Post PMA tends to be a slightly less busy time of year, as most companies tend to try to get their new product announcements into the period just prior to PMA so that they can talk openly about them to dealers at the show.
This year has been a little unusual, though because the big Photokina show is scheduled for later this year (it alternates years), some companies are clearly waiting for that show to launch some products. There wasn't all that much new and certainly nothing unexpected that popped up at PMA. What's more interesting is what didn't make it to PMA:
- The High-End Coolpix. The P6000 is history but the replacement hasn't appared. Nikon appears to think that the new model will be better than a G11 (not that high a hurdle, but a hurdle nonetheless), but the rumor mill says it didn't make Nikon's original schedule for announcing it. In other words, it's late. How late remains to be seen.
- The Pentax 645D. Not surprisingly, Pentax chose a Japanese show, CP+, to announce their long-awaiting MF digital camera. That's because Pentax is only going to release the camera in Japan initially. Given the price point (under US$9000) and specifications (40mp), I don't get the hesitancy to do a worldwide launch, but perhaps it just takes them forever to hand assemble the things.
- The Panasonic G2 and G10. Again, the home Japanese market seems to be the motivator here. The m4/3 cameras have indeed been quite popular in Japan, grabbing 12% of the interchangeable lens market share last year. Panasonic claims that they want 20% of the DSLR market share, but if they keep prioritizing Japan over global, I can tell them that they're not going to get that. Moreover, the G2 shows that Panasonic is mostly just tweaking UI, not pushing these cameras into new realms.
- Canon. Canon seems to have cut back on much of their traditional marketing presence for the time being, though they still do interesting things (like creating a fleet of red Mini-Coopers loaded with Canon gear and logos for pros visiting the Vancouver Winter Olympics; you couldn't miss those vehicles rolling around town, while Nikon's large presence was pretty much invisible by comparison). But they didn't even have a booth at PMA, which is unusual. I guess they don't want to talk to dealers.
- The Sony A700 followup. Long overdue and still not here. One wonders if it's a sensor thing. Both Nikon and Sony seem stalled in the high-end DX format bodies and this seems to be due to no new sensor that significantly ups the performance. I don't expect that to last that much longer. A new sensor will take flight before the end of summer.