Ricoh last night unveiled the newest camera in its portable Q-Series line of mirrorless shooters: the Pentax Q-S1. The new camera is beautiful, and extremely customizable in that regard, but if you were hoping for serious hardware improvements, you might be left wanting.
When it comes to high-end compact cameras, Sony doesn't exactly have a monopoly on the genre, but the RX100M3 is probably the most talked about of the offerings. With its nifty pop-up viewfinder, a 1-inch sensor and a bright 24-70mm f/1.8-2.8 lens, it is quite the point-and-shoot.
But it soon might have some stiff competition, if news out of the Panasonic rumor mill is to be trusted.
Although initial reports from rumor sites indicated that the next iteration of Sony's much-loved RX100 was supposed to land late last night, no camera arrived. What arrived instead was a whole slew of leaked specs/pricing info and high-quality product images for those of you who want to get a jump on the rumored camera's official announcement.
While there isn't much information available on it yet, Olympus seems to be playing with the idea of what would be the worlds fastest compact camera, according to Patent No. 2014-48359.
Canon's mirrorless attempts haven't gone all that well. But where they've struck out in the mirrorless game, their large-sensor G1 X compact announced at CES 2012 has done quite well. Now, for this year's CP+, Canon has updated the powerful compact by releasing the even more capable G1 X Mark II.
With every passing year, the digital camera sales dataset offered by the Camera and Imaging Products Association (CIPA) grows more comprehensive. These records are made available to the public by this coalition of camera manufacturers which includes Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, Sony, Sigma, Ricoh, Olympus, and dozens of other recognizable brands. Since 2002, they've been improving and increasing the scale of their database, which now separates digital cameras into fixed-lens, mirrorless and DSLR categories, and reports sales figures for different regions.
It sometimes seems that commentators are primarily interested in the CIPA data to prove just how far up a creek camera manufacturers are so far this decade. But these depressing pronouncements are just scratching the surface. Here's some other things the data shows:
Olympus is bringing the sleek design of its mirrorless cameras to the world of premium compacts. Yesterday it unveiled the new Stylus 1, a fixed-lens camera that borrows quite a bit of form from the company's popular OM-D line of cameras.
You'd think companies would be shying away from creating new compact cameras -- or maybe going the way of Sony with its lens cameras -- but that doesn't seem to be the case. Earlier today, another big player released a new line of compact cameras: Leica.
It wasn't long ago that Canon revamped its compact line-up, adding a new flagship compact G16 and a few minor other updates. Now, just a few weeks behind, Nikon is doing something similar by announcing a new flagship prosumer point-and-shoot, an ultra-portable compact and a movie light for the Nikon 1-series mirrorless cameras.
Last night was packed full of announcements from Canon, as the Japanese company saw fit to announce four new point-and-shoots (including a new flagship), update the PowerShot N and release a new lens in one fell swoop.
According to a report in today's Wall Street Journal, the market is not looking great for digital cameras. The report states that as the popularity of smartphones has increased, sales of digital cameras have decreased.
It's official -- the point-and-shoot market is dying, while DSLRs and other interchangeable lens systems champion the cause for standalone cameras.
A new report from retail researchers NPD tallies U.S. sales of $2.1 billion worth of interchangeable lens cameras between June 2012 and May 2013, an increase of 5 percent over the same period a year ago. U.S. sales of compact cameras, meanwhile, plunged 26 percent, to $1.9 billion. This is the first time interchangeable lens cameras have surpassed the sleek-and-shiny segment.
The "best pocket camera of all time" now has a successor. Sony today announced the RX100 Mark II, the followup to its highly-acclaimed RX100 premium compact camera.
Olympus isn't the only camera manufacturer finding ways to cut costs by getting rid of their low-end camera offerings. Tokyo-based Fujifilm is expected to dramatically slim down their compact camera line by fifty percent in the near future.
Let’s take a moment to reflect on mirrors. Mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, like the Olympus Pen E-P5 or Samsung NX300, have enjoyed increasing popularity over the past few years, and it’s become clear that they are more than a passing fad.
This motley collection of high-tech cameras filled the gap that existed between bulky DSLRs and compact cameras, but manufacturers are now starting to expand their mirrorless lineups in hopes of attracting a wider cross-section of photographers, including professionals.
The recent announcement from Olympus that it's dropping out of the compact camera market started us thinking: Why is anyone bothering to make those things anymore?
Shoppers will soon have a tough time trying to pick up a cheap Olympus point-and-shoot compact camera. The company has said it is planning to do away with its V lineup of low-cost compact cameras, priced just under $200 at various retailers.
The move comes as the company anticipates a steep decline in its camera business, with forecasted digital camera sales this fiscal year expected to be about 2.7 million units, down from 5.1 million units last year. Olympus president Hiroyuki Sasa has put the financial loss from its camera business at about $225 million.
One of the big trends in the digital camera industry right now is the stuffing of large sensors into tiny cameras. Today Ricoh became the latest camera company to join in on the action. It has officially announced the Ricoh GR, a compact camera that features a beastly APS-C-sized sensor at its core.
One week ago, we reported that Canon had sent out spy-style projector pens that teased an upcoming PowerShot announcement. Well, that announcement came yesterday alongside the two new entry-level DSLRs that were unveiled (the SL1 and the T5i).
It's the new PowerShot SX280 HS, a camera that may not look too special on the outside, but packs something quite interesting on the inside: Canon's next generation DIGIC 6 processor.
Canon's EOS M mirrorless camera is meant to offer DSLR-caliber image quality inside a compact camera-sized body. However, stuffing an APS-C sensor into a tiny form factor may not be the only way Canon is trying to go small. There are now murmurings that Canon may have a super small DSLR camera in the works for photogs who need a little extra portability.
In addition to announcing a long-overdue lens update and the company's very first APS-C compact, Nikon has also chosen today to update one of the members of its Coolpix performance series. The new P330 replaces the P310 and, in one fell swoop, manages to almost overtake the more expensive P7700 announced in August of last year.
Nikon had quite a surprise for the camera world today, as it announced the new Coolpix A -- the company's first compact camera to sport a massive DX-format sensor.
Fujifilm launched a number of new compact cameras this week. While most of them offer rather pedestrian improvements on older models, one of the models comes with a rather eye-catching claim: the new FinePix F900EXR is said to feature the world's fastest autofocus system found in a digital camera.
Pentax has announced its latest line of uber-durable "adventureproof" compact cameras. There are three distinct cameras in the lineup: the WG-3, the WG-3 GPS, and the WG-10. All three are designed to take a beating and survive in locations that would be hazardous to other cameras' health.
Here's a sneak peek at Olympus' upcoming high-end compact camera, the XZ-10. It will likely succeed or be sold alongside the Olympus XZ-2, which features a 1/1.7-inch sensor and competes directly against the semi-large-sensor compacts of other manufacturers (e.g. Nikon P7700, Canon G15).
Canon's attention grabber at this year's CES 2013 is a new compact camera designed to fight against the encroachment of smartphones: the PowerShot N.
The little guy is unlike most point-and-shoots you'll find on the market. It's extremely small, square, and simple. The design may seem gimmicky at first, but pick it up in your hands and your opinion might change.
More and more camera companies are giving their products vintage camera-inspired designs these days, and Pentax wants to join in on the fun. The company announced its own retro-styled camera earlier today called the MX-1.
It's a fixed lens compact camera that features a sleek metal body, a fast lens, and a 12-megapixel sensor.
Hiroshi Hiyama over at Phys.Org reports that smartphones are crushing the point-and-shoot industry, …
A number of publications have begun receiving hands-on time with the new Sony RX1 full-frame compact camera. It seems that Sony is doing something right, as initial commentators and testers are saying some pretty positive things about the $2,800 shooter.
A few weeks ago, we casually remarked that the best cameraphones today can probably snap better photos than top-of-the-line compact cameras from over a decade ago. Turns out that it's true.