/shoplink] The [shoplink 25104]Panasonic 14-42mm X lens[/shoplink] The [shoplink 25103]Panasonic 45-175mm X lens[/shoplink] The upcoming new Panasonic 12-35mm f/2.8 X lens
The upcoming new Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens
The [shoplink 23576]Olympus 12mm f/2.0[/shoplink] The [shoplink 23577]Olympus 45mm f/1.8[/shoplink] The upcoming new Olympus 75mm f/1.8 lens
The upcoming new Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro lens.

Time has come to prepare a new poll. Please comment this post with your Micro Four Thirds lens suggestions! To facilitate my job I kindly ask you to use a uniformed format that will allow me to easily copy and paste your lens description:

XXmm f/X.X -> price info (can be “low price”or don’t write anything if it doesn’t matter for you), size info (can be “pancake”, “collapsible”, “compact” or don’t write anything if it doesn’t matter for you), features (“high optical quality, “power zoom”, “smooth aperture ring”, “weather sealed”, “macro”, “manual focusing” or anything else you want to write.).  I make you an example by writing my own wish-list:

10.5mm f/3.5 -> low priced,pancake.
12mm f/1.2 -> high optical quality, weather sealed.
12-50mm f/2.0 -> powerzoom, smooth aperture ring.
17mm f/1.4 -> pancake, high optical quality.
25mm f/3.5 -> low priced,pancake, macro
42mm f/1.4 -> high optical quality.

You got it? Than start with your list!!!

If the price wouldn’t be that high this would certainly be the ONE lens I would always use on my Olympus E-P1 and Panasonic GH2. Today Cosina announced that the new Nokton 17.5mm f/0.95 lens will start shipping from April 29th (via DC.watch). The lens sale shipment was due for March but because of an exceptional high preorder demand the shipment had to be postponed! I am surprised to hear that the lens had such a high demand. The price is high (120,000 yen or 1.299 Euro), currently no website did post any image samples, there is no preview, and even bigger stores are not offering any preorder option. In fact there is zero Marketing around that lens! My guess is that the lens promotion is ongoing “underground” at the very basic Internet user level. The specs are amazing, Cosina is also known for making good quality lenses. Maybe that’s enough to push you guys to buy the lens.

The only two image samples that I found on the Internet are on Flickr (Click here) and (Click here). Europenas can preorer the lens at [shoplink 29368 ebay]Digitalhandel (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 29367 ebay]Bayern Fotoversand (Click here)[/shoplink].

P.S.:A cheaper alternative is the [shoplink 29238 ebay]Schneider 17mm f/0.95 (Click here to see it on ebay)[/shoplink] C-mount lens.

I guess that many of you still own or even use a Film camera. I still use the [shoplink 28309 ebay]Mamiya 7[/shoplink] on almost daily base. And even the [shoplink 28229 ebay]OM-3Ti[/shoplink] sometimes. So this is a very bad day for all of us because Kodak dropped and already removed all(!) slide films from their stores. The E100VS ([shoplink 29513 ebay]here on eBay[/shoplink]), E100G ([shoplink 29514 ebay]here on eBay[/shoplink]) and the Elite Chrome Extra Color 100 ([shoplink 29515 ebay]here on eBay[/shoplink]).

Is this the end of Film? I don’t think so, but it could be the end of Kodak :(

And I never asked you that questions:

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I am so curious to know how many of you are like me…still a bit of “old” time photographer :)