That’s probably a coincidence only but according to sources from Nikonrumors and SonyAlphaRumors both companies will announce their new mirrorless cameras on April 4th. Channelnews reported that “Nikon is set to re-launch their brand in Australia, with a major multimillion dollar marketing campaign, featuring Robbie Williams. The Japanese Company is also introducing several new digital cameras’ ranging in price from $99 to $2,000.” The first ad will air in the UK on April 11th, 2011.

According to our sources the system should be named “Nikon Coolpix PRO“.

Sony will announce the new NEX-C3 mirrorless camera. It should be a minor update of the current NEX-3 with small design changes and same NEX-5 sensor. There is also a good chance that Sigma and Zeiss will announce the new NEX lenses. The Zeiss E-mount lens should be a 24mm f/1.7 lens.

What about the other companies?

Panasonic should have a press release on late April and Pentax will announce their NC mirrorless system in May. If all those rumors are correct by the end of May Canon will be the only company not having a mirrorless system. Let’s see when they are coming…

The latest Nikon patent shows us how Nikon wants to protect the sensor from “dust contamination”. The mount itself will have a shutter that is closed while changing lenses. Smart idea or not?
Publication number: Patent 2011-13399 (P2011-13399A)

Source: Egami

Image of the Canon mirrorless patent found by Egami

Amateur Photographer just posted the text of an interview made with Rainer Fuehres from Canon: “The idea of the compact system camera is nothing to do with whether the camera has a mirror or not, but about creating a small and more portable system. If Canon does take part I hope we won’t introduce just a me-too product, but we’ll use the opportunity to do something different.”… “For Canon it would be about connectivity and providing high image quality in a small form. The manufacturers that have introduced micro Four Thirds and mirrorless systems have been those that have failed to make a success of their mainstream digital SLR offerings“.

But via Photorumors we found a Canon patent that discloses a possible future Canon mirrorless camera (Click here to see the patent at Egami). So Canon, what are you trying to hide?

Image from a Nikon patent (Source: Nikonrumors.com)

A month ago we told you that Nikon would announce their new mirrorless system in April. Now Nikonrumors got new confirmation from their sources: “Today I received some information from a reliable source that Nikon indeed will be targeting professional users with their mirrorless solution rather than the consumer market. I was told that the announcement will be in the next few weeks.“

We from Mirrorlessrumors do believe that Nikon’s “PRO” system will not be a full frame nor an APS-C sensor based system. They will more likely use a smaller 2.5 crop sensor (Micro Four Thirds has a larger 2.0 crop sensor). It sounds like PRO is more a marketing suffix :)

There have been three new rumros about upcoming Mirrorless products:

1) Panasonic will announced the 25mm f/1.4 lens this summer (Source: Amateur Photographer)
2) Samyang announced the development of the 7.5mm f/3.5 Micro Four Thirds lens (Source: 43rumors)
3) Pentax is considering developing a mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. (Source: PhotoRadar)

Reminder: The next products to be announced are the Panasonic G3 in late March and the Sony NEX-C3 early April.

According to the Korean magazine “ddaily” the NX20 and the NX200 development almost finished. Both cameras will feature a new Samsung sensor. There are no detailed specs about the sensor although we from MirrorlessRumors “heard” that it will be be close to the 20 Megapixels. The Design of the cameras will be close to the current NX10/11 and NX100 cameras.

Reminder: Samsung already announced that they will release the 18-200mm, 16mm, 60mm Macro, 85mm/f1.4 and 16-80mm lenses within 2011.

Dear Panasonic, you are no more swimming alone in the pool with your AG-AF100. Sony is ready to launch the new Super 35mm NXCAM on March 23! The Sony will feature a new APS-C Exmor sensor and it will take E-mount lenses. But the real big news is that the NXCAM is fully modular…like a [shoplink 100117]Medium format Hasselblad[/shoplink]! You can add and separate grip, EVF and other useful stuff!

The body alone will be priced under $7000 which sounds good. But we still don’t know how much the accessories will cost (Let’s hope price will be decent!).