As you know Panasonic officially stated that the next two camera to be announced will be the PRO GF and the GH3. I got some rumors about the GH3 from unknown sources but still almost nothing from trusted sources (a part the global shutter rumor). While waiting to get my first more reliable news about the GH3 our reader noticed that there is a big price drop in USA on the current GH2! The GH2 body price felt down to $809 at Panasonic store (Click here).
I ask my unknown and first time rumor sender to be patient. I always try to double check rumors to avoid bigger mistakes. If I will not get any answer from my trusted sources I might post the rumor with a low credibility ranking. Thanks!
And if you have some rumors to share feel free to contact me at 43rumors@gmail.com or use the anonymous contact form on the right sidebar. Thanks again!
36 Responses
“The Item is Backordered”
How comforting… especially coming from Panasonic.
From everything I’ve read, ordering anything directly from Panasonic is an exercise in patience, futility and misery.
Admin, did you post this one so we Panasonic users don’t feel neglected on Olympus Day? 😉
Any word on when Panasonic is making their next round of M4/3 announcements? Earlier there were rumors of something this month (September).
I attempted to order a G3 (body only) from them for an upcoming trip and gave up after 3 weeks and canceled the order. That company has some serious issues with supply/demand. There can’t be *that* much demand for the G3. I didn’t even have to wait that long for and iPad 2 at launch.
Last February I backordered a GH2 from Panasonic.com for $685 plus tax and shipping. It took a month to arrive. Panasonic’s explanation for the delay was that the GH2 is a popular camera that is hard to come by. It wasn’t popular then; at that time it was almost impossible to find one anywhere in the U.S.A. Panasonic has a distribution problem.
Now panasonic.com is selling GH2 body for $809, a 10% discount, but $124 more than it cost in February. Amazon.com is selling the GH2 with the 14-140mm lens for $1,429.95, a 4.6% discount. After a camera has been out for a year it is usually discounted, even if a new model isn’t on the way, so the GH3 may not be released soon.
Well if you only plan to sell 10 of them then it is more popular than you expected.. LOL…
This is one reason I bought the ep-3 (other than being a great camera) but I am sick of Panasonic’s supply chain issues…
I want some GF PRO rumors 🙂 I am on the fence for the p3 or the new nikon mirror-less. Video is important since it mostly my wife that will use it. It will be nice to get rid of the camcorder. p3 is ok, but it would be nice to have a camera without rolling shutter. Hopefully GF PRO is small enough for my wife and the rolling shutter is history…
You should get the E-P3 then! The sensor is being fully binned for video (something I believe not even the GH2 does) trouncing the likes of the EOS-5D Mk II.
Ep3 gives jello effect for video
EP3 pixel binning does nothing for the rolling shutter efffect (which is about the same on any current DSLR type video camera)… but the Pixel binning gives excelent Hi ISO quality video and very detailed but not jaggedy images and apparently this is uterlized for the accessory port 2 output, giving excelent low light clarity and detail using the VF2 viewfinder!
Can the vf-2 improvement on the e-p3 in lowlight be confirmed by some review you know about, or did you experience this yourself? very curious about this.
Errr no not myself – I remember – most probably a link from hear – a reviewer saying exactly this… They talked about it being better than a FF 35mm DSLR with an F1.4 and optical VF!!! –
Can not for the life of me find it…. I’m shaw it was on hear very early on in the EP3’s life!
Turn off the IBIS (and use an IS lens if you need IS) and the jello effect vanishes for me..
Please. We want news about the near PRO GF. It is the most important now.
And if you work for a company that is on Panasonic’s employee discount list you can get the body only for $675!
$899.95 Retail Price
-$224.99 You save
$674.96 Your Price
This Item is backordered
oh…maybe it isn’t entirely Olympus day…
Can you ask your sources to include the rumors that matter..um……like..GF7 rumors?
A price drop on something that isn’t available, and probably never will be, is hardly something to get anyone here excited. (although it does indicate what the company is heading toward…).
+1.. they can give 50% discount.. but if no stock…
It’s still a couple hundred too much. that body is ancient by digital camera standards;)
I like the body especially in contrast to the G3 one.
I hope the GH3 body looks very much like the GH2 one – so you can hold it with only one hand 😉
Luke…I agree…ALL MFT cameras have an ancient sensor (not really… but by digital camera standards…especially considering the gigunda number of cameras that have been based on this one sensor)…..it is still the SAME SENSOR….
If MFT wants to compete with Sony, Samsung, etc.. ….something NEW had better be forthcoming….because after Nikon and Canon drop into this wave…Pany and Olympus are going to we floundering back in the white water gasping for air. We have the lenses…now give us something to get excited about!!!!!!!!!!!
Huh, GH1 and GH2 and G3 all got a new sensor when released, G2, G10 and GF line kept first version 12MP sensor.
Panasonic just reworked the original sensor…to more megapixels…at which point you gain something and you lose something. Olympus took the same sensor and did basically the same thing and tweeked their jpeg processing engine around a little bit (Leica M9 should REALLY give that a try!!! LOL!)…
What we need is an all new sensor (Foveon-like perhaps….there was some patent rumor info on this site….)…Rebuilt from the ground up..that gives better dynamic range (that is REALLY where MFT doesn’t shine)…and extremely improved high ISO performance..not a micro increment with smear because it is just noise reduction tricks.
If this does not happen..they will not be competing very well in the camera body-capture dept.
I agree with you Bob, the 4/3 sensor is slightly smaller than APS-C so they have to go against physics ;). If they manage to get rid of the Bayer mask and AA filter while keeping resolution on reasonable level, this sensor would be approx. 2/3rds times more sensitive to light compared to Bayer-styled sensor.
Panasonic dumped mirrors so if they don’t mind do the same with Bayer mask :D. And this time, offer the sensor to Olympus too ;).
There has to be a breakthru!!!!! Maybe the GF7 because with all of the great lenses we have available….the format really has a lot..especially with all of the recent efforts to keep it compact with quality! One look at the just-posted Nex-7 images at 6400 ISO on DPreview today…..you can clearly see that the writing is on the wall.
I saw a helluva lot of noise reduction in the NEX7 samples. I even tried downsampling some of them to 50% and the over aggressive Sony NR still shines through. The DR looks good but the noise is not.
To correctly rephrase:
“ALL OLYMPUS cameras have an ancient sensor …”
Now, doesn’t that feel better?
BTW, I think Luke was joking. Note the teeny little smiley at the end of his comment. 😉
@ha… Yep. Plus, the GH1 and GH2 have true multi-aspect ratio sensors. That’s not a minor point.
@ Renato M. I think the latter half of 2012 for the release of the GH3 was mentioned in one of those Panasonic exec interviews.
The multi-aspect ration of the GH2 is the one selling point that made me switch from my Nikon DX to m43. That 3:2 ratio is my preferred ratio and is the ratio that Nikon and Canon shooters know and love. Supporting that ratio was an awesome move by Panasonic. Hope this feature is in the GF7 (or whatever it’s called) and the GH3 as well.
And nobody needs to tell me how 4:3 is better or more natural. I’ve heard it all before and I’m happy that we can have a system that gives us all different ratio options (without simply chopping the sides off of images).
If indeed there is a global shutter the sensor IQ lag will quickly become secondary, there is only so much you can do with stacked exposures and proper RAW processing… HDR, Noise Reduction, Super Resolution, Focus Stacking, Defocus stacking… endless possibilities in fact! 🙂
Didn’t Panny say that the GH3 would take some time since the GH2 was still selling well?
But I guess that some news and specs won’t hurt, even more if they confirm the global shutter. But if they say so, everybody would expect the camera to be launched ASAP. But would Panasonic implement that sensor in every model besides the GF or maybe even the G?
And what about the GX? or the GF PRO?
That’s still very confusing. Is the GX the GF PRO or is it really the GF7? is the GX a camera above GH? I think that GX would make more sense as a GF PRO even more with a X lens kit, right? But how would they price the new GH and the GF PRO? Which one will cost more?
I just hope that Panasonic doesn’t go to a MP race and stay at 16MP which is more than enough even more when if it’s true that a global shutter CMOS sensor would have more noise, they could go back to 12MP, because as long as they have a good high-ISO performance, people wouldn’t mind that so much.
Theoretically, a APS-C 24MP is similar to a m4/3 16MP, as a APS-C 20MP is similar to a m4/3 12MP. I looked at Samsung new NX 20MP high-ISO samples and the noise seemed very nice. There are some controversy about the new 24MP Sony sensor, but it should mean that it’s me possible to get a performance as good as the 24MP sensor with a 16MP m4/3 sensor.
Any rumor should be good even if it’s a FT2, but it would help us understand what Panasonic wants. Or at least a clue, right?
I think the success of gh2 hack means more sales and will delay gh3 even more..
GH2 body is 719.96 if you follow them on facebook and access through the “Fans Only Deals” portal on their facebook page.
Sensor technology will always develop. Luminous Landscape compared the Sony FF A900 with the new APS-C A65: Same number of pixels, similar image quality. There is more noise in the A65 when you look pixel by pixel, but given there are so many pixels that will not be visible looking at a print – on on screen. High ISO performance difference 1,5 steps win for the old FF sensor.
We could say then, that the last generation m4/3 sensors GH2 and G3 in practical usage are equal to the older generation of APS-C sensors. I compared G3 to Nikon D300 and files are comparable besides the difference in dynamic range. The old 12mpix m4/3 are more like Nikon D200.
Can we expect next generation m4/3 to perform like current Pentax K5, D7000 = excellent?! My wet dream is that they find something in the dynamic range department! m4/3 is light to carry and does not empty my wallet that much…..
“m4/3 is light to carry and does not empty my wallet that much…..”
Thats a pritty fat wallet then, what you save in camera weight must be made up for in folded £50s…. 😀
I Hope the GH3 or the pro model has global shutter. I think it is going to have to in order to compete with Nikons new mirroless camera.
Nikon will produce their mirror less camera with a global shutter
http://www.eoshd.com/content/291/nikon-mirrorless-camera-to-have-global-shutter
A while ago there was a poll about how much the new Nikon would compete with m4/3 sales. If the new Nikon is global, and it integrates some of the possibilities that Duarte Bruno pointed out about stacking successive pictures, people are not even going to give standard m4/3 cameras a second thought.
Consider the advantages by being able to stack photos that are shot nearly simultaneously.
A little 10 mega pixel sensor can stack two photos and have a greater pixel count without the noise. photos would look comparable to a full frame camera.
merge two photos at different exposures and have a dymainc range that is better than the best full frame camera.
Two or three photos could be stacked with the lens at different focal distance, which would be automatically done, if selected, thereby creating either a wider depth of field or a bokeh better than the best 1.0 lens on a full frame sensor. All using lenses smaller than what m4/3 is using now.
I hope Panasonic and Olympus see the hand writing on the wall and are going global to tap in to the wealth of options it provides.
Isn’t global shutter just a natural property of CCD sensors one of which, according to gossip, the Nikon camera will feature? There are a lot of CCD’s in in video cameras and older still cameras, and they seem to have their own share of disadvantages. I presume if a sensor or processor is not up to speed, it will simply not be able to capture distinct whole frames consistently at the required speed irrespective of underlying technology, producing various quirks found in both CMOS video capture (skewing effect) and CCD video capture (blurring/smearing).
I’ll believe that Nikon rumor when I see the camera. But I’d like to see an effective GS done by anyone to put the pressure on the rest; a win, win for all of us.
As much as I’d like to see a “rangefinder” styled m43 camera, I don’t think it is going to happen because there would be too little to differentiate it from the G3 to warrent the launch of a new product. It is already compact and has an EVF, so any improvement could only come in the form of a slightly different arrangement of the body. The same can be said of the E-P3. Why would Panasonic or Olympus invest into the introduction of a new camera with so little advantages over the two pretty perfect offerings that they have released only recently?
That is what both companies have been doing. So many models with nearly the same specs.