No mirrorless cameras with EVF from Leica?

A few months ago Mr. Stefan Daniel (Director Product Management at Leica Camera AG) had an interview with Leica Blog (Via Megapixel) said that optical viewfinder will get less and less important. This of course led us all to believe that the time may be close for Leica to launch a mirrorless camera with electronic viewfinder. But according to our (very good) Leica sources there will be NO camera like that at Photokina. Plans for EVF cameras have been pushed forward to 2013. Too bad, really hoped Leica would be the first camera maker to launch a Full Frame camera with Electronic Viewfinder. That camera could have been a lot cheaper than the Leica M series also because they would get rid of the expensive and spacious rangefinder mechanism.

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Reminder: These are the hot points from Mr. Stefan Daniel interview with Megapixel:
1) “The experience with the very successful Leica X1 leads us to the opinion that a Leica with an interchangeable lens should have at least an APS-sized sensor.“
2) “I think that the quality of the 1.4MP finders is already very good, and sometimes even more accurate than an optical finder, think of white balance or exposure. Over time, as technology is improving, optical finders will get less and less important. The X100 finder is a very nice concept and well executed.“
3) “Offering additional functions such as video and live view would extend the usability of the M camera significantly. CMOS is a prerequisite for it, therefore it will be the technology of the future.“

There is no new Pentax camera coming on June 1 :(

Our trusted sources denied that the Pentax Spain teaser has to do with a new camera (mirrorless or DSLR). They will announce some kind of local news that will definitely not be exciting :)
That said we expect Pentax to announce a lower end mirrorless camera within the next months. It will be priced below the K-01.

So what to epxect now? Canon? Are you here? :)

Fuji president: We didn’t want to buy Leica, but we wanted Olympus…and are ready to fight Alzheimer!

The prestigious German journal “Frankfurter Allgemeine” posted a full interview with Fuji president Komori. I translated the most important parts of the Interview for you:
1) We were considering the acquisition of Leica but it didn’t fit within our strategy.
2) We were ready to buy Olympus (yes he uses the past “were” and not the present “are”!). We made an offer to Olympus but I think Olympus is trying to remain independent.
3) Only 1% of our company earnings are made through classic film sales.
4) Komori also talks a lot about the med business: “we are developing a new drug against Alzheimer”. And the film knowledge they have is very useful for the cosmetics industry. The antioxidants we use on films do also work on the human skin!

The overall impression I got from the interview is that Fuji is one of the few Japanese companies that is not in a deep crisis (like Sony, Panasonic or Olympus for example). They are heavily investing in research and at the same time they are enlarging their business on more profitable areas like medicine and cosmetics. That’s why they are more interested in an Olympus partnership than a Leica acquisition. And I think that is indeed an intelligent way of thinking business. There wasn’t a lot of talk about the digital camera strategy but I have a positive feeling about the company and their digital camera future!

via Systemkameraforum.

Impossible may be possible? Nikon f/0.7 lens patent for the Nikon 1 system.

The Japanese blog Egami (Click here) spotted a new Nikon patents containing a couple of new Nikon 1 lens specs. We have the 10mm f/2.8, the 32mm f/1.2 and the 7-13mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. But the patent discloses a surprise….drumming….Nikon unveils that lenses up to f/0.7 aperture are possible! Of course this is a patent and you know well that 90% of the stuff they describe will never become real. And honestly don’t know how much sense a lens like this would make. Anyway, I know of one lens, the Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7 used by Stanley Kubrick (more here on Wikipedia). And at f/0.75 aperture you can find plenty of lenses on [shoplink ‘f 0.75 lens’ ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

So is the impossible…possible?

Mirrorless news roundup…(G1X, K-01, E-M5, X PRO1, NEX-7)


50mm prime battle at 3Dkraft.

There are so many new mirrorless camera reviews it’s time for a roundup!

E-M5 at EosHD, Cnet US, Camerazealot, DCresource, Macworld, Trustedreview, Photoreview Australia
X PRO 1 at Cameralabs, Gianni Galassi, Soundimagesplus,Fujifilmpro.livejournal.
NEX-7 at ThePhoBlographer.
NEX-FS100 at Philip Bloom.
Canon G1X at Imaging Resource.
Pentax K-01 at Focusmedia.
Panasonic 12-35mm lens at Camerastuffreview, Photographyblog, ePhotozine, SLRgear and DSLRmagazine.
50mm prime battle at 3Dkraft.

On the rumors front we have the quite time before the Canon storm :)  No leaks at Canonrumors or Canonwatch yet. There will be soon news on the Samyang and Sony front (New NEX-F5!).

The next coming mirrroless lenses: Sony pancake, Olympus macro and Panasonic X lens and more…

This has been a busy week with two new lens releases, the Olympus 75mm and the Panasonic 12-35mm X lens. But more lenses are going to be announced within the next weeks and months. Finally Sony will release a new NEX lens and it will be the 16-50mm f/3,5-5,6 OSS G pancake(!) zoom! Coming in June. Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro is also due for this summer and the Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens is rumored to be priced around $1,600. It will be announce din late August.

And according to our sources also Samyang and one more company are ready to launch new mirrorless lenses in June. So it’s going to be a nice lens time while we expect Canon and Panasonic only to launch a new camera too!