A big rumor time is ahead of us. And from what I got from my sources manufacturers are defintiely NOT going to wait til the Photokina in September to announce new great cameras. From begin January til mid February we can expect the following announcements:

Sony: New Sony NEX-7 successor is coming. It will likely use an updated new 24MP sensor and a more high-resolution EVF. It will also have on sensor PDAF. What we don’t know yet is if Sony will also announce a new entry level NEX…pardon Alpha E-mount camera :)

Olympus: There will be certainly a new entry-level OMD camera. Not the E-M5 successor! It will be cheaper than the E-M5.

Panasonic: Panasonic is heavily working to launch the new GH 4K camera. I am not sure yet they will announce it in February or April. But it’s coming!

Leica: Leica will launch a new mirrorless system with EVF and AF lenses. Primes will be designed and fabricated in Germany. The zooms are made by Panasonic in Japan. The camera should cost close to $2000 and have a bigger than ASP-C sensor (FF or less big).

Samsung: Samsung will launch a new NXF1. No specs are given yet but the “F” suggests that this could be the first FF camera?

Fuji: Fuji is going to make a digital version fo the glorious Fujica ST. While the X-PRO1s will come too.

Sigma: They are working on a interchangeable DP camera version. The chances stay good this will have an MFT mount.

Canon/Nikon/Ricoh/Pentax: It’s very quiet on that front. There were some rumors about a Pentax LX FF camera but you know…these Pentax FF rumors are floating around the web since the web has been invented :)

So here we are, ready to start a new rumor time with new energy and with the new MirrorlessRumors theme! I kindly invite you to read the presentation of the new site here: https://www.mirrorlessrumors.com/welcome-to-the-new-mirrorlessrumors-theme.

Join in masses! :)

Ale

There is a double interview at DC.watch, first with Olympus and the second with Panasonic managers.
 What we learn from those are:

– Olympus says they will focus on high end products like the OMD because these are selling better than PEN cameras

– Panasonic confessed that a GH 4K camera is likely to happen next year!

All the rest of the interview is more or less about the past and future strategy and a deep marketing analysis. While the worldwide interchangeable lens camera market is nor more growing the mirrorless cameras are still selling very well and growing in Asian countries and slowly also in Europe too. US market is still the hardest to conquer!

Image on top: Canon Director Mr. Makoto.

Dcwatch (google translation here) posted the content of an interview with Canon director MR. Makoto. Based on what the google translation tool provides us we have the following information:

– New EOS-M with built-in EVF could arrive the second half of 2014 .

– EOS-M focus is on keeping size down

– One key aspect on future mirrorless cameras is the hybrid still+video performance

– There will be new lenses for the EOS-M system

– Canon is also “studying” the possibility to make more semi pro or pro mirrorless cameras (Whatever that means…LOL).

For now Canon didn’t take the mirrorless camera world very seriously. But I am pretty sure this is going to change in 2014. The problems for them is. Will they be able to catch up with the best cameras like the Fuji X-E2, Sony A7r and Olympus E-M1?

Fujirumors reports that Fuji will launch an All Black Fuji X100s in January. But more important the new X-PRO1 firmware release has been postponed til Dec. 19. Not a big deal, we can wait a couple of days more. Wich other companies would work as good as Fuji does when releasing fw updates!

Hoppyman from Leica Camera Forum found an interesting interview with Leica CEO Alfred Schopf (made at www.zinio.com/camera). These are some of the key info unveiled by the CEO:

DSLR vs Mirrorless: …”to be honest, I’m not 100 percent sure where the D-SLR market is going to be in the future. The mirrorless cameras are coming on and on and on and I’m not entirely convinced that in ten years time we will have a D-SLR market“

About a future Leica mirrorless (non rangefinder):  “We will have one, definitely. And it will, of course, be quite different to M system. We want to have autofocus with such a system and we may well have an APSC size sensor rather than a bigger one…….It will be a German built camera, however I’m not sure we can make all of the lenses made in Germany because we are talking about a different price range to M system so I could imagine that we do some fixed focal length lenses in Germany and maybe with the zooms we will co-operate with a partner” He stresses that Leica won’t be building on Panasonic’s Micro Four Thirds format!

About the Film Camera future: “We are now the world’s biggest manufacturer of film cameras on the planet- because we are the only one, more or less. As long as we get orders we will continue. At the moment we get between 600 and 700 orders per year…………“

Yep, their new mirrorless camera is coming, and if the CEO isn’t fooling us it will be definitely not a Micro Four Thirds mount camera!

Sigma Rumors posted a rumor saying that Sigma will make a Micro Four Thirds camera with Foveon sensor. We don’t have track of the site reliability yet. But one of my very trusted sources told me that it’s TRUE that Sigma will launch an interchangeable mirrorless camera with Foveon sensor in 2014!

I can only say…finally Sigma!

Let’s start the week with a small bad news. A couple of months ago Fujifilm, said the new XF10-24mm f/4.0 OIS lens would be available in winter 2013. We were hoping to get this lens right for Christmas but instead we will have to wait til February to get it :(

By the way, in February we expect Fuji to launch that OMD alike X-mount camera too! It’s going to be a nice month for X-mount fans. Save your money :)