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The XDynamics Evolve 2 is an entry level cinematic drone that shows a lot of promise

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As drones go, the XDynamics Evolve 2 drone sits in an interesting place. It’s an entry-level professional cinematic drone that’s above the likes of the DJI Mavic 3 (even the Mavic 3 Cine) and the Autel Evo II Pro but a hair below the DJI Inspire 2. It’s aimed primarily toward hybrid shooters who use mirrorless cameras on the ground for both stills and video and want to get the same or similar quality of photos and footage from the air.

It comes with a price tag to match, but it does feature an interchangeable lens gimbal-stabilised Micro Four Thirds camera, giving you a lot more filming and photography options than most drones below this price point. And if you’re already a Micro Four Thirds shooter, it can use the lenses you already own. But does the Evolve 2 live up to expectations? Let’s find out…

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Meike has announced a new $249 50mm f/0.95 APS-C mirrorless lens

Meike has announced their new 50mm f/0.95 manual focus lens for APS-C mirrorless cameras. It’s available in five different mounts including Sony E, Fuji X, Canon EF-M, Nikon Z and Micro Four Thirds. With a maximum aperture of f/0.95, it joins the wave of low budget ultra-wide aperture lenses being released lately, and it’s very competitively priced at only $249.

It’s not quite the cheapest of the bunch – that honour goes to TTArtisan at $218 – but when compared to much of the 50mm f/0.95 and similar competition, it’s still a very low price point. The only question is how well it holds up to the competition.

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Venus Optics has announced its fast new Laowa Argus 25mm f/0.95 MFT APO lens for Micro Four Thirds

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There’s a fast new lens in the Laowa Micro Four Thirds lineup. Venus Optics has today announced their new Laowa Argus 25mm f/0.95 MFT APO lens. Offering a similar field of view and relative depth of field to a 50mm f/1.8 on full-frame, but with two stops of extra light gathering ability, Laowa says the lens creates a nice soft bokeh and lets you shoot in very low lighting conditions with lower ISO values.

It contains 14 elements in 8 groups with one aspherical element, 1 extra-low dispersion (ED) element and three UHR glass elements, which Laowa says provides sharp crystal clear images at maximum aperture in both bright and dark conditions. It’s also a bit of a weighty lens, with a durable full-metal construction.

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Laowa announces four MFT Cine lenses including 6mm T2.1 Zero D – The world’s widest rectilinear lens

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Laowa has announced four new cine lenses for the Micro Four Thirds system including a crazy wide Laowa 6mm T2.1 Zero-D Cine lens. This is the world’s widest rectilinear lens for not only Micro Four Thirds but any interchangeable lens camera system. The lens offers the equivalent field of view to 12mm on full-frame, offering an angle of view of 121.9°. As well as the 6mm T2.1, Laowa has also announced their new 10mm T2.1 Zero-D MFT Cine, 17mm T1.9 MFT Cine and 50mm T2.9 Macro APO MFT Cine lenses.

The four new lenses sit on the smaller side of Laowa’s cine lenses. As such, they’re extremely lightweight, designed for those hybrid shooters that might be using a compact rig or gimbal with a small follow focus motor, or even for popping onto a drone carrying a Micro Four Thirds camera to not impact your flight time too much.

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Panasonic remains committed to developing the “full Micro Four Thirds lineup”

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Ever since Panasonic entered the full-frame mirrorless space in 2018, announcing their alliance with Sigma and Leica, along with the uncertainty of the future of Olympus with the will they, won’t they, will they, won’t they, oh, they did! thing, the future of Micro Four Thirds has been called into question. The new Olympus owners, OM Digital Solutions say they’re committed and recently announced the new OM-1. But what about Panasonic?

Well, Panasonic has spoken of their commitment to the Micro Four Thirds system, sometimes quite forcefully, and have since released the Panasonic G90/95, G100, BGH1, GH5 II and most recently the Panasonic Lumix GH6. But will we see more? According to a recent Japanese interview as part of the GH6 launch event, Panasonic marketing manager Tomonori Nakanishi says yes!

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7Artisans releases their new 25mm f/0.95 lens for APS-C mirrorless and MFT

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7Artisans has released their new 25mm f/0.95 manual focus lens for APS-C mirrorless and Micro Four Thirds. The lens was first teased in September, but now it’s finally official, available and all of the specs are published. The lens is designed specifically for mirrorless cameras, being available on Sony E, Fuji X and Nikon Z APS-C mount options, as well as MFT.

That nice wide f/0.95 maximum aperture will let in a lot of light and allow for some pretty shallow depth of field, despite being made for APS-C and MFT cameras. On APS-C it offers a field of view equivalent to about 37.5mm on full-frame and on Micro Four Thirds it’s about a 50mm full-frame equivalent field of view.

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This new Micro Four Thirds global shutter sensor shoots 4K at up to 2,000fps

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Well, this is pretty cool. Sensor manufacturer Gpixel has developed a new 4/3″ (22.9mm) CMOS sensor that shoots 4K video at a whopping 2,000 frames per second. With a resolution of 4608 x 2176 pixels, the sensor also features a global shutter, meaning that it captures the entire image field at once – goodbye rolling shutter artifacts!

The sensor is Micro Four Thirds-ish in size, but it’s not quite what we’re used to. MFT consumer sensors are around 18×13.5mm. The Gpixel GSPRING 4510 is a little wider and a little shorter at 20.74×9.9mm. But, for super widescreen stuff, like 2.35:1, it would work out pretty perfectly. That being said, it’s not its intended use.

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Yongnuo’s new Android-powered YN455 MFT camera sports a 5″ flip-up touchscreen LCD

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Yongnuo’s still on their Android-powered camera kick, and this time they seem to have brought some neat improvements, at least on the surface, over their previous attempts. Yongnuo joined the Micro Four Thirds group back in February of last year, so it’s no surprise they’re pursuing the mount. No word yet on whether or not this will extend beyond China this time, though.

According to a report on Photo Rumors, the Yongnuo YN455 comes with a 20-megapixel sensor that shoots 4K30p video, an 8 core 2.2Ghz CPU with 6GB RAM and 64GB of internal storage, although this is expandable by a further 256GB using a microSD card. On the rear, it sports an 8-megapixel selfie camera and a huge 5″ tilting touchscreen LCD.

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Panasonic Leica DG 25-50mm f/1.7 lens now officially announced

Well, it looks like the announcement wasn’t delayed, after all. Amazon just jumped the gun a little yesterday when they made the listing public early for a brief time. Now, though, it’s official. Panasonic has now officially announced the Leica DG Vario-Summilux 25-50mm f/1.7 ASPH lens for Micro Four Thirds.

According to Panasonic, this lens is “The world’s first telephoto zoom lens that achieves an open f/1.7 over the entire zoom range”, although, a field of view equivalent to 100mm on full-frame is kind of a short telephoto. Still, for things like weddings, events or portraits, it’s a great focal length range with a nice wide aperture.

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Price & release date for Panasonic 25-50mm f/1.7 leaked by Amazon ahead of announcement

 

Well, it looks like Panasonic might have also had an announcement originally planned for today, too – which was no doubt delayed for the same reason as Sony once somebody realised the significance of the date in Japan and China.

The reason it looks like this might have been the case is that Panasonic’s new 25-50mm f/1.7 lens popped up for pre-order on Amazon briefly today, complete with specs and a price, before an official announcement from Panasonic. And it seems to tally up with the recent leak.

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