Meyer Optik launched their new Kickstarter project to finance the new Trioplan 35 f/2.8. You get th elens for $599 and it’s available for different mounts. Those are the specs:

Focal length: 35 mm
Aperture: 1:2,8, – 1:22
Angle: +/- 31,5°
Focussing Distance ? to 0,3 m
Clip on diameter:  41 mm
Filter Diameter: M 39 x 0,75
Size: Ø 61,5 mm x 50 mm
Weight: ca. 220g
Aperture blades: 12
Mounts: Sony E, Fuji X, Micro Four Thirds, Leica M

Full presentation with image samples can be found on Kickstarter (Click here).

Meyer Optik Görlitz just sent me this:

Dear Meyer-Optik supporter,

Get ready – the final jewel of our Trioplan Trilogy of lenses will be unveiled this Thursday at 10 a.m. EST (4 p.m. CET) on Kickstarter.
While we can’t reveal the exact details of this lens, it will bring the Trioplan’s signature “soap bubble bokeh” to a wide angle lens for the first time. We think street and nature photographers will both be excited about the creative potential of this new lens.
Don’t miss your chance to be one of the first in line to get this new Trioplan lens, which will join the Trioplan 100mm f2.8 and Trioplan 50mm f2.9 in the Meyer-Optik lineup of premier, hand-crafted art lenses. Of course early Kickstarter backers will benefit from a groundbreaking price.

Best regards,
Dr. Stefan Immes and the Meyer-Optik Team

Fotodiox releases five more GFX adapters! All of them are now available for preorder at Amazon US (Click here).

Image on top shows the [shoplink 303880 ebay]Pentax Q[/shoplink]

PentaxForums had the chance to interview Ricoh/Pentax managers. When they asked them about the possibility of going back making 1 inch or APS-C mirrorless system cameras that’s the answer they got:

We keep watching the trends in the mirrorless camera market, however there is no specific plan on our roadmap at the moment.

And regarding the Q-Line they say:

The Q series is still an active line and the Q-S1 and lenses are still being made and marketed for Asian markets.

CIPA released the January report based on Japanese camera manufacturers shipments. And again there is a small good news to report. In January we got a 5% increase of camera shipments over the previous year.

Our reader Mistral (Thanks!) also noticed this:

– mirrorless cameras: +48.3 in number of units sold and +47.4% in turnover (shipments)
– DSLRs: -11.1%  in number of units sold and +6.5% in turnover.
– This is also the first month ever during which shipments of mirrorless cameras to Japan were higher than those of DSLRs.

Lensvid shared this Infographic that shows what happened to the Photography Industry in 2016 (Click on it to enlarge). Here are some of their findings:

• Smartphones killed the compact camera market – from over 100 million compact cameras sold in 2010 we will most likely see under 10 million sold in 2017. Just for reference, in 2016 the global sales of smart phones reached 1.5 billion units, an increase of 5 percent from 2015.
• Mirrorless are not fulfilling their promise – mirrorless are making lots of noise in the photo industry but looking at the numbers they have been more or less stagnant for the past 3 years at around 3 million cameras per year – far from impressive numbers.
• The DSLR market is shrinking – this was to be expected but it is not because of the rise of  mirrorless. Why this is happening is probably a combination of reasons – at the entry level some people who might have considered buying a DSLR a few years back just settle for their smartphone camera which is better than ever and will soon improve even further with dual cameras, smart zoom technologies and more advanced features. At the mid to high end segments – there just isn’t enough innovation to justify replacing gear as often as it used to be and on the more positive side – cameras are quite reliable and replacing a working camera for a new one which doesn’t offer significantly more, just doesn’t make sense to many users.
• Cameras are for older people – you can’t see this in the numbers but we clearly see this all around us – aside from the professional segment – dedicated cameras do not interest the younger generation. The people who are still interested in photography are typically around the ages of 40-60 or more – the same people who maybe shot with analog cameras as youngsters and now have the time and money to invest in photography as a hobby – their children and grandchildren are far less interested in cameras and prefer to use their smartphones.

Mr. Mizoguchi and Mr. Tokura interviewed by Dpreview

Dpreview interviewed two Canon managers and that’s what they say about their mirrorless strategy:

1. “Our intention is to become number one in the overall ILC market: mirrorless and SLR. “
2. “Compared to two years ago we’re now seeing a slowing down of mirrorless taking over. We were expecting to see more mirrorless taking off, keeping that momentum, but that has not happened.”
3. When asked about a possible professional EOS-M the answer is “Obviously we think it could be possible, there is a potential, but we do not want to put a time frame on that.“
4. About professional L lenses for the EOS-M: “The demand for that is still quite limited and so we won’t be able to say. “
5. “In terms of introducing sensor-based stabilization into our EOS-M series, I think it will add weight, which might deter some of our mirrorless customers. Which is why we think optical IS is the way to go for us.”

So either Canon is hiding their cards or they seriously believe mirrorless is just a Gimmick. That would be disappointing!