Canon Mirrorless in 2012?

A Translation of a Japanese Interview
“Canon has been forced to change their plan for 2011 because of the earthquake on the 11th March 2011 in Japan and floods in Thailand, but they are going to be back to the normal operation in 2012.”

Summary of interview with Masaya Maeda, Managing Director and Chief Executive of the Image Communication Products Operation at Canon Inc.

He stated that they are planning to release mirrorless compact system cameras in 2012.

Concept of Canon’s mirrorless system

• Try to develop a compact camera which features high image quality.
• Trying to make cameras smaller and more compact, mirrorless system could be the key.
• Miniaturization of cameras is the top priority, which means the cameras may have a different mount to the EF mount.
• For mirrorless cameras, being able to change lenses is certainly a big merit, however, the ratio of use of interchangeable lenses is very low. We have to think on how we can make users use interchangeable lenses more, that is very critical. We have to look into the whole system as well as miniaturization.
• All DSLRs featuring EF mount would be getting smaller and smaller with high image quality. For interchangeable lenses, we are going to stick to EF mount.
• EF lenses are being developed and extended this will include shooting movies. The compatibility of the new system and the EF system is very important.
• As a premise of the new mount for mirrorless system, “the image sensor will be larger than the regular standard size” would be necessary.
• The quality of image sensor will be improving. Having said that, in time downsizing the sensor is coming in the future.

C300 movie cameras

• C300 contains various ideas of camera systems including new mounts. C300 was made from a lot of feedback from people in the movie industry, a good example is C gamma.
• New unique lenses for movies are going to be marketed in 2012, Auto Focus for movies and the smooth movement of aperture are being developed.”

 Source: [NL] via [DCW]