PMA 2007
The only product that has caught my attention so far was the Sigma DP1. Finally, a company has recognized the market for such a camera! True, that market is not exactly mainstream, but it’s not small enough to be ignored; this is the reason why the Ricoh GR-D has been mildly successful despite its high price and limited availability (Ricoh has long ceased marketing cameras in the US).
The most interesting feature of this camera is–unlike the Ricoh GR-D–is having a imaging sensor of a DSLR. It’s essentially the SD14 in a smaller package. It has RAW mode, a hot shoe, manual exposure operation…although I’m a little disappointed that they forgot to put a built-in optical viewfinder in it, instead they went the Ricoh route and decided to attempt to rape the consumer by making the optical viewfinder optional.
The real test (besides the IQ, of course) is how it stacks up to the GR-D when it comes to ease of use and responsiveness. I certainly hope that Sigma is reading this blog (most likely not) so I can try one myself.
Update: The only other product announced that interests me is Elinchrom’s EL-Skyport. It’s supposed to eat some marketshare away from that overpriced remote trigger–otherwise known as PocketWizards. This has been available for quite a while now over the other side of the Atlantic. And looking at the online stores where available, the pricing seems competitive enough. The only thing that bothers me is that most of the accessories are too tightly integrated with Elinchrom’s top-of-the-line strobes (RX-series) and I can’t help the fact that the design looks a little flimsy to me.
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On a related note, I find it funny that a lot of Nikon users on digital photography forums have been bitching on Nikon for not announcing the replacement for the D2 series. They instead announced an updated D40 (dubbed D40x). So what? To steal the thunder from the 1D Mark III announcement? The announcement of the 1D Mark III hasn’t actually stripped away the appeal of the D2X or the D2H (at least to me). In fact, I found the 1DIII’s feature underwhelming…but that’s the Nikon fanboy in me talking. 
And, of course, the other age-old disappointment was the lack of announcement of a DSLR with a 35mm-sized sensor. Me? I could not care any less. the DX-sensor has been perfectly fine for most photographers needs. Why fix something that’s not broken?
I don’t get it, really. Having a 35mm-sized sensor right now would still be too expensive anyway. Look at the Canon 5D. That’s why it cannot be priced compatitively against the D200.
I would not even try to bring up the issues of a sudden drop of IQ towards the corners of images from the 5D (and the 1Ds) regardless of whether you used really good glass with it.
Don’t get me wrong, a bigger sensor would always be a welcome feature, but only if it’s going to be a little bit more expensive than a DX-sized one.
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