According to sources from Photogizmos Pentax is changing the strategy and “they will soon be discontinuing future development of “normal” point-and-shoot cameras in favor of specialty cameras like the Ultra-Rugged WG series, Ultra Compact interchangable lens cameras like the Q series and coming soon, an incredible 360 degree Digital camera.“

That 360 degree camera sounds really intriguing!

P.S.: Digitalcamerareview posted the full K-01 review.

A few months ago Mr. Stefan Daniel (Director Product Management at Leica Camera AG) had an interview with Leica Blog (Via Megapixel) said that optical viewfinder will get less and less important. This of course led us all to believe that the time may be close for Leica to launch a mirrorless camera with electronic viewfinder. But according to our (very good) Leica sources there will be NO camera like that at Photokina. Plans for EVF cameras have been pushed forward to 2013. Too bad, really hoped Leica would be the first camera maker to launch a Full Frame camera with Electronic Viewfinder. That camera could have been a lot cheaper than the Leica M series also because they would get rid of the expensive and spacious rangefinder mechanism.

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Reminder: These are the hot points from Mr. Stefan Daniel interview with Megapixel:
1) “The experience with the very successful Leica X1 leads us to the opinion that a Leica with an interchangeable lens should have at least an APS-sized sensor.“
2) “I think that the quality of the 1.4MP finders is already very good, and sometimes even more accurate than an optical finder, think of white balance or exposure. Over time, as technology is improving, optical finders will get less and less important. The X100 finder is a very nice concept and well executed.“
3) “Offering additional functions such as video and live view would extend the usability of the M camera significantly. CMOS is a prerequisite for it, therefore it will be the technology of the future.“

Our trusted sources denied that the Pentax Spain teaser has to do with a new camera (mirrorless or DSLR). They will announce some kind of local news that will definitely not be exciting :)
That said we expect Pentax to announce a lower end mirrorless camera within the next months. It will be priced below the K-01.

So what to epxect now? Canon? Are you here? :)

The Japanese blog Egami (Click here) spotted a new Nikon patents containing a couple of new Nikon 1 lens specs. We have the 10mm f/2.8, the 32mm f/1.2 and the 7-13mm f/3.5-5.6 lens. But the patent discloses a surprise….drumming….Nikon unveils that lenses up to f/0.7 aperture are possible! Of course this is a patent and you know well that 90% of the stuff they describe will never become real. And honestly don’t know how much sense a lens like this would make. Anyway, I know of one lens, the Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7 used by Stanley Kubrick (more here on Wikipedia). And at f/0.75 aperture you can find plenty of lenses on [shoplink ‘f 0.75 lens’ ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

So is the impossible…possible?

Pentax Spain (Click here) will launch a new product on June 1st (yes, that’s alreayd next week!). We posted many rumors about possible new Pentax mirrorless cameras. This may be the right time to finally see a new K-01 alternative (and cheaper) model!

via PB.

This has been a busy week with two new lens releases, the Olympus 75mm and the Panasonic 12-35mm X lens. But more lenses are going to be announced within the next weeks and months. Finally Sony will release a new NEX lens and it will be the 16-50mm f/3,5-5,6 OSS G pancake(!) zoom! Coming in June. Olympus 60mm f/2.8 macro is also due for this summer and the Panasonic 35-100mm f/2.8 X lens is rumored to be priced around $1,600. It will be announce din late August.

And according to our sources also Samyang and one more company are ready to launch new mirrorless lenses in June. So it’s going to be a nice lens time while we expect Canon and Panasonic only to launch a new camera too!

Rumors about the Canon mirrorless camera are getting stronger. Sources from IndianTimes at MirrorlessRumors and Canonwatch wrote that Canon will go Nikon’s way with their new mirrorless camera design. The camera will have a modern look and remind in many ways the Nikon V1 (picture on top of this post). The Canon will in no way remind any past design and not go the same route of the Fuji X PRO 1 (rangefinder style) or the Olympus E-M5 (DSRL alike design). But unlike Nikon Canon will use a large Four Thirds sized sensor like the one used for the GX1.

Canon announcement is scheduled for June. So stay tuned! As I told you yesterday there is a lot of new stuff coming soon!

P.S.: Nikon 1 is getting some nice deals and climing the sales ranking at Amazon (Click here).