With all those rumors I don’t want my readers to get lost :)
It’s time for a brief rumors summary! The following roadmap is made based on rumors from good sources (and hopefully no mistakes that time):

Panasonic:
– July 21 Panasonic LX5, FX700, FZ100 (and probably more compacts) -> Keep an eye on the new LX5 sensor and the FZ100 video quality!
– July 28 The first Panasonic 3D videocamera will be released?
– Late August-early September Panasonic GH2, a second very compact MFT camera (a very special camera that many will like!) , new MFT lenses (14mm f/2.5, 100-300mm and more?) and the MFT camcorder.

Olympus:
– Mid September FourThirds camera (with special mount), new PEN (built-in EVF), many new MFT lenses (more about that in next posts)

Other interesting rumors/speculations:
– Early September Sigma and Tamron MFT lenses?

And there could be more cameras and lenses! So follow 43rumors and share your news/rumors via 43rumors@gmail.com

One more thing: If all works fine a new mirrorless website will go online next week…stay tuned!

Normally I wouldn’t post that “rumor” but I received many emails about the zol.com E-5 leak (It is exaggerated to call it “leak”). The Zol.com website is known for their unreliable “leaks” (they leaked the NEX specs). They usually use current rumors (and the NEX specs were almost correct because they used a correct SonyAlphaRumors leak). So be warned!

A stop motion video taken with the [shoplink 14828]Panasonic GF1[/shoplink]

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Olympus E-PL1 In Depth Review (Neutralday)
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Panasonic 8mm preview on DC.watch
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Olympus SP-800UZ review at PocketLink
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[shoplink 14908]Sony NEX-5[/shoplink] vs [shoplink 14828]Panasonic GF1[/shoplink] (DPreview forum)
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The post about the Quesabesde article created a lot of buzz on 43rumors, dpreview and many other forums.
I wanted to share with you a small summary of facts and a personal opinion about the future of FourThirds.

A little bit of history:
We can say that all began with the interview on Amateur Photographer where a Olympus US manager said that “The Olympus E system of FourThirds cameras is likely to be completely mirrorless in two years time, according to Olympus America’s DSLR product manager.“. After that statement Olympus released official notes saying that FourThirds will continue to exist.
But since then rumors and speculation about a possible FourThirds “dead” have been floating around the web and never stopped. We received many mails from people saying that 43 will not have any future.
Curiousely we noticed that soon after the Amateur Photographer article we started to receive many rumors about Olympus hybrid or modular concepts. Those are really vague descriptions but such rumors came from different and sometimes also very known sources.

My two cent about the FourThirds future:
I do fully trust Olympus when they say that they will continue to develop the FourThirds line. But to me the question is not so much “if” they will continue but “how” they will continue. Olympus needs to invent something special to make FourThirds interesting for (semi-)professionals.

Today Zone-10 posted a new article where they predict the merging of the technologies using modular construction and adaptors: http://zone-10.com/cmsm/. Read it, it may gives you some hint on what could happen with FourThirds!

Anyway, Photokina is getting closer and the E-3 successor will give us the asnwer we need (I hope)!
A.

Panasonic will launch new compact cameras on July 21. The most advanced compact camera will be the Panasonic LX5.
For those of you interested in FourThirds and MicroFourThirds only: Panasonic made a very advanced new sensor for the LX5. It is very likely that some of those new features will be inside the new FourThirds sensor.

Bye the way, the same korean website that leaked the FZ100 also leaked the LX5:

Say bye bye to the gloriuos Panasonic LX3!

Last minute update -> Panasonic also registered the FX700: