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 :)

Back In December (Click here t read) I told you a bit about my current life situation and the intense work on 43rumors and MirrorlessRumors. It’s now three years that I work on 43rumors in almost every single free time I have. It’s an immense passion and joy to work with it but what started for fun become a real second job with lots of hours of work.

And it’s now time for me to find some help. In my “real life” I do travel a lot and have some major project to accomplish. I tried to find some help in the past through the “Online-friendhips” I made via 43rumors but somehow this never worked. I work as Photographer and Documentarist and starting from end 2011 I asked all my friends and colleagues if someone would help me on my websites. I needed at least one person that would help me to cover the daily news while I would keep being the only one working on rumors with my own anonymous sources.

In September 2011 I got a surprising call from “Frank”. He is a good friend of mine that studied with me Philosophy back in early 2000. He than kept studying Informatics and than Artificial Intelligence(!) He worked as professor at the University and he has been always a Canon shooter…hey nobody is perfect ;)

He heard that I was looking for some help and he proposed me this. I would promote his Canonwebsite and he would help me out whenever I would be busy at work. I accepted the offer and I am also curious to see what a man with his knowledge would do on a website like this. He has some crazy ideas that he will realize with his knowledge in informatics and artificial intelligence programming. But I will not tell you more. Here are the details of the deal:
– For the start I link from my website to his new website and for the moment he is using the same theme I have on 43rumors.
– He is the complete alone writer and administrator on CanonWatch. Just to let you know that I have no influence there.
– The website name is CanonWatch (Click here). It’s a news website less focused on rumors and more on creative content and news/reviews coverage.
– When I will unavailable for a couple of days Frank will cover the daily news on 43rumors. I will of course let you know when this happens and he will of course use his name to sign the posts.

Now I really invite you to visit CanonWatch (Click here). Not only because of the Canon news, but to know him as a person. He will need your help and feedback to check if what he does is alright. In particular you might be interested to see the full Canon 5DmarkkIII news coverage (Click here).

Something else:
Frank is not the only one that is interested to do “something” with my websites. My biggest wish is to add a creative section where good work done with m43 cameras can be easily shown. It’s often confusing to find interesting reportages and videos on social websites like Flicker and Youtube. And during my double life (as Photographer and Blogger) I learned that often non professional people I met through 43rumors have an immense talent and nice stories to show. This is my wish for 2012. To create a new room for your work. We talk a lot about cameras every day, but at the end isn’t your creativity what really matters? :)

Un abrazo
Ale (43rumors admin)

You can find some image samples on the same ebay page. This is not the first time I see such pinhole lenses. You can find many of them on eBay and sold by asian stores:
– Skink Pinhole Pancake Pro Lens Kit for Olympus PEN on [shoplink 21696 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
– Pinhole Cap Lens for m43 on [shoplink 21697 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
– Skink Pinhole Pancake Creative Kit for Four Thirds on [shoplink 21698 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

One more news: Kirk Tuck reviewed the Panasonic-Leica 25mm lens at TheOnlinePhotographer: “The 25mm Summilux is quickly becoming the anchor in my small system. I’m loathe to take other systems out anymore. The addition to a product line of an exceptional optic (or three) can make all the difference in the world.“…couldn’t agree more :)
Leica lens price check at [shopcountry 23110].

The Sonnetar 25mm f/1.1 prototype lens on the [shoplink 23565]Olympus E-PM1[/shoplink].

It is a great honour for me to write this post! As you know a couple of days ago I told you that the great and very innovative lens designer Mr. Miyazaki realized a new lens prototype for the m43 system. Yesterday his staff contacted me to ask me and in particular YOU a great favour. They are a very small team and the lenses they make like the [shoplink 29386 ebay]Leica Triplet lenses (Click here to see them on eBay)[/shoplink] are actually handmade! So they want to know if you would REALLY would buy the lens if they would take the huge effort to produce them on larger scale. They sent me a couple of images I posted here and some images samples can bee seen at KTF-turbo (Click here) and KTFdesign (Click here). This is a prototype lens so there can still be some improvements until the final production version. The lens will cost around $650 like the [shoplink 29387 ebay]Pentax Q version[/shoplink]. Please try to be honest…you really have to buy the lens if you answer yes ;)

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My personal two cent: What I like most about the lens is the incredibly tiny size for such a fast aperture. But image quality wide open is not 100% convincing. The picture below also show the lens on the [shoplink 29074]Olympus E-M5[/shoplink]. Click on them to enlarge!