This is an interesting camera for lots of reasons, beyond the actual technical specification. Canon hinted last year that people didn’t always want interchangeable lens on cameras, and with more camera companies releasing MILC (Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Camera) devices (especially after Nikon’s launch last year of the Nikon 1 Series), Canon seemed to be behind the times in this area.  In the short term then, the PowerShot G1 X is designed to be their equivalent; I guess Canon’s thinking is that most people buy a MILC and stick with the standard lens, so why make it removable…?

What’s also interesting is that Canon have put quite a large (in physical size) sensor in the camera, allowing it to compete well against it’s competitors, even if it’s not got the highest megapixel value (in fact, a number of camera companies are saying the megapixel war is over for a while, and the numbers of pixels does not need to increase to increase quality; something we’ve seen from the likes of Canon before).

The camera has a 1.5-inch (18.7 x 14mm) 14.3 megapixel High-Sensitivity Canon CMOS sensor, with a 4x zoom lens (28-112mm 35mm film lens equivalent), Full HD recording, and has the DIGIC 5 processor as seen in previous Canon DSLRs.  What’s also interesting is that at the wide end, the lens has an aperture of f/2.8, which will help get even more light into that new sensor.  Also, it’s worth noting that the sensor is roughly the same size as the Micro Four Thirds sensor used by Olympus and Panasonic, both of which are bigger than the Nikon 1 Series sensor.

Although no UK price is yet confirmed, the camera will cost $800 in the US, where it goes on sale in February, so it shouldn’t be long before it’s available in the UK.  Pricing could be just under £550, although I would suspect it’ll settle a little lower than this once it’s been available for a few months.

Having said that Canon have been making noises about whether people actually need interchangeable lenses on these compact sized cameras, the rumours are that if Canon do decide to release a MILC device, it will be in 2012.  Obviously it won’t be well suited to the existing EF and EF-S lenses (although an adaptor is likely to allow people to slowly migrate across), so would need a new range of lenses to work with it.

My only concern; last month, Panasonic started selling the DMC-GX1, which is commonly called the GX1, so we now have the GX1 competing with the G1X; that’s bound to lead to some confusion…

A few weeks ago, Nikon announced their new 1 System, a compact digital camera system with interchangeable lenses. The new Nikon 1 has two models (at the moment), the J1 and the V1, with the V1 adding an electronic viewfinder (EVF) as well as both having 3″ LCD screens. Nikon have announced the new 1 mount, which means an all new range of lenses to go with these new cameras (although Nikon plan to release an adaptor to allow existing lenses to be used in the future).

Today, there are 4 lenses available:

• 1 NIKKOR VR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6
• 1 NIKKOR VR 30-110mm f/3.8-5.6
• 1 NIKKOR 10mm f/2.8
• NIKKOR VR 10-100mm f/4.5-5.6 PD-ZOOM

Nikon are claiming this new system is the smallest and lightest range of cameras.  In my opinion they are not perfect (it seems the V1 which has the EVF doesn’t have a built in flash), and at £799 for the Nikon 1 V1 with the 10-30mm lens, it’s pushing DSLR territory.  However, for me, this is important; the Olympus PEN range (and the new Olympus E-P3 is well worth looking into as well) along with the other Micro Four-Thirds devices haven’t been popular with the semi-pro camera users, but with this move by Nikon, I think these smaller cameras with interchangeable lenses will now get more attention. Even more interesting will be when Canon show their hand and compete in this marketplace (given Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus and now Nikon are in this segment, Canon can’t be long away from joining in); combining a compact system with interchangeable lenses along with Canon’s own CMOS sensors and they could easily lead this market segment in the same way they lead the DSLR marketplace.

Others have already covered the launch of the Canon EOS 60D last week, but one thing that caught my attention was the Eye-Fi support that Canon have added into this camera.  Although not the first Canon to support Eye-Fi, it’s nice to see Canon bringing Eye-Fi support to their DSLR range too.  If you don’t know, Eye-Fi are SD memory cards with additional features such as built in WiFi for automatically uploading photos, and some even have limited GPS support too.  For the WiFi upload to work, the camera must be turned on, and the main function of including Eye-Fi support in the camera’s firmware is that it can keep power to the memory card until the transfer is complete.  The support often also includes the ability to configure some of the details of the Eye-Fi card too (although I wasn’t able to confirm what level of control Canon offer).

So, the Canon EOS 60D takes the Canon EOS 50D and builds on it, adding a number of new features; the main features of the camera are:

• 18 megapixel self cleaning sensor
• supports EF and EF-S lenses
• shoots at up to 5.3fps
• 63 zone metering with 9 AF points
• captures 1080p video at up to 30fps
• the tilt and twist LCD screen of many Canon compact digital cameras is included
• the built in flash can act as a remote Speedlite trigger

The Eye-Fi support is quite key on this device; previous EOS DSLRs supported Canon’s Wireless File Transmitter, whereas Canon have stated the Canon EOS 60D is not compatible with the previous WFT devices, and no new WFT device is planned, therefore the only self-contained solution available to users is the Eye-Fi option.  In fact, Canon have also announced a number of new PowerShot cameras with Eye-Fi support too, and Nikon’s new D3100 supports Eye-Fi too, so it looks like this is the “must have” new feature for this year…

The Canon EOS 60D will go on sale in the next few months and has a UK retail price of £1099.99 (inc. VAT), although I expect that will quickly drop to a lower level.

It appears the Nikon digital camera roadmap has been leaked, and features an interesting range of devices going from now into 2010…

End of July 2009

We’re going to see a Coolpix range of compacts, including a model with a 10 lumens, LED projector capable of 40″ images at a 640×480 resolution.

4th August 2009

Launch of the Nikon D3000 and Nikon D300s – a specced down version of the D5000 and the long awaited upgrade of the fabulous D300.

The D300s looks like it’ll have Full HD video shooting at 24fps, improved AF, self timer + mirror-up and an SD card slot to go along with the compact flash.

15th October

Launch of the upgrade of the Nikon D700, the Nikon D700x. It’ll come with a with a 24.5-megapixel sensor, Full HD video at 24 fps, improved AF and self timer + mirror-up.

Q2 2010

Launch of what we all thought we’d see when the D5000 came out – the Nikon D400 – and the Nikon D4 for the serious among us.

The D400 will have a 13.8-megapixel sensor and Full HD video at 24fps. Switch the numbers for 15.7 and 30 for the D4.

Q3 2010

The launch of the impressive sounding Nikon Coolpix P1DX which’ll come with a with DX 12.3-megapixel stabilised sensor, 28-85mm/3.5-5.6f zoom and a 2.9-inch 920k LCD.

Q4 2010

And just in case you’ve got any money left or you fancy getting a third mortgage just for shits and giggles, then you’ll be able to prepare for the 30.2-megapixel Nikon D4x which probably has the kind of features to keep you interested until the next roadmap comes out.

With thanks to Tech Digest for the details and comments (full details here at Nikon Rumours).

Here’s two of the latest compact cameras released by Nikon (the picture, courtesy of Engadget, shows the P6000 at the front and the S60 behind). The P6000 is the interesting camera, as well as 13.5 megapixels, it features a 4x optical zoom, a 2.7″ touchscreen, full manual mode, RAW support, and a built in GPS for automatically geotagging photos. Nikon have stated “This further heightens the photographic experience, allowing users to pinpoint the location via maps available in Nikon ViewNX Software, my Picturetown, Nikon’s photo sharing and storage website, or any other software or website that recognizes GPS data.” Additionally, it features a flash hotshoe which supports a range of Nikon accessories. It’s due out around September at £429.

The S60 also featured in the picture is a 10 megapixel camera featuring a 3.5″ 16:9 touchscreen, 5x optical zoom and HSMI output. It will cost £299 and be available around the same time.

One interesting extra feature of the D60 has now been announced – it is compatible with the Eye-Fi SD card, and adjusts it’s power settings when the SD card is inserted (to allow extra time for those large files to be copied over the Wi-Fi link). The Eye-Fi SD card is a 2Gb memory card that also has Wi-Fi, and, once setup, will copy each image either to your PC running their dedicated software, or to one of various online sites (such as Flickr, Picasa Web, Faceboook). As part of this announcement, Eye-Fi will also expand their support to cover Nikon’s “myPicturetown”.

Picture courtesy of Engadget.

Hot on the heels of Canon’s 450D announcement, Nikon have announced their D60. This is a 10.2 megapixel DSLR, and features Nikon’s new dual dust removal countermeasures, a 0.18 second startup time and a “split second” shutter response time, 2.5″ screen (no Live View though). In the US, this will ship with the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR (Image Stabilising) lens, and will be available in February (no price yet though). Details of UK pricing and availability are not yet available.

More information here.