Even if you don’t care about the new Playstaton that is going to be announced soon on February 20th you should keep a close eye on the event. There is a fair chance that Sony will introduce the new NEX-3n camera that today got leaked at SAR. It’s not that much different from the current NEX-F3. The major change will be that tiny electronic zoom option you can see on the picture. There is no info yet about possible new E-mount lens announcements although we know that So
ny plans to launch a Zeiss zoom and a 85mm f/1.8 later this year.

And let’s keep talking about lenses. Olympus is rumored to launch soon the first of the two f/2.8 constant aperture and high quality MFT lenses that will hit the market within 2013. No specs are available yet but the lenses will be similar to the current Panasonic X lenses (12-35mm and 35-100mm) while delivering a higher image quality compared to the latter.

P.S.: Some bird told me the NEX-7 successor isn’t far away too ;)

The most awaited announcement is likely the one that is rumored to come from Samsung in March. There is a small chance they may be the first company (after Leica) to introduce a Full Frame mirrorless system camera. While there is no reliable info about that camera at least we got some evidence for an imminent Samsung announcement. The German online store Fotokoch already displays the price of the new 50-200mm f/4.05.6 zoom. You will get it for 349 but it is yet no available for preorder. And there is also a new white 16mm f/2.4 pancake (the current one is available in black only).

Let’s hope that this is one of the small bread camps we have to follow until the final NX-R FF camera announcement!

via Photorumors

You still remember the Hassleblad Lunar announced at Photokina don’t you? It’s basically a Sony NEX-7 with luxury case that will be priced at $5000. Not something for us normal human beings. Anyway, what you may don’t know is that according to Quesabesde (translation here) Hasselblad wanted Fuji as partner! Sony was only the second best choice.  The reason why Fuji ejected the partnership is yet unknown. Fuji and Hassi worked together on many film cameras like for example the famous [shoplink 100117 ebay]Hasselblad X-Pan (Here on eBay)[/shoplink].

Anyway, if the Hassleblad Lunar is the kind of thing we can expect from the Hasselblad-Sony partnership than you have to admit that Fuji had good reasons to reject it. But let’s not draw those kind of conclusions yet, There might be more coming from Hasselblad than just a luxury NEX-7.

This is likely the tenth time Pentax says that they are working on a new Full Frame camera (Source: Pentaxforums). But that timeit’s said that Pentax has already a working prototype. And seeing how hard it is to really compete in the Pro segment against the Nikon-Canon dominance I would not be surprised to see a Mirrorless Full Frame from Pentax. The advantages would be clear:
1) No real competition yet (Leica doesn’t count). And no Canon-Nikon hegemony to deal with.
2) It would have the famous “WOW” factor. It would be a unique product and certainly many would look at it.

So let’s go Pentax…just (finally) do it! :)

P.S.: It is rumored that Samsung may announce a FF mirrorless in Spring. While more reliable rumors are coming from the Sony front where a new NEX-FF system will be launched in 2014.

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As I told you before the real new heavy stuff will be announced in March-April. The only news from the Micro Four Thirds front will be these two new lenses which are actually an update of current existing lenses:

First we will get a new Panasonic 14-42mm f/3.5-5.6 OIS lens with improved AF tracking, OIS, silent AF and aperture control. The lens is also a bit smaller and lighter than the predecessor.

And what you see now is the new Olympus 75-300mm lens which is said to be a bit cheaper than the predecessor plus….it comes in Black only.

Now let’s move on and see if Samsung will bring some excitement with their NX Full frame mirrorless camera!

Ha, Olympus Big Announcement that will be made next week nothing has to do with the MFT system. There will be an updated 75-300mm II lens but that’s all. That what Olympus defines as big news is “just” the new XZ-10 compact camera. And Sony too will announce the NEX-3N only after the CP+ show which takes place in Yokohama from January 31. And what about Panasonic? New GF and G successors are also coming in a few weeks only.

In summary this is what we can expect to be announced in March-April:
Olympus: new semi pro PEN model
Panasonic: New GF and G models
Sony: new NEX-3n
Samsung: new NX300 and maybe a new NX Full Frame surprise
Canon: new EOS-M with integrated viewfinder
Ricoh-Pentax-Nikon-Fuji: No info about new camera releases yet…

Or you may heard about some mroe cameras? Drop me a message at mirrorlessrumors@gmail.com if you have some secret bits to share :) Thanks!

The discounted Sigma lenses at BHphoto.

You may have noticed that all current Sigma lenses for the NEX and MFT systems are discounted? In USA you can get both lenses for the price of one at BHphoto (Click here). And in Europe the price is down to 99 Euro like for example in Germany at Technikdirekt or on eBay (via Slidoo). And you know why these deals are running all over the world? Easy answer, Sigma will soon announce a new version of these lenses!

And the very interesting news is that these lenses will be high quality ART lenses! The word “ART” stays for the high quality photographer prime lenses. They are designed to be high quality alternative of other companies lenses but at the same time priced much lower than the competition. Sigma launched the first ART lens for Canon/Nikon/Sony a couple of months ago. it is the 35mm f/1.4 lens (here at Amazon) that got plenty of positive reviews like at SLRgear (Click here) and Photographyblog (Click here).

I have no exact announcement date but stay tuned on MR, I will hopefully find it out soon! P.S.: Yep, price will be higher than the current lenses!