Spoiler: The cheapest lens is also the sharpest. Who would have thought? This test includes every wide-angle m4/3 lens practically available:

"By f/2.8 the superiority of most of the primes over most of the zooms becomes pretty apparent. The Olympus 17mm f/2.8 is easily the weakest of the prime lenses, which isn’t really surprising. It’s an older design and a consumer-grade pancake lens. The two

The microscopic GF5 is probably the last Panasonic m43 camera with this dated 12 Mpixel sensor that hails from the GF1 era. So, do sensors age gracefully, like a good wine for instance? Apparently, the do:

"The GF5 offers the same tiny body design, cutting-edge touchscreen and pared-down user interface as its predecessor, with the principal

Robin Wong continues on his extensive rolling review of the Olympus E-M5. This time there's some low light/high iso goodies, and exploration of the macro capabilities of the E-M5.  Robin also kindly provides a set of full jpegs for us to download and pixel peep (strictly for science (: ). He also turns the last part of the review into a mini macro shooting tuturial:

​I expected better test results from this super expensive, ultra wide zoom. Maybe Panasonic should let Leica have a look at the design for the successor?

"Due to the extreme wide angle of view the lens offers a petal-shaped hood is permanently fixed to the front, protecting the bulbous

What does those French got, that the major English speaking camera review sites don't? Focus numerique has started its grand Olympus review, and first up is the 'Gestion du bruit électronique' part, or as we say, iso-train-comparison-versus-some-major-rivals. The OM-D/E-M5 gets pitted against the Canon G1X, the Panasonic G3, the Sony NEX-7, the Nikon V1, and for good measure, its own stable mate, the Olympus E-P3. By golly the mirrorless gang has really

Apparent sharpness, appealing weather proofing, and appalling aperture at the tele end, is the very short version of this review:

"As focusing and zoom are performed internally the 52mm filter thread does not rotate during use, making this lens ideal for use with graduated and polarising filters. Focus speeds are fairly quick, although in low light conditions the lens can sometimes struggle

"Although not up to the standard of Leica's 'M' lenses, the build quality is good, with high quality plastics used for much of the barrel's construction and metal for the lens mount. This helps to keep the overall weight down. With the lens tipping the scales at 225g, it is certainly lightweight for a 1:1 macro optic with a fast f/2.8 aperture and optical stabilisation. At only 62.5mm long, it is very compact too and balances perfectly on the Panasonic G1 used for testing.

Micro four thirds users are the most pampered when it comes to sharp AF primes in the normal distance range, with no less than 6 such lenses available at this moment. Does this Leica branded lens bring some (or all) of the characteristics its $7000 non AF older and bigger 24mm sibling carries? As usual when it comes to reviews featured in The Online Photographer, many of the readers comments are very insightful and a worthy compliment to the review:

No, Gary does not have all three cameras in his possession, he just pits their specs against each other. Surprisingly, this simple roundup is is enough to stir a discussion, and draw some interesting conclusions:

"The main issues that really kill image resolution are AF accuracy, camera shake and optical quality, and it is on the 1st 2 of these

Korean site Danawa has posted an extensive (p)review on the E-M5. Since the images tell 9/10 of the story, there's no need to fire up your Google translator, unless you're in need of a good laugh. 

Next, we got the Polish site Fotopolis posting a full 2 page iso train. Crops on the first page, full jpegs on the second. Very nice choice of setup btw, a good balance of file detail texture, color, and so on. 

So, what have we got nyah: First, a series of full sized jpegs, straight out of a final firmware version E-M5, at What Digital Camera.  As almost always. these kind of tech mega sites do a really crappy work when it comes to photography. In any case, a trained (heh) pixel peeper can always draw his/hers own conclusion. 

Our next tidbit comes from Pekka Potka, a Finnish photographer that has proven to be an invaluable source of good E-M5 (and not

"One of the highlights of the movie mode though is its ability to record very long clips, at least for models unconstrained by European tax regulations. Frustratingly those GX1s destined for Europe will be limited to 29:59 clips, but others will enjoy clips lasting just over two hours with a fully-charged battery and empty 16GB card. Indeed I used the GX1 to record entire school events

and found the long uninterrupted recordings coupled with the tap refocusing made for a killer combination.

Just posting this, as a good example of meaninngless discussion about a no-brainer. Here's a certainty: Demand for the E-M5 will be of an unprecedented scale, reviewers will rave about it, Olympus will get a sweet tooth, and release a 'pro' specced model that sports upgrades such as lower iso and/or higher iso speed, better viewfinder, built-in intervalometer, illuminated buttons, better video codec, etc. Doesn't take a think tank or a subject starved writer to figure this out:

Thanks to the committed effort by Vitaliy Kiselev and his army of supporters and beta testers, owners of the Lumix GF2 can now for the first time get a taste of what their camera can achieve with the PTool firmware manipulation tool, such as unlocked and added bit rates, codecs, language, and numerous tweaks.

As a m43 camera that can easily match the current crop of aps-c equipped rivals, there's no doubt the E-M5 easily trumps the Pen E-P3, considering the fact that the latter sports the outdated 12 mpixels sensor. The pixel peeper mill has as usual picked up on this, and most erroneously agree that the difference between the two cameras is about one stop. However, that's stuff that comes from the rear of a bull, just put the 6400 file from thre E-P3 next to the 24.800 one from the E-M5 and you can clearly see that 

Pocket-Lint can be excused for not mentioning the 6th major feature, the gorgeous OM look:

"One of the headline features of the new OM-D, we found the 5-axis stabilisation to be very effective. It works by offering sensor shift technology in five planes and if you take the lens off the front of the camera, you can actually see the sensor responding as

Thank you for the heads-up 43rumors, and Focus Numerique for the plenty raw files. And, Olympus for the actual camera :) After a quick review of the raw files in question i came up with an alternative title for this post: Olympus moves into aps-c sized territory. If this camera is half as good as the hype has it, Oly will not be able to meet demand for a long time. 

P.S Lightroom won't open these raw files, use Raw Therapee, Olympus viewer (try with noise filter off for more crucial pixel peeping), Raw Photo Processor etc.

The ultimate judge of all them cameras has its verdict ready on the GX1, and even though it is not a death sentence, it's not lenient either. 

When the Gf1 its predecessor originally entered the market back in 2009 it pretty much had the playing field al by it self. Now, Sony has the NEX range lined-up with 2 formidable cameras, the current Olympus offerings have also smartened up quite a bit, not to mention the imminent release of the OM-D, a camera that has stirred up very strong feelings in the micro four thirds community;and elsewhere.

A bit late to the party, but still, one of the best, and surely the most emotional review of this camera ever. Brings the PENstory to mind:

"Features wise, the E-P1 pleases greatly. It has a lot of features that stand out for me, namely the in body image stabilization, dual

First, and most important in this pixel peepers honest opinion are the ISO SAMPLES. All the way to 25.600 as it should be. Server is a bit slow,propably being hammered to pieces by peeping toms from all over the world. A quick louping over them and 'wow' i believe this is the cleanest output from every m43 camera so far. While sharpness contrast and saturation are all set to 0, the images at iso 3200 and all the way up show very good sharpness and saturation. Seems like a good 3-5 stop improvement over my GH1. Tomorrow I will run a side-by-side with some GH2 and 7D files, because  i truly believe the OM-D is superior noise-wise to both.  Thank you Omuser!

"The camera is quite intuitive, with a simple multi-tab menu system and a variety of dedicated controls. There are two dials up top, just as you'll find on the Sony NEX-7 -- in manual mode, one adjusts aperture while the second changes shutter speed. Touchscreen control is available as well, with tap-to-focus and touch-shoot functionality, but you'll need to use the buttons to the right for more complex adjustments. As you'd expect

"It would be easy to dismiss the E-M5 as simply an upgraded E-P3 with a built-in viewfinder, but that would be to miss the point somewhat. Looked at another way, the E-M5 appears to be a synthesis of the best bits of recent Olympus cameras. It offers greater capability than the company's range-topping E-5 DSLR in a compact body with the classic styling of the OM range. It also echoes of the E-620 - the small, photographer-

"Names. What doesn't make sense is the camera's name. OM-D E-M5 is absurdly circumspect. They want to pay homage to the OM line while pointing out that it's digital, hence the D. Like we didn't know. Yet they want to keep pointing out that it's electronic like the other cameras in the line, hence the E in E-M5. I'd have preferred OM-5 or even OM-5D. We know it's electronic, and we know it's digital, so OM-5 would have been

Some nice details that comes out of this interview: The whole package of camera body+lens+snap-on flash is weather sealed. Mr. Terada says it is of the same sealing quality as that of the E-series. The new sensor's High ISO and  Dynamic Range characteristics offer a 1/3 improvement over current Olympus m43 sensors. Mr. Terada also explains how the new 5-axis stabilization system on the E-M5 works:

Dials! Dials everywhere, OM-D=Oh My Dials? Olympus really means business with this one. No fancy designer needed here, just the best example of retrography this editor has ever seen, and yes, i include all the recent Fujifilms, and the Panasonic GX1.

"The lens that our unit had, and one many will opt for, is a new compact 14-42mm F/3.5-5.6 with both power zoom and power focus. It’s very compact when the camera is off, but a front element protrudes about an inch when it’s powered on. The on/off process is fairly quick, so it’s no trouble to turn it off when you need the camera to be more portable, though I personally would prefer a nice pancake prime to minimize size. As a

Today, we got something that *could* be the brochure or an ad, eve though the text in it appears written by someone too enthusiastic about the E-M5, in a too simplistic tone. However, there HAVE been Olympus ads in the past written in a not too formal English. The text reads:

Wild=The Hungarian blog MLZphoto. Not very much to see here, except for the photos and the identity of the designer. While Pentax used the services (and for some reason, paid for them too) of designer Marc Newson for their K-01, the Olympus E-5M bears the unmistakable design traits of Darth Vader. As a matter of fact, we're 100% positive the E-M5 is just a Tie-Fighter instrument reworked into a camera. This goes a long way to explain the sometimes outlandish claims in the rumoured E-M5 spec list. Now we can just replace the 'best this', tweaked that' and 'revolutionary these' with a simple 'bestest camera ever'.