Source: Photoscala

At Photokina Ricoh annouced the development of a new “Exansion Unit” which should be on market this year. They didn’t gave us any info about the possible mount of the unit but since then we read tons of rumors about Ricoh making a Micro Four Thirds module. Therewas also one picture “spooking” around the web:

But Ricoh has today announced the development of a Leica lens mount unit for its GXR camera system! The module will be released in autumn but Ricoh is gonna to show a prototype at the CP+ show. Ricoh said that “It will have as its image sensor a 23.6×15.7mm (APS-C size: total pixels approx. 12.90 million) CMOS sensor, and it will feature a newly-developed focal plane shutter.‘”

More news at Ricoh Japan (Click here)

The biggest Asian photo-show will start on February the 9th in Yokohama. So what should be expect from it? If the rumors we received are correct the answer will be….not a lot! Pentax will announce their mirrorless system in March, Nikon in April, Canon will announce a new Rebel camera (but no mirrorless camera). And what is coming from current “mirrorless companies”? We have been told that the Panasonic G3 presentation will be held weeks after the show, Sony will announce their next NEX camera much later, and Samsung also. Olympus has a press release on February 8th but we still don’t know if they will announce a mirrorless camera or new lenses.

As you see there is nothing exciting we can talk about now. I guess the real “hot” months will be March-April-May. But I am surprised to hear that the biggest asian show gets simply “skipped” by most manufacturers!

Thom Hogan confirms the rumors I posted a few days ago about Nikon launching the new mirrorless system in April. He says: “I’ve heard from two different and unconnected sources now about planned advertising by Nikon for a new camera that will run in April in both newspapers and magazines. Based upon the language used, this has to be Nikon’s mirrorless camera entry.“

I hope to get some info about the camera during the next weeks. You can contact me at mirrorlessrumors@gmail.com if you want to share some “rumors”. Thanks!

The picture above shows the very first mirrorless design made by Pentax in 1997. Yeah…that wa slong before Micro Four Thirds came! And it is no secret anymore that Pentax will soon show their first mirrorless camera. According to Photorumors that camera could be the “NC-1”. There are no spec now but the camera should feature a smaller than APS-C sensor and be announced in March.

But before that Panasonic will launch a new G3 camera in February. New sensor new design and FullHD recording are the main improvements (Source: 43rumors).

Also Nikon, Olympus and Sony are ready to drop their bombs. So who is missing? Canon! Where are you?

Via Leicarumors we learned that LUF member toke notes during a meeting in October 2010 between Stephan Daniel and members of the LHSA. They talked about the ”digital R solution” from Leica:

• The new camera is at the concept stage.
• It will have EFV.
• It will be able to use M lenses, probably with an adapter.

According to our sources Leica is working on a mirrorless system with built in EVF. It will take both R and M mount lenses. We also heard that the real problem is the Kodak sensor. Current sensors will not work on a mirrorless system that would use an electronic viewfinder system instead of a rangefinder system. Speculation: Leica is looking for a new partner…Sony instead of Kodak?

[shoplink 100105][/shoplink]Image on top: The analogue [shoplink 100105]Nikon S2[/shoplink] rangefinder

According to our veeeeeery good sources Nikon will unveil their new mirrorless system in April! Nikon developed a very advanced (and expensive) pro system not meant for the amateur market. Nikon chose to go “pro” for two reasons:

1) They wanted to enter the market by offering the very first professional mirrorless system. Current mirrorless systems like the , and most Micro Four Thirds cameras (only exception may be the Panasonic GH2) are competing in the advanced beginner or amateur market.

2) Nikon believes an amateur mirrorless system would not have appealed current mirrorless users and only cannibalize their very good selling entry level DSRL market.

We are currently investigating the possible specs of the first camera and lenses but one of our trusted sources already told us that Nikon will use some kind of “tweaked” Sony sensor. Nikon tested two sensors, a 16 megapixel and a 24 megapixel sensor. We don’t know yet if Nikon will use only one of those or both sensors!

We hope to can give you more details soon…