The Mad (Mad, Mad) World of Mirrorless - Predictions 2012

With the noise level surrounding anything that has the word 'mirrorless' in it reaching astronomic proportions, we want to poke a bit of fun at all the rumor mill sites (we still love you though since you give us all an almost endless source of discussions) and come up with our own half-serious and half-not so much predictions for 2012. We even came up with our own 'hotness' indicator and grade, from highest to lowest - LP1, LP2, LP3, LP4, LP5. If you wonder what LP means - we don't know that either, but we will remind these grades to you every so often, so you just don't forget them. Seriously though, we've witnessed quite a few photo-equipment generation and so predictions below are not completely baseless - these are based on overall observations of where the market and individual players are and where they are moving. History often repeats itself and this cycle is not an exception in our belief.

And so, our predictions for year 2012.... Drum-roll please...

• Sony will announce a high end FF mirrorless [LP1]
• Canon will introduce APS-C sized mirrorless fully backward compatible with EF/EF-S mount [LP1]
• Pentax Q system will be discontinued in favor of a different mirrorless platform (GXR/K-01) [LP1]
• Nikon will drastically drop prices on V1/J1 and will introduce a higher MP sensors for the system [LP1]
• Nikon will introduce APS-C sensor in V system [LP3]
• Samsung NX will continue to be completely unappreciated and all for good reasons [LP1]
• Leica will introduce another 'Limited Edition' something that would have no real value to photographers but would still sell well [LP1]
• Panasonic will flood the markets with more m4/3 cameras completely confusing prospective buyers who will move on and instead buy a Sony NEX system [LP1]
• The euphoria around Fuji X-Pro1 system will fade and the company will go back to what it does best - making color film and color faxes [LP2]
• Carl Zeiss will not introduce any cameras, mirrorless or otherwise [LP1]
• Ricoh GXR will continue to be the poster child of a select few online reviewers, but otherwise would not even generate a blip of interest among the mainstreams [LP1]
• Sigma will discontinue DP2x and nobody will notice [LP2]

Let's revisit this topic next yearand see how well we fared...