Image of the invitation from Steve Huff

Steve Huff just got a special invitation from Leica for a new event on May 10th. Leica says a “whole range of new product” will be launched. Steve says that the date itself suggests that the M10 could be launched. Leica is also working on a new mirrorless system with electronic viewfinder and maybe they are going to announce that too. That is going to be intriguing. Let’s hope leaks will arrive soon!

Real or not this is the very last rumor floating around the chines XITEK forum. While I am pretty sure the NEX-F3 rumor the rest could be a “fake” guess. Anyway, I hope the rumor is real because I like that rumored Full Frame NEX-9 :)

Sony NEX roadmap:
NEX the F3, C3, an upgraded version, 2012 (March)
NEX 5G, 18.3 million pixels, as the upgrade version of 5N 2012 (September)
Full Frame NEX in late 2013.

The naked NX20

One of our sources sent us a short info about one of the new Samsung NX cameras. According to him the NX-300 has the same NX-20 design but without EVF. It will be released in July.

Overall I am really curious to see what Samsung will do. Their NX system didn’t have the success they looked for. And the competition is becoming stronger (See Fuji Nikon and in short future Canon). They really have to “invent” something big in order to succeed!

It’s time to give you an update about the tiniest of all mirrorless system cameras, the Pentax Q! Pentaxforum (Click here) got his hands on the new Q mount lens roadmap. As you see there will be:
– a new telephoto zoom -> should be a 80-200mm lens.
– a new wide-angle prime.
– a new telephoto prime.
– a toy “body cap” lens.

And the japanese company Rayqual (Click here) announced new M- and G-mount adapters for the Pentax Q system.

So the Q system is slowly getting mature and we have to see if this will help the camera sales which weren’t that spectacular outside Japan.

The question now is not if Canon will do a mirrorless camera or not. The real question is when is it coming? The last patent discovered by the japanese Egami website (Clcik here) dicsloses a new 18-45mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens for mirrorless camera with ASP-C sensor (That is what Egami reports). The lens has a spherical aberration of 0.1mm ±, astigmatism less than 0.2 ±, a wide-angle distortion of -11% and chromatic aberration is about 0.6?m ±.

And I guess it’s about time for Canon to announce the mirrorless camera as soon as possible. The G1 X alone will not stop the growth of the competition. And also reviewers from top websites are thinking the same:
The guys from Cnet (Click here) reviewed the G1 X: “A big camera capable of shooting some lovely photographs, the Canon PowerShot G1 X’s slow lens disappoints given its high price“.
Also Digitalcamerainfo (Click here) tested the camera: “We see the PowerShot G1 X as a miss for Canon. We had a lots of fun shooting with it, and love the shots we were able to capture. But with the $800 price tag, and the explosion of the mirrorless camera, there are too many better, cheaper options available to list. This is a fine camera, but one we cannot recommend.“

It’s time Canon!

The naked NX20

Photorumors reports that at least three new Samsung NX models will arrive before the summer:
Samsung NX210 will be the same as the NX200 but with added Wi-Fi capabilities, available in April 2012
Samsung NX20, available in May 2012
Samsung NX1000 will be a cheaper NX model, available in May, 2012

As you may remind one of our sources told us that the NX20 has a retro design with 1.8M EVF, manual control and swivel amoled display. It has the same NX-200 sensor but a better processor and buffer. The retail stores price is $950 only body for NX-20. There will be two new lenses, the 16-80mm and 12-24mm and a new Flash.

I am really curious to see that camera!

New NX lens reviews:
Samsung NX 50-200mm f/4.0-5.6 ED OIS II Lens Review at ePhotozine (Click here).
Samsung 60mm f/2.8 NX i-Function Macro Lens Review at ePhotozine (Click here).

A Luminous Landscape forum post (Click here) created some buzz about a possible Dalsa-Leica partnership. As you may know Dalsa announced a new 24 Megapixel CCD sensor (Click here to read the specs). And Leica is actually the only Full Frame camera maker still using CCD sensors. So how do we say…where there is smoke there is fire!

One more thing: The new Leica mirrorless system with electronic viewfinder that will be announced in September will certainly use a CMOS sensor. And I guess Sony will be the supplier for Leica…

via Fotoactualidad via 1001noisycameras.