Smartphones are eating up the low end compact camera market. And the High End compact camera with fixed lens market is one the last niche left where companies cans till make some money. Olympus will soon announce their High End compact and let’s hope it can be as successful as they were with the [shoplink 37225 ebay]Olympus XA 35mm film compact camera (here on eBay)[/shoplink]. Cameraquest writes that this was a “groundbreaker“. it is the smallest full frame 35 with a built in Rangefinder!!! It had an Albada finder with parallax correction marks, automatic exposure, super smooth electromagnetic shutter release, self timer, a battery check, and tripod mount. yep all that stuff in a super small camera (see it on youtube here).

Guru Blogger Ken Rockwell writes about the XA: “Not only are the images wonderful, but the design and styling of these cameras are a joy to behold.”

It may doens’t look particularly great but it does all what we need and all in the smallest package possible. Let’s see what the new digital Premium compact Olympus will copy from it. I would like to see the clamshell! :)

Olympus XA auctions on [shoplink 37225 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Is the Olympus 17mm f/1.8 lens good or not? Watch the video to hear Kai’s answer :)

A more “technical” review has been also posted by SLRgear. They write: “Olympus has produced a very nice lens here – it feels very solid, and produces some nice images. In comparison to its fellows, it isn’t quite as sharp or resistant to chromatic aberration, especially at the larger focal lengths, but its unique focusing technology might make up for that, and make it easier to use in the field.”

Yep, some like and some do not like the lens. May Olympus come out with a high quality 17mm f/1.4 lens too? That would be nice for all MFT owners asking for an extra super high quality 17mm lens!

Olympus 17mm lens price check at [shopcountry 34914].

The world of Micro Four Thirds adapters is growing and sometimes it surprises you with new products from companies you never heard of it before. The German company Mirex launched a new Micro Four Thirds Tilt Shift Adapter. The adapter is not yet listed on their webpage, but it is available and 43rumors reader Florian owns it. You can read his report and see more pics at Floriansphotos.com.

Current T/S adpaters or lenses for MFT are:
[shoplink 37413 ebay]Arsat Arax Photex 35mm f/2.8 (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 37414 ebay]MC 2.8/20mm TILT/SHIFT lens (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 37415 ebay]Minolta Tilt adapter (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
[shoplink 37416 ebay]Kipon Nikon F mount Lens to Micro 4/3 Tilt & Shift Adapter (here on eBay)[/shoplink].

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The 12-35mm X lens just got DxOmarked (Click here to read the test). And they write: “The Panasonic Lumix G X Vario 12-35mm f2.8 ASPH Power O.I.S is the best lens of it’s type by quite a long way, but at a price that would buy better equipment if you are not wedded to the Micro 4:3 system.”

The 12-35mm X zoom beats the rest of the MFT lenses and comes very close to the Olympus 12mm and 45mm prime lens performance. Now we have to see if the upcoming new Olympus f/2.8 zoom can match or even beat the Panasonic X performance!

DxOmark writes that the X zoom is expensive but you can find some deals in US and Europe:
Panacam sells the lens for $985 via Amazon US (Click here).
Five demo lenses are for sale in [shoplink 37404 ebay]Germany (Click here)[/shoplink] for 829 Euro.

That is what Admiringlight writes: “Overall, I think the 17mm f/1.8 is an extremely good lens for environmental portraiture and street shooting, as its image qualities shine in these situations, and the autofocus is blazingly fast.  If you are after this lens as a high quality landscape lens, it’s probably not worth your money, as you can get similar quality from your kit zoom at 17mm stopped down.”

And that is Digitalcamerareview’s conclusion: “The 17mm f/1.8 lens is the kind of lens I want to use almost all the time. I won’t butcher the fabulous Olympus OM-D E-M5 by gluing this lens to it, but Olympus is going to have to send some very tough repo men to wrestle this lens back from me.”

So both like the lens and if the rumors I got are correct than we will get a Black version of this lens soon too!

Olympus 17mm lens price check at [shopcountry 34914].

M43photo.blogspot.jp made this video to compare the GH3 ETC vs non-ETC video quality and his conclusion is: “The ETC mode is a very useful feature, but it is best used at low ISO. At higher ISO, the video quality will suffer.”

Ming Thein posted the full GH3 review and ends his tests by saying: “I think the problem with GH3 is that it feels far too much like a piece of consumer electronics, and not enough like a camera. It really doesn’t feel like there was any photographer input during the development process, or the photographers who were involved were of the hipstagram generation and don’t remember that plenty of very responsive cameras were produced without an on-screen menu. This permeates throughout all aspects of the camera”

Ming criticizes the GH3 from a pure photographic point of view while the GH3 has been clearly made with video in mind.

GH3 price and in Stock status check at [shopcountry 33624].

Recently Olympus launched the new body cap lens that has a constant f/8.0 aperture. Many of you argued that f/8.0 is a huge limit and a faster body cap lens should be done by Oly. And actually….Olympus already did such a compact and fast lens in the past! The [shoplink 37230 ebay]Olympus PEN-W (ebay auctions here)[/shoplink] used an extremely compact and fixed 25mm f/2.8 lens (see picture on top). This Pen Series camera was designed specifically for wide-angle photography (Source Olympus). To see how compact this lens is you can also watch that youtube video. Ok, so it’s possible…but how good is a lens like that? Lars-Göran Hedström posted a full review of the PEN-W on his blog Sculptingwithlight (Click here). Greta pics!

Now let’s see if Olympus can do a lens like that for the MFT system too!

Olympus PEN-W auctions on [shoplink 37230 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
There is a commerative Gold finished PEN-W on [shoplink 37231 ebay]eBay US (Click here)[/shoplink].