I bought the May issue of Popular Photography online and found this note on page 6:
Of course it is not clear what manufacturer will be releasing the new DLSR, but Canon or Nikon will be high on the list (Sony is too busy with the release of their EVIL system next month, Pentax and Olympus will probably save their bullets for Photokina in September).
Patent Application 20100091184: “The present invention relates to an image processing technique that displays a plurality of still images as smooth movie.”
Patent Application 20100100276: “The present invention relates to an imaging apparatus and a drive recorder system mounted on a vehicle for imaging and recording a vicinity of the vehicle at an accident.”
Patent Application 20100097489: “A digital camera includes a communicator that communicates with other digital camera, a receiver that receives a camera information of another digital camera and an imaging device that forms a digital image of an object. The digital camera further includes a processor that creates a digital image data from the digital image based upon the camera information.”
Patent Application 20100085648 and 20100091382 are for p&s zoom lenses, but the image diagonal is 8.1mm (Y=4.05) which is a bit bigger than normal – the diagonal is usually 7 – 7.5 mm. Nikon is also working on reducing size and weight of lenses in p&s cameras:
“Recently importance has been placed on the portability of digital still cameras, and zoom lenses, which are imaging lenses, have been decreasing in size and weight, so that the main body of the camera can be smaller, thinner and lighter.
…
In the case of a conventional zoom lens, however, the air space between each lens group is effectively changed upon zooming from the wide angle end state to the telephone end state, so as to contribute to downsizing”
And some real patents (not patent applications) after the break:
In addition to the updates for the 200-400mm f/4.0 and the 85mm f/1.4 lenses, I received some information that Nikon also has plans for a 24-xxxmm f/4.0 VR and a 70-200 mm f/4.0 VR lenses. Previous rumor suggested a new 24-120 f/4.0 VR lens, but the long focal end could “only” be 105mm. If true, this will reduce the size and weight of the lens (compared to 120mm) and will make it an ideal candidate to be the kit lens for the D700 replacement.
New lenses with f/4.0 aperture is probably what Mr. Sasagaki had in mind when he promised “more affordable” lenses are coming soon.
In 2011 Nikon will bring more fast primes: 35mm f/1.4 (see patent) and 50 f/1.2 mm (see patent). The report I received last year also indicated that the 35mm f/1.4 lens will be released in 2011.
Note: All those lenses could be a long term plan for Nikon and long term plans very often change, so [NR] probability for the 24-XXX f/4.0 + 70-200 f/4.0 to be released in 2010 and 35mm f/1.4 + 50 f/1.2 lenses to be released in 2011 is at 40% for now.
Update: this lens is not longer “under review” @ Amazon.
Not sure what is the exact reason, but sales of the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.6 VRII has been halted on Amazon since yesterday:
Some top level changes happened in the Nikon’s top executive level today. See the official details here and here.
The new company’s President Makoto Kimura (62) said this in a press conference in Tokyo today (via Reuters):
“Nikon’s imaging business has been expanding quite steadily over the past 10 years. But can it enjoy the same stable growth for the next 10 years? The answer is no. Growth for existing digital camera products will inevitably slow and they are set to move into a phase of saturation. I intend to keep dialogue open for everyone to decide what we should do to achieve further growth despite this trend.”
Nikon may have an announcement on April 27th or 29th, 2010. I have not received any info on scheduled press conference yet and until I do, this rumor will be rated @ 40% probability. If true, no DSLR are expected to be announced this time.
