Panasonic and Sony announcements at CES: What can we expect?

Panasonic and Sony will show new products at the CES show. What can we hope to get from these companies?

Panasonic could unveil some more details or even the full specs of the new S1-S1R cameras.
Sony is rumored to announce a full set of 8K products including a camera/camcorder.

Canon, Nikon,Olympus, Pentax have no scheduled CES events.

Panasonic: 8k on MFT is complicated while 8k on Full frame is coming in 2020

L-rumors spotted and translated this new Panasonic interview posted by the french website Mizuwari. And yes there are some bad news for MFT and good for the future L-mount fans:

1) Panasonic’s first goal is to give current MFT users a possibility to step up into Full Frame.

2) There are some physical limitations with MFT that Panasonic wants to overcome with Full Frame. Panasonic had no doubt that theyr would arrive in full format one day or another, because technically speaking the 8K on Micro 4/3 is complicated, if not impossible.

3) Panasonic will keep the promise and announce an 8K Full Frame camera by 2020

4) The full format will not meet the expectations and needs of a lot of users who will choose to turn to Lumix, if only because of size and price. So, of course, again, we will continue to release Micro 4/3 lenses and cameras, and our 10-25mm f / 1.7 under development is a good example of this.

5) Already 8 years ago Panasonic was thinking about going Full Frame

I wonder what Olympus managers are thinking right now. Will they go Full Frame too?

Sony says we got no problem making f/1.0 lenses but f/1.2 are economically more feasible

Oh yes folks, we are back talking about the mount size discussion. Nikon somehow introduced that viral argument that “Bigger is Better” when it comes to mount size and the web is full of heated debates on this.

It’s my understanding that yes mount size can give you in some occasions a little bit of advantage but that this is actually negligible and certainly not as remarkable as suggested by the Nikon marketing machine.

Sony manager Tanaka just gave a clear answer on that matter: No, mount size doesn’t matter! Sony would have no issue making f/1.0 autofocus lenses but the real limit here is economical and practical. Such a lens would be huge and very expensive. Mr. Tanaka said that f/1.2 autofocus lenses make much more sense.

My personal bet is that Sony will launch a 85mm f/1.2 FE lens to smack it into the face of Nikon marketing machine :)

Canon EOS-R with 75 megapixel to be announced in late 2019? Unlikely…

Canonrumors reports that Canon might announce a new 75 Megapixel EOS-R camera in late 2019. From what I heard (and CanonWatch heard the same) this seems to be unlikely to happen in 2019. Yes there will be a High Resolution camera but it’s going to have a lower resolution.

What we heard is that Canon is in heavy process evaluating the EOS-R hits and misses. While they nailed it with the RF lenses the camera lags seriously behind the competition and has some usability issues too. That is something Canon will work on before to launch a new EOS-R Pro Level camera.

Nikon says that “In theory” they could make f/0,65 Z-mount lenses!

The french website Mizuwari interviewed Nicolas Gillet from Nikon France. Here are some key info:

1) Nikon wants to beat Sony in the European Full Frame market (Currently Sony leads it).
2) With the Noct-Nikkor 58mm f / 0.95, they just want to show what we are capable of doing when they detach ourselves from all the F-mount limits.
3) Nikon’s optical engineers have calculated that the Z mount can accept lenses up to f/0.65!

I am pretty sure Nikon has no plan to make a f/0,65 lens. It would be terribly expensive and terribly big. But good to know they can do it :)

via Nikoneye.com

These are the two next Sony FF sensors that will be sold to all camera manufacturers

SonyAlphaRumors got realiable info about the next two Full Frame sensors that will go on market in 2019:
Sensor 1:
60MP
16 channels (which is crazy, normally it should be 8),
4.6FPS@16bit
12FPS@14bit
8k30P@12bit
8K60p@10bit
4k60p@12bit
FHD300P@10bit
–
Sensor 2:
36MP
10FPS@16bit
60FPS@10bit
on-chip PDAF
These sensors can be bought by any company. I guess Pentax will use them first and maybe Nikon later. I doubt Canon will use them as this would mean they would have to give up their whole sensor department :)

Sony officially registered a new mirrorless system camera in Asia. Is the A7000 coming soon?

Sony has been surprisingly quiet at Photokina and PhotoPlus. For the first time in more than ten years they did NOT announce a new camera. I guess Sony postponed all camera released to see what the competition would launch.

And well today we got some good news: Sony registered a new camera model in Asia which according to Nokishita is a new E-mount system camera. The registration doesn’t unveil if that’s an APS-C or FF model but SonyAlphaRumors is pretty sure the camera will be the new A7000.

The question now is…when will they announce it?