More about the mirrorless success (Amateur Photographer and Photoscala)

Amateur Photographer published new data about the mirrorless market in UK:
– Almost a quarter of all interchangeable lens cameras sold in the UK during January are mirrorless
– That’s a 160% rise on the same month the previous year
– In 2010, mirrorless accounted for 11% of all interchangeable lens camera sales (one million units sold).

Photoscala analyzed the worldwide camera sales:
– sales of digital cameras is the world’s first nine months of 2010 greatly increased
– Digital cameras are booming in emerging markets
– The Japanese camera maker could surpass the predicted total delivery volume for 2010
– The share of system cameras (Mirrorless+DSLR) is constantly increasing at the cost of fixed lens compact cameras (from 6% in 2005 to almost 11% in 2010).
– 80.000 of all 960.000 system cameras sold in Germany are mirrorless.

Those are the market shares in Japan:
Compact camera is lead by Canon 19.0%, followed by Casio 15.2% and Panasonic 13.9%
DSLR cameras is lead by Canon 32.0% followed by Nikon 29.4% and on third place we have Sony 13.1%.
Mirrorless is lead by Panasonic 38.7% followed by Sony 32.2% and Olympus 29.1%

In summary: Compact cameras will loose market share in favour of cellulars and interchangeable lens systems. The growth of system cameras sales is lead by the mirrorless success.

Ricoh GXR P10 tested at British Journal of Photography

You don’t see a RIcoh review very often and that’s why it’s worth to ention that British Journal of Photography just published a Ricoh GXR P10 review: “The addition of the P10 unit significantly hikes the versatility aspect, but there is more to come. A GPS positioning and Wifi unit enabling, for example, the operation of an underwater camera unit, is on the cards, as are a projector, portable small format printer, image storage unit (hard drive or solid state), remote extension, copier and endoscopy module. Indeed, the possibilities for expansion seem endless, but without a lens mount module that permits the use of third party glass, I cannot see how the concept competes with DSLRs of any format.To my mind, what the GXR offers is the facility and versatility of a tool that slots somewhere between the pocketable compact and larger DSLRs. Its physical size is perhaps its downfall in some respects. Yet what it obtains in the way of image quality is impressive, especially when considering the smaller sensor sizes. I’d have no hesitation about using the camera modules launched so far for editorial work, but as it stands, it is not a replacement for the more sophisticated features offered with a DSLR.”

Hmmm, what do you think about BjP’s verdict?

The P10 is in Stock at Amazon and Adorama.

Sony to launch the NXcamcorder on March 23. Panasonic AG-AF100 gets a serious competitor.

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!).

Mirrorless market growing worldwide (Japan leads the change)

The GFK Group just relased a few interetsing data about the worldwide mirrorless market:

Japan: “CSC sales in Japan accounted for one third of all changeable lens cameras sold during December and one quarter for 2010 as a whole. The global share of CSCs almost quadrupled in 2010 compared to the previous year to stand at 11%, or almost one million of all changeable lens cameras sold.“

World: “Whilst Japan leads the way, other regions have seen consumers rush to adopt this new camera type. Western Europe (8%), LATAM (19%) and Asia Pacific (18%) have all witnessed a significant increase in share for CSC products.”

With the entries of Pentax and Nikon we can expect an even greater share in 2011. Samsung already said that they expect mirrorless to surpass the DSLR market share within 2015.

Samsungs future at Whatdigitalcamera


The guys from Whatdigitalcamera had a small talk with Samsung. In short those are the key news:

– Samsung will make a 700mm NX lens (which should be released in 2012)
– Samsung says that the mirrorless will surpass the DSLR market in 2015
– Samsung produced 18million lenses in 2010 (really so many?)
– Samsung will release a Super High Definition 4K video camera within 2013

As usual Samsung has big goals but until now the NX sales are very low compared to the more popular Micro Four Thirds and NEX systems. The lens roadmap looks very good but in my opinion they need better sensors and third party lens makers to join NX. Hey Schneider where are your NX lenses?

Fuji goes mirrorless with a digital TX system? What we all hear so in german restaurants :)

An anonymous source just got info about a new Fuji mirrorless camera in a very unconventional way:
“I was sitting in a German restaurant yesterday and listened to a conversation of a Japanese guy with a German guy in -broken – English about Fujifilm working on a digital / like panorama camera with a larger extra wide sensor and the possibility to switch to normal image ratios. The special point was about a nearly doublewide sensor for improving panorama image quality.
Have you heard something about such a camera already?“

So is that the future Fuji TX system? No idea! But it sounds good :)

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