Mirrorlessrumors had the pleasure to meet the famous hacker Vitaly Kiselev. Yes, it is the guy that hacked our GH1 and GF1 cameras!

I am going to post a small part of the interview here:

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MR: What motivated you to work hard on the GH1 hack? Was it the DVXuser community?
VK: Generally speaking, yes. I would especially like to say a big thanks to Dvxuser admins and Barry Green personally. Next thing that motivated me: the enormous GH1 potential.

MR: What do you mean by “potential”?
VK: I mean that Panasonic amazingly lost the VDSLR battle to Canon, having a much better camera.

MR: How was that possible?
VK: You just need to remember the history: 2009.

MR: Why?
VK: Do you remember? You had the GH1 announcement and. oops. from nowhere ML (Magic Lantern) for
the Canon 5D MKII appears Canon 5D MKII appears…and the threads about mud in 1080p24.

MR: Why is the GH1 a better camera…and why did Canon win the battle?
VK: GH1 is just one step ahead. A good viewfinder, screen suitable for video shooting. AVCHD is not limited in length. In reality they had to win all. They just made three main errors. And I am worried that they can do it again with the GH2.

MR: And the errors are?
VK: 1) They sell kit only. With high priced kit lens it is a bad decision. People do not have options.
2) They did not do any tests for its AVCHD encoder. Even 24Mbit setting (and this is within standards) could be much better. This is a software only error, easy to fix.
3) They did not understand who opinion makers are. They spend millions on marketing for average Joe, but average Joe reads specialized forums and opinion makers.
They must make features and have people to deal with opinion makers. Canon did exactly this. Not from the start, but they started moving.

MR: In some countries (like UK) body only option is available. Maybe what we miss here are more “dedicated” video lenses.
VK: As for body only version. UK is a bad example with very high prices

MR: Why do you think Panasonic will repeat the mistake with the GH2 (or GH3)?
VK: From my sources (this is not a high level management), they all think that as soon as they reveal GH2, all problems will be solved. Instantly. No need to ask for things the users need, no need to deal with opinion makers. No. They know better. Normally this is good sign of a disaster.

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Read the whole interview here: http://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/an-interview-with-vitaly-kiselev-the-gh1gf1-hacker/

The new Sony A33 has almost the same size as current Panasonic G2 and GH1 cameras.

Finally we received very good info from our reliable sources. Panasonic will announce the new Panasonic GH2 and new lenses on September 21 (probably at 6am London time). We previousely told you that there was a planned Panasonic press release on Augst 26. According to our good sources Panasonic postponed the announcement for the GH2!
We are now investigating the reason for the delay. We know that Panasonic new sensor development has taken more time than expected and that could be the main reason for the delay. Another reason could be the announcement of the Nikon D3100 and Sony A55 and A33 cameras. Maybe Panasonic wants to make some last minute changes…

We will tell you more about the GH2 as soon as we have bulletproof infos!

P.S.: Nikon had their press release today, Canon and Sony will have it next week. Olympus and Panasonic only by mid Spetember. Does that mean something?