The Photokina organization issued a press release which contains a statement from Panasonic manager Yosuke Yamane:

“For many years, photokina has been the ideal platform for us to present our product innovations. The Imaging industry is facing big changes and challenges these days. In 2020, we will also be coming to Cologne with big expectations in the new photokina format and are looking forward to contributing with great innovations.

Unlike Panasonic Olympus has decided to NOT participate at Photokina. And also other big players like Leica and Nikon decided to skip the event which will start on May 27.

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via PetaPixel

Dpreview interviewed Aki Murata from Olympus. A couple of takeaways:

1) Olympus sees a trend with people coming from Full frame buying Olympus (for the birding and wildlife field)

2) Focus is on semi pro and pro market as Olympus can serve up products that can take photos which aren’t possible with a smartphone

3) Olympus will introduce more super telephoto lenses. And that’s an area of difference with Full Frame as Olympus MFT lenses will be small and of high quality

4) Olympus says Full-frame isn’t for everybody. It’s important for all photographers to think about what matters to them

5) There are no plans to make a new system with different sensor size

It was a nice interview with clear answers. Can’t wait to get my hands on their new 150-400mm lens :)