Samsung announces the new NX30 with baby monitor feature (no joke!) and two 16-50mm lenses (yes two!).

Scroll the images on top to see the cameras and lenses.

Samsung is the first manufacturer of the year announcing a new mirrorless camera with the NX30. And there are also two new 16-50mm lenses. One is a big and lens with an amazing f/2.0-2.8 aperture lens. The other one is a 16-50mm pancake with f/3.5-5.6 aperture and Power Zoom ED OIS.

The Samsung NX30:

It has exactly the same sensor and autofocusing ot the NX300. The real highlight is that new super moveable EVF which can be pulled and tilted. Quite cool!

And as a Killer feature you will get a baby monitor function too…and yes, this is not one of my bad jokes. It really has it!

Anyway, other improvements are minor and can be read at the bottom of this post inside the official press text. By the way, there is neither a pricing nor an availability info :(

Read more

Full 2013 Japanese camera sales data. Olympus and Sony rule.

BCNranking posted the full exact single camera sales numbers for 2013. Mirrorless conquered 40% of all interchangeable camera sales. And the most sold mirrorless camera was the Sony NEX-5r.

If you sum all camera sales than you will get these market shares within the mirrorless world:

Olympus 29.1%

Sony 26.4%,

Panasonic 14.2%,

Ricoh imaging 9.8%, 

Nikon 9.34%

Canon 9.25%.

 

Surprised to see that Canon still has 10% share, not so far behind Panasonic!

Credit Suisse: “Smartphones Shatter Mirrorless Hopes”

Yu Yoshida is analyst at Credit Suisse and he debunked the mirrorless hype in his latest Interview with Reuters. The main reason why mirrorless isn’t really growing anymore is that “buyers put connectivity above picture quality” and:

Consumers don’t want to connect cameras to phones, analysts say; they want a single interface that can instantly upload photographs to social networking sites such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc.

Mirrorless isn’t catching up in USA and Europe because “consumers tend to equate image quality with size and heft

And in the long term only Canon-Nikon and Sony are likely to stay in the digital camera business.

Mirrorlessrumors opinion:

I am neither a well paid analyst nor a marketing expert. But all I can say is that it’s years now that I hear that small manufacturers like Pentax, Olympus and so on will die. And it never happens. Probably because analyst tend to focus on numbers and do not see the full picture. Olympus for example keeps the digital camera business alive also because the profitable medical business can take advantage of the sensor and imaging technology coming from the camera division. And than there is that Japanese culture that doesn’t fit with the western idea that what’s unprofitable has to be sold or closed.

My guess, the Reuters analyst is plain wrong with his forecast :)

Why Mirrorless?

Why Mirrorless ?

What is a Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera (MILC)

and

How does it differ from a Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera (DSLR) ?

Read more

Firmware update for NX300

There is a new firmware update (ver.1.33) for Samsung NX300 since 15th of December 2013. Here is the list of improvements:

  1. Remote ViewFinder – add touch AF function

  2. Remote ViewFinder – add streaming quality option

  3. Improved connection speed of android smart phone (Please use latest version of Upgrade Smart Camera App)

  4. Improved Movie recording (Framing Mode ON)

  5. Improved 60mm,85mm lens full time manual focus performance

link: http://www.samsung.com/us/support/owners/product/EV-NX300ZBQUUS#firmware

 

UPDATE: Nicholas sent us this nice comparison image: