The soon to be announced LX8 will have a built-in evf like the current LF1 you see on the picture above.
Before the big event at Photokina we will likely see some new stuff soon. This is what you can expect to see the next 30 days:
1) Olympus E-PL7 (FT5)
It’s basically an Olympus E-M10 without the viewfinder 🙂
2) Olympus 7-14mm f/2.8 PRO Zuiko MFT lens (FT4)
Save money: It’s a $1,799 lens.
3) Panasonic LX8 large sensor compact camera (FT5)
Has a built-in EVF, similar LX7 size and look and large sensor. Announcement on July 13.
4) More Panasonic and Olympus compact cameras (FT4)
It’s likely we will get a bunch of more (small sensor) compact cameras.
5) Olympus Trip (FT3)
I am really not sure yet about that rumor but we could see a digital “Trip-D” based on the [shoplink 35471 ebay]Olympus Trip 35 filmcameras (here on eBay)[/shoplink].
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Rumors classification explained (FT= FourThirds):
FT1=1-20% chance the rumor is correct
FT2=21-40% chance the rumor is correct
FT3=41-60% chance the rumor is correct
FT4=61-80% chance the rumor is correct
FT5=81-99% chance the rumor is correct
66 Responses
Would be nice if they make LF-1 with bigger sensor and improved viewfinder, pocketable camera.
Problem with that is the lens, especially if it has to be fast.
No clue how large would be the new LX8 senzor but at least one thing is true: it cannot be bigger than the body itself, otherwise it wouldn’t fit inside.
Nice to see some logic entered into the discussion….
Does this mean that the M43 lenses will not fit in this new camera with bigger sensor ?
the LX8 will have a fixed zoom like the L series…you won’t be putting any lenses on it. I do hope it has a sensor thats M4/rds or larger. I just offed my Lx7 and and ready.
Ok thks. Fixed zoom are not very accurate, imho
then don’t buy it. how do you know your eye wasn’t very accurate? 🙂
An m4/3 sensor would be nice. It makes sense- its bigger than the 1″ Sony competition, it’s close enough to APSC, and its a size panny already uses. I hope they do it. As for larger, I can’t see it happening.
The only interesting rumors here are the LX8, and maybe, just maybe, the trip. EPL7 induces yawns, and the 7-14 will have to have Nocticron quality go be worth the cost (and less face it, it’s almost certain not to be that good)
you forgot to add the words “for me” now it sounds like you are a mini-dictator
No Wonk is just a major Pantoid.
Don’t be so sensitive. A few others here posted that those are the only two rumors they find interesting as well. Now bow to me!!
🙂
i cant help i am a hyper sensitive guy…bow? like picking up to soap for you?
The original 4/3 7-14 is still selling for $1,799, and that ones f4. In comparison, the new lens would be a bargain if performance were close.
I think you are confusing the meaning of “still selling” and “available for….”
I’m quite happy with my LF1, but I’ll at least take a look at the LX8.
I love my trip. A digital version could be nice if executed correctly. It’s the only bit there that interests me.
The digital Trip should have a big, “blingy” solenoid bejeweled lens to capture enough light to power the camera! 😉 I’m jealous of your analog Trip. Those are great looking little cameras.
The E-PL7 release is odd, all things considered. Wonder if it will only be in Asia, again?
Very dry facts, we need pictures and details!
The LX8 and the Trip sound interesting to me. Looking forward to seeing those
I also hope Panasonic make something like the Olympus Stylus 1 but with a lens that starts a little bit wider.
Stylus 1 looks cool. I’d love one with the boxy rangefinder left side EVF and weather sealing
Loved your Q7 video on YT. Will there be any new stuff from you? Cheers. 😀
Thank you! Yes, we’ve been meaning to do another. Our latest camera is already so well reviewed that we didn’t think it would add much. There are a few rumored (and recently announced) cameras and lenses that have us very intrigued:
* Olympus 40-150 2.8
* Oly Trip
* Fuji X30
* Sony RX100iii
* Pentax, Fuji or Sony medium format
* XPro 2
We’re really into M43 but are not excited about the Pen 7 (love our EP5 and EM1).
And of course, this organic sensor could be pretty revolutionary (if it ever materializes)
And which ones do you use for your professional work?
We love gear. Love it. Obsessively. And certain gear is better suited to certain tasks. But by and large, today’s cameras are so good that you can do “pro” work with anything from a point and shoot with manual control and spot metering to m43 to APS. Full frame has its advantages, but so does M43. You can even do “pro” work on an iPhone. I’ve gone to press with a full page, full bleed iPhone photo edited in Snapseed and only heard good things about the image. Nobody ever knew it came from a phone or cared. 🙂
My tiny Ricoh GR is awesome for street photography but I’d love a tilting screen and/or an EVF. Maybe the Trip will give it some competition, but nothing could be stealthier than the GR or more inspiring than the spirit of Daido it carries. ;). Unless HCB moves into that DigiTrip. But his spirit seems to be with Fuji these days
Please refresh me on the m43 advantages. Given the prices, I see none.
Great to see more serious compacts coming. An LX8 with a 1″ sensor would be really appealing. Of course, an organic 1″ would be even better but that seems further away from reality than we’d hoped…
Any more details on the Trip? Will this be the X100s of M43 cameras or ILC? Or is that all still TBD?
Unlikely it would be a 1″ sensor as this would mean putting a huge zoom lens on it or making the zoom lens much slower than f/1.4 – f/2.3 that the current LX7 with it’s 1/1.7″ sensor has.
I would rather keep the f/1.4 lens speed instead of a huge zoom or a slow zoom lens.
Or you can have a larger sensor with a slower lens and shoot it at higher iso, there is no penalty there, just better quality.
Not necessarily better quality in low-light situations. I bought the LX7 when it first came out and gave my LX5 to a friend. I’ve been very happy with this new f/1.4 – f/2.3 zoom lens, especially for low-light shooting, and would not want to give up the f/1.4 F-stop for a larger sensor.
The only reason I would purchase the LX8 would be for the new EVF.
Don’t buy it then, it’s going to be another fail, they cannot even make hoovers.
I’d give up 1.4 on an LX camera for an m4/3 sensor that has a lens that goes down to f2 even.
But then you would be looking at the size of a Panasonic GM1 with the 12-35mm f/2.8 attached to it, which would be huge compared to the size of the LX7 camera.
If this is what I was after I would just buy the GM1 with either the kit lens or the 12-35mm f/2.8 lens.
The Sony rx100iii has a 24-70 f1.8-2.8 lens and adds a viewfinder, and is (just) pocketable- a fair deal smaller than the current LX7. The G1Xii has a 24-120 f2.0-3.9 lens with essentially an m4/3 sized sensor, and while it IS bigger, neither is pocketable, and neither is huge and bulky, so functionally speaking there wouldn’t be much difference between them, for me.
I’d love to see the LX8 be essentially the m4/3 answer to the G1Xii. The Canon is an impressive product let down by its aging sensor. Stick the latest gen m4/3 sensor in there and I think you’d have a winner.
A larger sensor normally gives better quality, even in low light. My experience and physics agree on that, which is corroborating. It’s interesting that your experience says otherwise, maybe the LX7 had a smashing sensor?
The original Trip cameras were fixed focal length. 40mm usually. A m43 sensor with a fixed 20mm lens…. The m43 equivalent of the x100 would be great if priced right (the excellent Ricoh GR is about $650, so it would have to come in at a lower price to gain much traction)
Something like the GM1 with 20mm 1.7 comes very close, though we are still waiting to see that rangefinder styled body with EVF…I’m sure it cant be much longer!
I’m not sure what exactly a Trip D would bring to the table over the 15mm BCL lens cap lens + Pen Mini EPM1 I’m using right now. But if it has a built-in EVF (+ collapsing lens would be nice; the Mini + BCL is just barely pocketable when wearing jeans) I might just ditch the Mini. An LX8 with “normal” 24-85mm f2.0-4.0 zoom range would be a nice travel camera. Better yet, make it 28-105mm constant f2.8 in a GF/GX sized body! I probably wouldn’t buy one but it would be nice to gawp at.
Having had the BCL for a while, it’s no upgrade over a small-sensor point-and-shoot in terms of brightness, image quality, or handling. A fixed-lens Trip D could have a proper, autofocus fast lens (say, a 17mm f2) in a package no bigger than your EPM1 + BCL.
It’s good to dream, no doubt, but… An f2 fixed lens no bigger than the 15mm BCL? If Olympus had the technology to do it they would have replaced the 17mm f2.8 with one already. As it is, right now, if I wanted f2.0 or better to stick on my EPM1 that would still fit in my trouser pocket, I’d have to go Panasonic.
No dreaming – if you don’t need to worry about an interchangeable lens mount, you can inset the lens well inside the chassis of the camera (very close to the sensor) and use a leaf-shutter inside the lens rather than a focal plane shutter behind it. That’s how the Ricoh GR, Fuji X100, and Sony RX1 have such super compact lenses.
Leaf shutter makes this much more interesting. I’d gladly give up pocketability to have wider aperture and more buttons (like Fuji). An M43 sensor in a camera the size of an X20 with similar controls, better VF and EM1 performance and weather sealing would be amazing.
A Trip D the size of a GR V, now that would be nice indeed. Collapsing lens, though, so… meh. I hate those things. Something permanent like the X100s lens would be better, but then what’s the difference between that and a current model Pen EPL + 17mm 2.8 pancake? If the Trip D has the thin body of the GR series but with a permanent lens the thickness of the BCL and f2.0, that would make sense.
Your standards seem pretty low to be honest. Some people want better optical quality than the BCL.
28-105 would be very long on that small sensor. Or do you mean 28-105 F5.6 equivalent?
Any word about the em 5 successor?
Dead in the water. Entry level EM10 and EM1 is it moving forward. FT4. They already said they were simplifying the lineup.
yeah, simplifying the lineup in reference to the Pen Line. Oly said they’d concentrate on the OM-D line, so maybe there will be a EM-5 successor
I have a feeling that Panasonic might end up sacrificing aperture on this camera. Because Sony went faster, since this was one of the achilles’ heels of the RX100, but Panasonic might be countering the first two versions, going bigger sensor and slower overall aperture. I hope not though, but I’m not sure that Panasonic or anyone expected Sony to do so many things right with the RX100MKIII.
For matching that Panasonic would not only have to go with a bigger sensor, which it seems they are already doing, but also using a better EVF, keeping the good aperture that the LX camera have and also the electronic ND, while stepping up and putting a GH3’s 50mbps IPB codec. Not that Panasonic can’t make a better video even with less bitrate than Sony as they laready done in the past, but the XAVC-S 50mbps move by Sony was not something that was expected from Sony either.
The greater question for me is about the sensor. Rumors say that Fuji is also developing their X30 with a 1″ sensor, Panasonic and Fuji have been partnering up to make new sensors. Will they use the same sensor or will they buy the 1″ 20MP sensor from Sony like Samsung apparently did? If they indeed create a new sensor themselves, will it be as good or better than Sony’s? Panasonic certainly stepped up with their latest Micro4/3 sensor in order to get equal or even surpass the one Olympus and Panasonic itself used on the E-M5 and GH3.
The premium compact market is becoming quite a sight, very interesting and there are, finally, true compacts that can really be used as a handy 2nd camera and with so many options you can choose. You can have a system like Fuji and have a compact like Sony or Panasonic to make better videos, you can have a GH4 for video and then have a Fuji compact when you don’t want a bigger camera. In the past 1/1.7″ or 2/3″ sensors were great for what they were, but now you can actually use the photos from these new compacts and the IQ is much better.
Agreed. The Fuji X20 is so great to use that you wish it had a bigger sensor and better VF. It is a great compact but could almost be a great primary camera if the low light performance leaps with a 1″ upgrade
As for the Fuji X30 I think Fuji has to either get rid off of the OVF with the info layer or get a proper EVF. It’s nice to have that OVF but just at some point, after that it’s not really that useful.
Yeah. Needs a hybrid VF or a good EVF
In terms of aperature, I don’t think they will be sacrificing it in light of the Sony RX100. I doubt the LX8 will be m4/3 size (though I wish it was), so it will likely be the same 1″ size as the RX100. If Canon can make a fixed lens camera with a decent aperature on a sensor that is bigger than m4/3, I’m pretty confident Panasonic can easily match that on a 1″ sensor.
But that’s not really the point of why I thought that. It’s because the source of the rumor says the size didn’t change much. Canon can do that because the G1XMKII is quite big compared to the LX cameras. So what we have of info is that the size didn’t change much but Panasonic went to a 1″ sensor and they still have an EVF. It’s kind of hard to keep the size without sacrificing the aperture if you went for a bigger sensor.
It will be interesting to see pricing on the LX8. Ignoring features and looking at pricing for CX- 1 inch sensors we have Nikon V3 at US $1100, sony RX 100 at 699 or 799 depending on version, and 499 for the Samsung selfi. Where will Panny come into the market? I hope between the samsung and the Sony RX 100 II. I hope the LX 8 covers the feature set and functionality of the RX 100 as Sony sets the standard for 1 inch compact cameras. I am not certain if Fuji thinks it can command a higher price or maybe not.
Just make one small camera with M43 sensor, fixed zoom and proper controls. That means dials and buttons, a good VF, responsive and customisable. Is it that hard? Canon did that already. Sure, this will kill M43, but who needs it anyway?
And leaf shutter with high flash sync speed, nobody talks about it because nobody knows what it can do here.
Who needs m43? 54 commenters so far. Including you. Why do you need to kill off anything, I wonder. Your mind must be filled with an undiagnosed sickness.
Relax, nobody is going to take away your toy.
Your mind must be filled with an undiagnosed sickness, too. PS4 still loading?
Indeed, nobody needs junk formats.
More Olympus compact cameras? Are you kidding? I thought the official line was that Olympus had seen the futility of competing against phones and were going to wisely concentrate on the OM-D line. I’ll bet their next OM-D will have IS like the E-M1 and video like the GH4. 🙂