The Japanese Camera Press Club Awards have been announced. Here are the winners…

Today the Japanese Camera Press Club announced the Camera GP 2019 Award winners.

Grand Prize:
1st place and winner: Panasonic S1R
2nd place: Nikon Z7
3rd place: Olympus E-M1X

Lens Award:
1st place and winner: Sony 24mm GM
2nd place: Tamron 28-75mm FE
3rd place: Canon 28-70mm f/2.0 R

Best camera selected by the press readers:
Winner: Olympus E-M1X

Best camera and lens selected by the press club member readers:
Camera: Ricoh GRIII
Lens: Tamron 28-75mm FE

 

 

New this week: Samyang 45mm f/1.8 FE, Panasonic GX880, 7Artisans 50mm f/1.8

There are the new announcements of the week:

Panasonic:
Panasonic has an entire well paid division working hard to fool their potential customers. That’s why the G90 is also named G95, G99 or G91 depending on the region were you live. They seem to ignore that people all over the world read news and reviews written from all over the world. So we would be all better of having ONE name.
This week they are proud their next messy name: The GX880! In Japan the same camera is named GF10. Now we can’t wait to see what name they will choose when they announce the US version! I hope it’s GA579X0F4!

Samyang:
Samyang has announced the new 45mm f/1.8 FE. But watch out! I guess some of the former Panasonic folks now work at Samyang. That’s why the lens is branded as “Rokinon” in the US and “Bower” in some EU countries. Still, they can’t match the genius from Panasonic. So please work harder Samyang and give us some extra brand names!

You can preorder the lens now at BHphoto, FocusCamera or Adorama.

7Artisan:
And finally 7Artisan announced the new 50mm f/1.8 APS-C lens for mirrorless system cameras. In this case the name of the lens is the same worldwide. Shoten is the name of the company behind this lens and funny enough they have multiple brand names: Meike, IBE optics, Zhong Yi, 7Artisans. And as far as I know some of their lenses also got rebranded with 125 different names too.

 

7Artisans in Stock here:
In the USA at Amazon, Bhphoto and Adorama.
In Europe at Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.

So that’s it for today! If Panasonic needs me they can call me at 1232432843257GGF210CX for any help on finding new camera names!

Rumors roundup: Leica SL2, Hasselblax X1D-100, Fuji GFX100, Canon 64MP camera, Sony A7sIII-A9II, Olympus E-M5III

Sshort roundup of the rumored cameras for the year 2019:

Leica SL2: coming the second half of the year with same Panasonic S1R sensor
Hasselblad X1D-100: To be on the market by the second half of the year and featuring the new Sony 100MP sensor
Fuji GFX100: Will be announced on May 23 (we know all specs about that camera)
Canon High End EOS-R camera: Probably features a new 64 Megapixel sensor and will be announced in autumn
Canon EOS-M500: Entry level APS-C camera coming this autumn
Sony A9II: To be announced in September and feature some revolutionary advancements (particularly on the sensor level)
Sony A7sIII: To be announced with or slightly after the Sony A9II
Olympus E-M5III: To be announced in late summer/early autumn and maybe featuring a new 32MP Sony sensor

Nikon may not announce a new Z camera this year. While it’s unclear if Panasonic will already gave us a glimpse about their new 8K GH6 camera in 2019.

Adobe wants to win the sympathy award and threatens customers to not use their old software or they might face potential claims of infringement

In a statement to AppleInsider, Adobe said:

Adobe recently discontinued certain older versions of Creative Cloud applications. Customers using those versions have been notified that they are no longer licensed to use them and were provided guidance on how to upgrade to the latest authorized versions.

Unfortunately, customers who continue to use or deploy older, unauthorized versions of Creative Cloud may face potential claims of infringement by third parties. We cannot comment on claims of third-party infringement, as it concerns ongoing litigation.

Macrumors writes:

Adobe is in the midst of a lawsuit with Dolby and has accused Adobe of copyright infringement and breach of contract, which could be the reason why past versions of Creative Cloud apps are now restricted.

I know it sounds like Adobe wants to protect their customers. But that they may have troubles with Dolby is eventually their fault. And they have to protect customers from all legal troubles THEY have caused. People who paid for that software should be able to continue to use it!

Olympus is bleeding out money but is confident the next announcements will make it right!

All companies released their yearly financial reports. Some are doing well (Sony and Fuji), some are doing not so great (Canon and Nikon) but one company really did pretty bad in 2018: Olympus!

Their Imaging segment reported a -19% drop in revenue and 17,1 billion YEN loss. Olympus claims that the move of their factory from China to Vietnam has to take the blame for this. They also said that they will launch a lot of new gear in 2019 which they expect will allow them to meet their break even target for this fiscal year.

It’s rumored that Olympus will launch a new compact fixed lens camera within the next few weeks. But two more MFT cameras and some new PRO lenses are expected to be launched this autumn.

Olympuss confirmed multiple times that they won’t gor Full Frame and they wont go Medium Format. I hope they will one day not regret not having doing so…

Canon rumored to announce a new EOS-M500 in August

CanonWatch reports:

It’s suggested Canon might announce a replacement at least for the Canon EOS M5, while the EOS M6 seems not to be scheduled for replacement. Moreover, Canon might announce an EOS M model that’s below the EOS M50, the Canon EOS M500. Two new EF-M lenses might also be announced.

What seems crazy to learn is that the EOS-M series sells way more than the EOS-R. yes I understand the EOS-M is cheaper but still, there are only a couple of lenses in this lineup and the camera sells hot in Japan and at Amazon US (ranking here).