April Fool’s joke idea 2003: a small digital Pentax system camera (Soruce: Reality Scanner on Flickr).

It’s not a secret anymore that tomorrow Pentax will announce the new NC mirrorless system. Amateur Photographer reports that “‘The new mid-range mirrorless camera, under the Pentax brand, is expected to sell for about 70,000 to 80,000 yen ($864 to 988), including a lens.”. Honestly, I wouldn’t call a mirrorless system with 1/2.33 inch sensor a “midrange system”! Anyway, those of you looking for a more professional Pentax mirrorless system will be happy to know that Pentax will announce a new “K-mirrorless” system in autumn. That new system will use the Sony APS-C sensor.

You can follow tomorrow’s Pentax announcement on MirrorlessRumors! I will continually update you with all news, reviews and image samples!

According to Amateur Photographer “Leica bosses have revealed plans to announce a compact system camera at Photokina 2012 in a bid to compete with the likes of Panasonic, Sony, Samsung and Olympus. ” Leica CEO Alfred Schopf told AP that “We are looking into that… You will see something at the next Photokina” and “Asked whether Leica would include an EVF, Schopf said it would largely depend on the sensor used, hinting that it would prefer the built-in EVF option. “

No more details were unveiled but our sources already told us that Leica is very likely going to use Sony sensors. And now let’s see if Nikon and Canon will finally move into the mirrorless world. They won’t miss the party or not?

According to our friends from DigicamInfo Pentax will announce the new Pentax NC-1 mirrorless system on June 23 (Update: old date June 26 was wrong)! Pentax claims that this it the “world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera“. As you know the camera should cost around $600 with kit lens. It has a small 1/2,33? size sensor (that’s the size of the sensor in most compacts). It’s a 14 Megapixel 5.6x crop sensor. It can also record HD h.264 movies. Two lenses will be released along the NC-1. There will be a prime 8.5mm f/1.9 (almost 47mm equivalent) and a zoom 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5 (28-80mm equivalent).

Right now you can find the very first pictures taken with the new Samsung 85mm f/1.4 on SLRclub forum. Those pictures are form the same person that was testing the lens (see previous post).

Looks nice!

Our sources confirmed that Samsung will announce the new NX20 and NX200 cameras plus the new 85mm f/1.4 lens in July. We hope to get the exact release date as soon as possible. Meanwhile a korean photographer posted that image on the SLRgear forum. It shows the upcoming 85mm f/1.4 lens. The photographer spoke with the person you can see on the image. The tester said the ultrasonic AF is very fast and the lens has no chromatic aberration. That’s not a lot of info but I am sure the lens will deliver a very high image quality. It’s certainly one of those key lenses that other mirrorless systems like m43 and NEX cannot offer yet. Panasonic, Olympus and Sony, are you listening?

UPDATE: The lens will cost $999. You can already see it at BHphoto (Click here).

UPDATE: More info via dpreview forum:
1. It seems to have SSA motor and the AF is very fast. The speed is similar with Olympus E-3 + 14-54mm under daylight. It seems to be slightly slower then 12-60mm lens.
2. I couldn’t see any chromatic aberration in the display with max. magnification.
3. The price of the lens is TBD. It will be released around July or August. He came to the show for the final test.
4. He said he is a Canon user, but he will move to NX because he likes 85mm/f1.4 results.
5. NX 60mm macro seems to be simply Olympus 50mm Macro + SSA motor. NX 60mm macro IQ looks similar with 50mm Macro on main display with max. magnification.

It looks like companies deliberately wants to create leaks to get some free publicity! A Panasonic commercial posted on youtube shows the new Panasonic GF3 which will be announced on June 13th. Sony is even more clamorous. They are already officially accepting preorders of the new 30mm macro lens for NEX before the official announcement! Check here: https://shop.sony.fr/shop/Reflex-numerique/Macro/SEL30M35.AE. The new macro lens and the NEX-C3 should be announced on Wednesday June 8th.

Now let’s hope we can soon see some Olympus and Samsung leaks too!

Here is the updated rumors roadmap. Unlike previous rumors the Sony NEX-C3 will not be announced today but instead it will come next Wednesday (June 8). Our sources confirmed a the Panasonic press release for June 13 and the Olympus press release for June 30. There is still no confirmation for the Sony NEX-7 announcement in July. I hope there will be no other delay from Sony! Confirmed is the NX20 and NX200 announcement for July. There is no fixed date yet! New entry is the Pentax Q for August and the Panasonic pro GF camera for end of August/early September. We don’t know when Nikon will announce their CoolPix Pro system. No rumor at all is coming from Canon (what are they doing???).

Will keep you updated if there is any chance. Bye!