First of all Happy New year to everyone! Hope you recovered from the party :)

The new 2014 is here and it’s about time to ask you what’s the one camera release you are dreaming about:

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BCNranking publsihed the exact Japanese camera sales number for the whole 2013. Mirrorless interchangeable camera market share is 40% (DSLR has therefore 60%). Within the Mirrorless world Olympus takes the lead with 29.1% followed by Sony 26.4%, 14.2%, Panasonic, Ricoh imaging 9.8%, 9.34% Nikon, Canon 9.25 percent.

That said the Olympus E-M1 and the Panasonic GX7 and Gm1 have come to market very late. And at least in USA the Olympus E-M1 seems to sell very well according to Amazon US ranking (click here to see the list).

P:S:: New Years deal: Plenty of Gold Box deals on Tripods ongoing right now at Amazon US.

Like so many other websites also Michael Reichmann from Luminous Landscape chose the Olympus E-M1 as camera of the year 2013. He writes:

Simply put, the Olympus O-MD E-M1 is that company’s new flagship camera, and while not inexpensive, provides proof that Olympus is run by engineers and product marketing folks that actually understand the needs of photographers. Sadly, this is not something that one can say for all camera companies these days.

Good job Olympus. Now let’s see if the new E-M10 will be the next praised and well selling Olympus camera…

E-M1 Store Links:
Olympus E-M1 body at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto, Amazon DE (via DL), Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL), WexUK, Topshot FI, CameraWorldUK.
Olympus E-M1 with 12-40mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK and CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
Olympus E-M1 with 12-50mm Lens kit at Amazon DE (via DL), WexUK, CameraWorldUK, Amazon UK (via DL), Amazon ES (via DL).
E-M1 Hariz case in [shoplink 43405 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink] or [shoplink 43406 ebay]Brown (Click here)[/shoplink].

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UPDATED: I don’t know what this could mean for the digital camera business future. But Panasonic just announced a new joint venture with TowerJazz (press text as pdf here). The key info here is that Panasonic sold 51% of three semiconductor manufacturing facilities to TowerJazz which now owns 51% of the new created joint venture company. Panasonic still keeps the 49%.

The transferred plants are from Hokuriku:

More info: Image-Sensor-World, Bloomberg.

The New York Times reported an analysis from Credit Suisse saying that the camera market will move towards an oligopoly where only big companies like Nikon, Canon and Sony will survive. Credit Suisse imaging analyst Yu Yoshida said that mirrorless cameras “are sputtering as buyers put connectivity above picture quality“. And sales are not growing in EU and USA because “consumers tend to equate image quality with size and heft“. For them solutions like the [shoplink 43613 ebay]Sony QX lenscameras[/shoplink] are more likely to be the future.

My note: I am used to these kind of forecasts. I remember of dozen of articles published many years ago saying that Olympus or Panasonic or other small companies would close their camera business the year after. As usual analysts tend to forget t 1) see the full picture (Olympus medical needs the camera business) 2) To understand the Japanese company culture and proud of history 3) their lack of seeing what’s really the future in the tech world.

I believe there will be always be a reason for mirrorless cameras to stay in the market. You cannot cheat physics. If you want the best quality you need larger sensor/cameras/lenses. Obviously, a question could be…do we need that more quality? Most of the people certainly no. But there will be always people who want to step up from the usual (and poorer) smartphone camera quality.