Wells Fargo Advisors is becoming a pretty reliable source for news regarding cameras before they’re actually announced. Just weeks after the Fujifilm X-Pro1 and Nikon D4 were announced early by the service, the soon-to-be-announced Olympus OM-D camera is now semi-official as well. The wire confirms that Olympus will be reviving its old OM brand for SLR cameras through a new line of mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and that the camera will sell for over ¥100000 (~$1300) in Japan. It also states that the new camera will resemble the Olympus OM-1 film SLR camera — originally launched in 1973 — and be equipped with high-speed autofocus (rumored to be the fastest of all mirrorless cameras) and image stabilization.

(via Wells Fargo Advisors via Photo Rumors)

Update: To clear up any confusion: Wells Fargo Advisors doesn’t write the news, but simply publishes press releases received from a third party. In this case, the press release wasn’t published before it was supposed to — it’s simply a Japanese news source confirming that it had also heard about the new camera and upcoming announcement.

A study conducted by market research firm J.D. Power and Associates has found that “Nikon Pro Series” DSLRs rank highest in customer satisfaction. The company surveyed 4,500 verified online DSLR buyers to find out their satisfaction across five factors: image quality, durability, features, ease of use, and responsiveness.

The Nikon Pro Series ranks highest in online buyer satisfaction with a score of 914. The Nikon Pro Series performs particularly well in shutter speed/lag time, durability and reliability and ease of operation. The Canon Mark-Series follows in the rankings with a score of 909, and performs particularly well in performance and picture quality. The Canon D-Series and Nikon D-Series rank third in a tie, each with a score of 889.

Overall, customers were most satisfied with image quality but least satisfied with durability and responsiveness.
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Pentax has just announced the Q, the world’s smallest interchangeable lens camera (ILC). Unlike existing ILC cameras, which have large sensors despite their tiny bodies, the Q has a tiny 1/2.3-inch sensor that’s more comparable to the sensors in point-and-shoot cameras. Thus, the Pentax Q can be considered the world’s first interchangeable lens point-and-shoot camera, though it is packed with the features and manual controls found on ILCs and DSLRs.

The camera shoots 12.4MP JPEG or raw stills at up to 5fps, records 1080p video at 30fps, and offers the traditional shooting modes found on DSLRs (i.e. P, Av, Tv, M). ISO goes up to 6400, there’s a 3-inch LCD on the back, and a funky onboard flash pops up in a strange way to help illuminate your photos.
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After having images of it leaked onto the Interwebs last week, Panasonic’s DMC GF3 Micro Four Thirds camera is now official. Like its predecessor, the GF2, the GF3 packs a 12-megapixel sensor, has a 3-inch LCD touchscreen, and shoots 1080p 1080/60i AVCHD video. In terms of differences, it has a faster processor that allows for faster autofocus times weighs 15% less, is 17% smaller, and is also even more simple than the GF2 — it lacks a hot shoe and has a pop-up flash there instead.
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After photographs of the cameras were leaked back in April 2011, Sony has now officially announced its A35 translucent mirror camera to replace the A33 and the NEX-C3. The A35 has the same resolution as the A55 — 16.2 megapixels — and can shoot 1080/60 video and 7 frames per second for stills (though resolution is reduced to 8.4MP at this rate. ISO goes up to 25600, and there’s a large 3-inch touchscreen on the back. The A35 will be available in August for $600, or $700 if you want the standard 18-55mm kit lens included.
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How do camera makers describe their cameras? To answer this question, we took the press releases of some popular cameras and made word clouds with them that are based on the number of occurrences of non-common words. The above word cloud is for the Canon 5D Mark I.
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Editor’s note: This is our first press release published in accordance with the terms of our acquisition by Eastman Kodak, which was announced earlier today.

Rochester, NY, March 28 — Kodak’s Russell Hunt has earned recognition as a 2011 Channel Chief by Everything Channel’s CRN for the second consecutive year. Notably, Hunt has led the successful channel integration of two existing channel communities within Kodak. Through Hunt’s leadership efforts, Kodak expands its channel capabilities to provide customer-focused applications across a broad range of vertical industries.

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Sony dropped quite an announcement today with its new pellicle mirror DSLRs, but Canon doesn’t want us to forget that they have announcements coming up as well.

They released an (semi-meaningless) announcement of their own today: the development of a 120-megapixel APS-H sensor that can handle HD-video recording and 9.5fps shooting. This is the same sensor size found in the 1D line of DSLRs. But get this — they have no plans for actually producing this sensor in a camera anytime soon.

Thus, even though this is pretty interesting news that was widely reported today, it appears that this was some sort of clever scheme devised by Canon’s marketing department to steal some thunder from Sony’s pellicle mirror news. Lets see if Canon can match it when they release their new camera on August 26th.

Canon announced today that it has produced a whopping 40 million EOS-series SLR cameras since the series was first introduced in 1987. What’s even more amazing is that half of those are digital, as they’ve also passed the 20 million mark for DSLRs. The company passed the 10 million mark in 1997, the 20m mark in 2003, and the 30m mark in 2007. Needless to say, SLR photography has gotten more and more popular in recent years. Congratulations Canon!

For the past month or so Hasselblad has had a cryptic countdown on their website. The countdown reached zero today, and Hasselblad announced the H4D-40, a camera the company claims will bring “ultimate image quality to an entirely new generation of photographers”. Since medium format digital cameras have been around for quite a while now, we’re hoping this means a significant drop in price. However, at the bottom of the countdown page, there’s the message “Hasselblad Medium Format DSLRs start at 11,995 EUR”. Hmmm…

As easy to use as any 35mm camera and featuring a 40 Megapixel Medium Format sensor, our easy to use new Phocus 2.0 software, and the new True Focus AF, the H4D-40 provides the perfect entry point into the Hasselblad world. The H4D-40 gives you full access to the entire Hasselblad system of software, lenses, and features and has been designed to meet the needs of the most demanding high-end commercial photographers – and yours.

The camera will launch in 50 cities across the world on February 10th. What do you think the price is going to be? Will medium format digital photography finally be made affordable for (semi-rich) amateurs?