Several major rumors surfaced over the last couple of days about Japanese camera giant Canon, ranging from release dates to specs for cameras that up until now were spec-less for the general public. First up, according to Canon Rumors, the long awaited and rumored Canon Rebel T4i will be released later this week on June 8th. In addition, specs for the T4i should be exactly as the original rumors suggested: 18-megapixel sensor, 9 cross-type AF points, touchscreen LCD and continuous AF for live view and video recording. Read more…

Sigma announced today that its flagship SD1 DSLR will be available starting in June 2011 with a hefty price tag of $9,700. The unique thing about the camera compared to its competitors is the 15MP Foveon sensor that uses 3 stacked sensors, giving each photo 46 million pixels of color data — this supposedly helps provide sharper pictures, truer colors, and fewer artifacts compared to traditional sensors (but also means 45MB Raw files). The camera will shoot at 5fps, use 11 autofocus points, and have a 3-inch LCD screen.

Sigma is reportedly targeting existing medium format shooters with this camera, but the sensor had better be out of this world to justify shelling out nearly 10K on a 1.5x crop factor 15MP DSLR, since photographers can pick up the 40-megapixel medium-format Pentax 645D for the same price.

Update: Sigma has released a number of sample photos here. Be patient with the site though — it seems to be under a heavy load.