Is Mirrorless Really Hot or Not? (Thom Hogan)

Let’s take a short break from rumors and let’s do a little bit of mirrorless Chrystal ball chat:)

Thom Hogan wrote an article about the future of mirrorless: “I’ve pretty much always had a mirrorless camera with me, as I did go from sampler to adapter. But again, as a compact camera replacement, not a DSLR replacement.“…”Yet they don’t yet really make it to DSLR replacement in my mind“…”So we’ll see Nikon, Canon, and Pentax all come into the mirrorless market, too, while Panasonic, Sony, Samsung, and Olympus redouble their efforts. These camera companies aren’t sure why mirrorless cameras are selling, but that won’t stop them from entering the market or further pushing their efforts. “…”To me, the camera companies are chasing the wrong rabbit. What users want is smaller and lighter, not ->remove the mirror box, optical viewfinder, and sophisticated focus system<-.”

Please read the full article at bythom.com (Once clicked scroll down to find the article). I know Thom Hogan is reading us so feel free to add your comments! And let us know how you see the future of mirrorless cameras:

(UPDATED with lens specs) Pentax mirrorless system with ultratiny sensor (5.6x crop)!

Pictured above. The old analogue Auto 110.

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It’s not a secret anymore that Pentax will announce their new mirrorless system in March (Updated, it’s May!) And as Mr. Hamada from Hoya-Pentax said a while ago: “we would like to release products with an individuality that shines through“.

The biggest challenge for all mirrorless system is to find the right balance between size (as tiny as possible) and image quality (sensor size). So what is Pentax going to do?

According to our sources Pentax wanted to create a sort of digital version of the popular and very tiny . That’s why the new system will use a 5.6x crop sensor! By comparison: Micro Four Thirds uses a 2x crop sensor and Sony/Samsung are using 1.5x crop sensors. Note that there are rumors saying that Nikon will also use a very small sensor for their mirrorless system. Pentax made a very risky but also intriguing choice! We have been reported that the camera is much smaller than the current smallest mirrorless body (which is the ).

The sensor itself has 14 Megapixel which can record HD h.264 movies. May this is a coincidence only but the new Kenko mirrorless system uses a 14 Megapixel 1/2,33? (crop factor 5,6). Will Kenko and Pentax share the same sensor?

What about lenses? For now we only know that two lenses will be announced along the camera and that three more will be launched by end of the year.
UPDATE: We just got the lens specs! There will be a prime 8.5mm f/1.9 (almost 50mm equivalent) and a zoom 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5 (28-80mm equivalent)!

In Summary:
– One camera (Pentax NC-1?) and two lenses will be announced in May.
– 8.5mm f/1.9 (almost 50mm equivalent) and a zoom 5-15mm f/2.8-4.5 (28-80mm equivalent)
– New mount
– 5.6x crop 14 Megapixel sensor (Sensor size around 1/2.33?)
– HD h.264 recording
– smaller than NEX body
– hot shoe
– Three more lenses to be announced later (very likely in September 2011)

As soon as we have more info we will post them here on mirrorlessrumors. Also Nikon,Panasonic, Olympus and Sony will release new products within the next three months! So stay tuned! Do not miss any of our future rumors and news:
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See you!
The Mirrorlessrumors guys!

P.S.: We published the rumor one hour earlier before of the end of the countdown. We didn’t want to make you suffer to much! :)

HOT! Pentax mirrorlessrumors Countdown!

PUBLISHED!

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We just got a few info from our best sources about the future Pentax mirrorless camera. We will post them in a few hours (see the countdown). This is the way we want to celebrate our first Pentax leak ;)

We will give only a few hints about sensor, sensors size, lens numbers and video! No images yet! As you already know the NC-1 will be a sort of digital compact mirrorless camera.

Do not miss any of our future rumors and news:
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P.S.: This is not an official Pentax announcement. That’s just we posting a rumor about it!

Authors: Andrea&Alejandro

Kenko mirrorless C-mount camera announced

Kenko’ announced their mirrorless C-mount digital camera with 14 megapixel sensor. It’s a very “basic” camera, it can’t take videos and it doesn’t have a built-in flash. It will be on market in Summer for about $300. If you look on the image above you will see many awesome fast C-mount lenses which you usually can find on . Those lenses are usually made for video use only so don’t expect them to be good. But on the other hand they are very cheap. . It will certainly not be a Micro Four Thirds or NEX competitor but I bet it could become a very popular camera!

More images at DC.watch.

Ricoh surprise! Not a m43 but M-module from Ricoh!

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)

Surprise! Tomorrow Kenko will announce a mirrorless C-mount camera!

The japanese website DC.watch reports that Kenko will announce the new mirrorless cameras…tomorrow! The only thing we know yet is that it has a C-mount. There is no info about the sensor. The picture on top has been shown at Photokina. Actually this was a camera prototype and not the final camera design. Let’s see tomorrow how the real Kenko will look like!