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!

Image credit: Ricoh GR Digital IV by matsuyuki

PetaPixel just published an info we also got from our sources last week. Ricoh will launch a new GR Digital V camera with large APS-C sensor and fixed lens. The camera is rumored to arrive the second half of this year. I am still not sure about the lens but a source told me it’s definitely one of the two patented 23mm f/2.5 and 27mm f/1.9 designs (Source: RiceHigh).

The high end compact camera marked is the last profitable business on fixed lens cameras. All the low end stuff is being eaten up by smartphones.

Let’s catch up with some important Fuji news. First, it sounds almost unbelievable but Fuji claims that the new X20 compact camera with tiny 2/3 inch sensor outperforms the much larger Sony RX100 sensor quality and even the 12 Megapixel MFT sensor! And the graph on top is here to “prove” it. It has been shown at a presentation in Barcelona and our friends fromQuesabesde (translation here) picked it up.

For a short time Fuji UK (Click here to see the cached site) showed the info about new X cameras and lens firmware updates. The page has than been removed and release postponed because of an error that should be fixed soon. While you have to wait for the official release you may check out the latest two articles from Fuji “Guru” Rico Pfirstinger :)
Decoding XF18-55mmF2.8-4 R LM OIS (on Fujirumors)
Using the XF14mmF2.8 R (on Fujirumors)

And here as a reminder the nfw update info:
Fujifilm X-Pro1 – firmware version: 2.03 Changes:
* Allows compatibility with the new “XF14mmF2.8R” lens.
* Improved performance of Auto Focus under various shooting conditions.
Fujifilm X-E1 – firmware version: 1.04 Changes:
* Allows compatibility with the new “XF14mmF2.8R” lens.
* Shutter release button now works when an external remote release is connected.
* Improved performance of Auto Focus under various shooting conditions.
* Audio performance has been optimised for the new Stereo Microphone MIC-ST1 (sold separately).
FUJINON XF35mm – firmware version: 2.02 Change:
* Improved accuracy of Auto Focus performance.