Attention Micro Four Thirds shooters: there's a new speedy "35mm prime lens" headed your way. Okay, it's actually a 34mm equivalent lens in 35mm terms, but it still boasts a f/1.8 aperture. It's the new Olympus M.ZUIKO 17mm f/1.8, a lens that designed for street photography, landscapes, and shooting in low-light environments.
Some spec rumors for the Olympus OM-D camera that we wrote about yesterday are starting to emerge.
Move aside Panasonic GF3, this is the world's smallest Micro Four Thirds camera. Olympus took its Despicable Me-style shrink ray and reduced the Olympus E-PL1, E-P2, and E-PL2 to the size of an SD card for a promotion over in Hong Kong. They're meant to be used as cute little cell phone charms, but they work nicely as tiny prop cameras for your action figures as well!
After having images of it leaked onto the Interwebs last week, Panasonic's DMC GF3 Micro Four Thirds camera is now official. Like its predecessor, the GF2, the GF3 packs a 12-megapixel sensor, has a 3-inch LCD touchscreen, and shoots 1080p 1080/60i AVCHD video. In terms of differences, it has a faster processor that allows for faster autofocus times weighs 15% less, is 17% smaller, and is also even more simple than the GF2 -- it lacks a hot shoe and has a pop-up flash there instead.
The Micro Four Thirds system is apparently headed somewhere big, as more and more lens companies are joining in …
The Pinwide is a new pinhole cap by Wanderlust Cameras that takes advantage of the mirrorless nature of Micro Four Thirds cameras by recessing the cap into the body of the camera, achieving a wide field of view and strong natural vignetting. The "lens" is the equivalent of a 22mm on a 35mm camera, and boasts a perfectly round pinhole "made with the same precision etching technology used to manufacture semicoductors" to ensure sharpness.
Panasonic just announced the HDC-SDT750, touting it as the "world's first 3D consumer camcorder". The exact claim is slightly dubious, since we featured a different one last month, but it's definitely the first 3D camcorder unveiled by any of the major camera corps.
The camcorder uses an included 3D lens to record two separate images on its standard 1080p sensor, meaning the resulting 3D video only has a resolution of 960 x 1080. If you've got a spare $1,399 lying around, the camcorder will be available starting in October 2010.