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January 25, 2012
CES 2012 - International Technology Exhibition
1.681.000, 153.000, 34.000, 20.000, 3.100. Those are the numbers of what has been declared as the largest annual show in U.S. history. CES International Technology Exhibition 2012 was the largest event in it's 44 year history with 1.681.000 sq feet (or if you like 173.000 sq meters) of exhibit space, where 153.000 visitors, from which 34.000 came from abroad saw 20.000 new products launched by the 3.400 exhibitors. Oh, and it all happened in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, 10. - 13. January. Just in case you are wondering what "CES" stands for, it's Consumer Electronics Show. Simple as that. Together with less important brands such as Ford, Google, eBay, Wall-Mart and Facebook there were also camera manufacturers. So let's have a look what CES 2012 has brought to us, photographers.
Surprise, surprise, the biggest new release from Nikon was the new Nikon D4. I have already mentioned technical details and also compared it with D3s here, so I am not going to repeat it. I'll just mention, the camera will go on sale in February 2012 for RRP $5.999.95, or if you like £4.799, so tell your piggy banks its time to say good bye.
And if you have a new camera, why not have a new lens as well? The new AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G will be a great mate to your new D4. With mid-telephoto focal length 85mm and big aperture 1.8 it's great portrait lens in every light condition. It'll work on your DX format Nikon too, just the focal length will be 127.5mm.
The 1 series, J1 to be precise, Nikon's mirrorless interchangeable lens competitor for Olympus Pen and Sony NEX came to the CES 2012 in more colours than rainbow has got. I'm not a big fan of this fashion thingy, but at least your girlfriend can match the colour with her handbag.
Nikon had the biggest exhibition of all camera manufacturers at CES with complete line up from Coolpix compacts up to the D4 with all imaginable lenses and accessories. Nikon is clearly aiming to become a leader at the market. But they are not alone.
Canon
It's similar story with the other Japanese manufacturer and Nikon's biggest competitor at the DSLR market (sorry SONY, not quite there yet). Yes, Canon also brought it's brand new flagship called EOS 1DX, replacing ASP-H format EOS 1D mark IV as well as full frame EOS 1Ds mark III. With its 18.1 MP, same ISO range, 61 AF points (21 of them f/5.6 cross-type) and whopping 12 fps in RAW format with full auto focus it looks a bit stronger on the paper than D4. The truth will be revealed when they'll go head to head at the test later.
Same as Nikon, Canon announced its top range DSLR well ahead the show, so biggest announcement form Canon was big sensor compact called PowerShot G1 X. You might wonder why it's such a big thing, but Canon has put 14MP 1.5 inch CMOS sensor, which is almost the ASP-C size, into point and shoot compact camera without interchangeable lens. The sensor is more than twice the size of Nikon's 1 series sensor. So that's why. It has got swivelling 3.0" LCD screen, ISO range 100 - 12.800 and extensive manual control.
Sony, Panasonic, Olympus
This trio didn't announced anything big at the CES 2012, but all of them brought their complete range of cameras. Sony and Panasonic showed their cards last year, so they didn't really need to show anything new.Olympus is the king of mirrorless world at the moment with its PEN cameras, so developers are probably testing sand quality in Caribbean.
Fuji
Mirrorless cameras are in at the moment, so Fuji announced retro-designed interchangeable lens camera Fujifilm X-Pro 1 aimed to semi-pro and pro market. It has got 16MP ASP-C CMOS sensor, 3 inch LCD, no flash and it'll cost you £1.240.
Posted by pkuzmin at January 25, 2012 8:55 PM