Every year Thom Hogan predicts what’s coming next from Nikon (and not Nikon only! He also made a prediction about Olympus and Panasonic):
Read the article at http://bythom.com/2010predictions.htm
I like this phrase: “Put another way, I’d say that Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, and Sony have a plan. Pentax has no plan. Fujfilm thinks they have a plan, but don’t actually possess one. Nikon and Canon have their old plan and think it will work forever. ” :)
And here the Olympus and Panasonic 2010 predictions:
- Olympus. Olympus has already announced the E-P2, but it’s not much of a change (a tux for the body and an optional EVF). We’ll get another m4/3 camera before the end of the year, and it’s likely to be a much higher specified one. Lenses have already been announced so will be no surprise (the 9-18mm and 14-150mm coming next, probably followed by another prime or two and a long zoom). Meanwhile, Olympus needs to get the 4/3 cameras down in size, too, if they want that line to live on. The APS crop cameras are now up to 18mp and still doing well with noise, so Olympus’s recent “12mp is enough” won’t hold, I think. We’ll see a >12mp Olympus announced before the end of the year.
- Panasonic. A GH2 and a GF2 seem pretty likely, in that order. The tricky part is that to keep ahead of the pack the real advances are going to need to start coming at the sensor. Just adding features or gimmicks is not going to send a strong message. So, like Olympus, I think we’ll see >12mp cameras out of Panasonic sometime during the year. Like Olympus, Panasonic has telegraphed its lens lineup for the year, so no real surprises there. I do find it interesting, however, that every poll of m4/3 users and seriously considering m4/3 buyers shows that a 12mm prime is the number one lens request, yet we still haven’t seem either company decide to produce one. I’m betting that Panasonic picks up on this and makes such an announcement before the end of the year (that doesn’t mean we’ll see such a lens in 2010, though).
Olympus E-P2 preorders: Amazon US
