Double Micro Four Thirds lens leak (unexciting).

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As I told you before the real new heavy stuff will be announced in March-April. The only news from the Micro Four Thirds front will be these two new lenses which are actually an update of current existing lenses:

First we will get a new Panasonic 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS lens with improved AF tracking, OIS, silent AF and aperture control. The lens is also a bit smaller and lighter than the predecessor.

And what you see now is the new Olympus 75-300mm lens which is said to be a bit cheaper than the predecessor plus….it comes in Black only.

Now let’s move on and see if Samsung will bring some excitement with their NX Full frame mirrorless camera!

No new Sony-Panasonic-Olympus camera for CP+

Ha, Olympus Big Announcement that will be made next week nothing has to do with the MFT system. There will be an updated 75-300mm II lens but that’s all. That what Olympus defines as big news is “just” the new XZ-10 compact camera. And Sony too will announce the NEX-3N only after the CP+ show which takes place in Yokohama from January 31. And what about Panasonic? New GF and G successors are also coming in a few weeks only.

In summary this is what we can expect to be announced in March-April:
Olympus: new semi pro PEN model
Panasonic: New GF and G models
Sony: new NEX-3n
Samsung: new NX300 and maybe a new NX Full Frame surprise
Canon: new EOS-M with integrated viewfinder
Ricoh-Pentax-Nikon-Fuji: No info about new camera releases yet…

Or you may heard about some mroe cameras? Drop me a message at mirrorlessrumors@gmail.com if you have some secret bits to share :) Thanks!

Sigma E-mount and MFT lenses are discounted. New ART versions are coming!

 

 

The discounted Sigma lenses at BHphoto.

You may have noticed that all current Sigma lenses for the NEX and MFT systems are discounted? In USA you can get both lenses for the price of one at BHphoto (Click here). And in Europe the price is down to 99 Euro like for example in Germany at Technikdirekt or on eBay (via Slidoo). And you know why these deals are running all over the world? Easy answer, Sigma will soon announce a new version of these lenses!

And the very interesting news is that these lenses will be high quality ART lenses! The word “ART” stays for the high quality photographer prime lenses. They are designed to be high quality alternative of other companies lenses but at the same time priced much lower than the competition. Sigma launched the first ART lens for Canon/Nikon/Sony a couple of months ago. it is the 35mm f/1.4 lens (here at Amazon) that got plenty of positive reviews like at SLRgear (Click here) and Photographyblog (Click here).

I have no exact announcement date but stay tuned on MR, I will hopefully find it out soon! P.S.: Yep, price will be higher than the current lenses!

 

Sony announce the new 20mm f/2.8 pancake. Olympus 75-300mm announcement to follow soon.

 

Image of the 20mm pancake

Sony announced the new stuff for the CP+ show and it’s rather unspectacular. First we have the new 20mm f/2.8 pancake. Than we have the 18-200mm Powerzoom lens that will be sold as lens only too (it was available as kit lens for NEX camcorder only). Both are already available for preorder at BHphoto (Click here for 20mm pancake) and for the powerzoom (Click here).

And Olympus will also announce something unspectacular this week. An updated version of the current 75-300mm lens :)

Now we have the poor man’s Full frame thanks to Metabones Speed Booster!

Metabones Speed Booster – FS100 vs 5D Mark III from Andrew Reid on Vimeo.

The Metabones Speed Booster may be the highlight of the moment. We have two new reviews out there that underline the superb image quality you get thanks to the Speed Booster. Andrew from EosHD (Click here) wrote a long review is extremely surprised by the good performance of the adapter. There is almost not problem, just a tiny bit of sharpness loss on the corners. And the second test has been done by Robert from Lensrentals (Click here). And he likes it a lot: “The Speed Booster does what they said it would do, much to my shock and surprise“.

The Metabones adapter suddenly makes your lens faster and wider giving you a more “Full Frame” rendering. At least so is what reviewers tell us. Can’t wait to test it on my mirrorless camera! You can preorder the adapter at Metabones directly. Or if you prefer save this search on Slidoo to get notified when it will be available on eBay too.

Also Ricoh will join the large sensor compact camera market!

Image credit: Ricoh GR Digital IV by matsuyuki

 

PetaPixel just published an info we also got from our sources last week. Ricoh will launch a new GR Digital V camera with large APS-C sensor and fixed lens. The camera is rumored to arrive the second half of this year. I am still not sure about the lens but a source told me it’s definitely one of the two patented 23mm f/2.5 and 27mm f/1.9 designs (Source: RiceHigh).

The high end compact camera marked is the last profitable business on fixed lens cameras. All the low end stuff is being eaten up by smartphones.

MFT family grows (5 new companies join). And new Olympus camera in Spring.

Micro Four Thirds is dead…long live Micro Four Thirds!

The MFT system is now five years old and despite all the strong competition from Sony, Nikon, Canon, Samsung and others it is still the most popular and complete mirrorless system. And the group of companies supporting it just became bigger with the entries of Blackmagic Design Ltd, JK Imaging Ltd, Photron Ltd, SVS-VISTEK GmbH, View Plus Inc. (Source: Olympus Japan). The one you know best is certainly Blackmagic while JK Imaging shake the last week with their announcement of a Kodak branded MFT camera.

Enough talking…what about real new products? Olympus is rumored to release a new semi professional MFT camera and a new fast zoom for Spring. And the upcoming CP+ show is not the place Olympus has choose to announce it. So sleep well these days, there will be no amazing announcement yet as Panasonic, Samsung, Canon and maybe Sony too will announce new stuff in March-April only.