HOT! European price and availability of X100 announced!

According to heise.de, the Fuji X100 will be available in Europe from April, and will retail at 999 €. Dpreview made the announcement some days ago, claiming availability from March, but this may well be for the US, where the camera retials for $ 1200.

Picture courtesy of Fujifilm.

Article recap: Fuji GF670, X100, Olympus Viewer and a panoramic Lomo

Today, I found a number of interesting articles on the web, and instead of posting seperately about each one, I decided to recapitulate them in a single post.

Fujifilm GF670 medium format film rangefinder reviewed by ePHOTOzine

Another review of the Fuji GF670 comes from ePHOTOzine — whom I would’ve least expected to do such a review. Anyways, they did, and it reads as though they quite liked it. Reminder: the Fujifilm GF670 is a film rangefinder camera that uses 6x6cm or 6x7cm medium format 120 or 220 roll film, has a built-in 80mm (50mm-equivalent on 35mm film) f/3.5 lens that is attached to a folding mechanism which makes the camera rather compact (for a MF camera, that is) when not in use. Except for automatic exposure, the camera is entirely manual in operation.

Exhaustive article on the Fujifilm X100 by Enticing the Light

Miserere of Enticing the Light has written an exhaustive article on the Fujifilm X100, (re-)collecting all the information that is available on the camera so far, including charts, pictures, videos and illustrations. The article also comprises a size comparison to a number of different cameras (among these the Leica X1, Leica M9 and Olympus E-P1) as well as some of Miserere’s personal thoughts on the camera. Shouldn’t miss this if you fancy the X100! :-)

“Sprocket Rocket” — a 35mm panoramic Lomo

Photoscala.de today reported about the “Sprocket Rocket”, a new Lomo camera that uses 35mm film to create panoramic pictures of 72x35mm size. It uses a fixed 30mm lens with two aperture settings (f/10.8 and f/16) and two selectable focal distances (0.6–1m and 1m–infinity). Shutter speeds are also limited to two options, 1/100 sec. and bulb. As always with Lomo products, this is a rather special tool, but considering the price of 80 €, probably a nice little fun toy for some.

Olympus release version 1.1 of their Viewer 2 software

On Olympus’ japanese website, a new version 1.1 of the Viewer 2 software was announced. Reminder: Viewer 2 is the successor of both Master 2 and Studio 2, Olympus’ formerly basic (Master) and advanced (Studio) picture viewing, managing and processing (JPEG and RAW) solutions. Viewer 2 offers the full functionality of the former Studio software and is available as a free download for all owners of an Olympus digital camera.

Photkina 2010: A report in pictures

As I previously announced, yesterday I spent the day visiting photokina 2010 in Cologne, and I brought back with me a huge load of impressions, pictures of latest models, of prototypes, and other stuff. So without much ado, here’s my report on the fair — by manufacturer, in alphabetic order.

Photokina 2010 south entrance

General impressions from the fair will be posted in a seperate gallery soon.

CAUTION! Massive amount of pictures ahead! Make sure your connection is fast enough, and that you have enough time! :-)

Continue reading Photkina 2010: A report in pictures

Photokina day -1: Exciting announcements!

Okay guys and gals, here’s to some serious pornography. Yes, I’m serious! Today, several exciting and breathtaking announcements have been made in anticipation of this year’s photokina (which will commence tomorrow, and not today as I accidentally stated in my previous post – apologies again!), some of them so absolutely stunning that’s they are seriously close to pornography! 😉

So here’s what I’m talking about:

  • Fujifilm today announced the development of yet another large-sensor fixed-lens enthusiast’s compact – but this time it could be the real thing! It’s got a stunning, classic rangefinder design, support for full manual operation (seperate shutter speed and exosure correction dials on top and an aperture ring on the lens), and a unique hybrid electric-optical viewfinder, featuring a semi-transparent high-resolution LCD that is projected into the optical viewfinder image.
  • Olympus announced the development of yet yet another large-sensor fixed-lens enthusiast’s compact featuring a Zuiko branded lens. Judging from the pictures (the camera is only a mock-up so far), it’ll feature a Micro Four Thirds sensor. Detailed specs are unknown as of yet.
  • Leica will present the M9 Titanium, which has been designed by VW chief of design Walter de Silva – the man who draw the stunning Audi A5! It looks absolutely gorgeous, and like the new Fuji it’ll feature a hybrid viewfinder with electronically projected framelines! Also the two new re-branded Panasonic models, the D-Lux 5, successor to the D-Lux 4 and close-to-identical to the Panasonic LX5, as well as the V-Lux 2, successor to the V-Lux 1 and close-to-identical to the Panasonic FZ100.

More after the cut! Continue reading Photokina day -1: Exciting announcements!