This is the week that traditionally we start seeing the pre-PMA announcements begin to fly. But first, one other key upcoming announcement: on Thursday Nikon updates their third-quarter financials.
But you want to know about product goodies. Well, Olympus will have their latest, even smaller, m4/3 camera plus they're probably finalize real prices and availability on the two lenses they announced earlier. Hasselblad is going to come downmarket with the H4D-40, a 40mp medium format camera that's targeted between the D3x and Leica S2 in price (and if I'm right, it's closer to the D3x). Fujifilm won't announce a m4/3 camera, but continue announcing all-in-one variants that look like small DSLRs but aren't. Nikon is...well, Nikon is going to obsolete the Coolpix L20, L100, P90, S230, S630, and S220 and announce their latest replacement models. Plus, to keep the rest of us awake, we'll finally get the 24mm f/1.4G, plus another wide angle lens, some accessories, and a surprise. At least I think we're still getting the surprise at PMA. I'm a little surprised that nothing has leaked about the surprise. In fact, if it's in production already I'm stunned that we haven't seen anything about it, so maybe it isn't in production yet.
What, no DSLRs? Well, not many from any of the makers. This may be the lowest key PMA for mid- and high-end photographers in recent memory. But worry not, between March and August we'll be getting a pretty big helping of products we're more interested in.
Meanwhile, the Japanese companies seem to be pulling marketing subtleties out of a party hat. Consider this assessment from Panasonic's marketing department of how to explain their huge lineup of similar compact cameras:
- FZ: for outdoor action
- LX: performance and beauty
- TZ: for world travel
- ZR: for day trips
- FT: sea and mountain leisure
- FX: portraits and weddings
- FH: for family memories
- FP: daily photography
- F: Parties
Well, I guess that's one way to sell more cameras. Let's see, I do both day trips and world travel, sea, mountain, and outdoor action photos, and I want performance, so I need to carry an FZ, LX, TZ, ZR, and FT camera with me. Really? How many dealer sales people do you think will use that in their sales pitch to prospective customers? Uh, zero? So why even say it? Certainly there isn't an engineer designing "mountain leisure" features into only a subset of cameras.