Originally posted by marcinski Thom Hogan says on his website that Pentax mirrorles will have 2.7 crop sensor. Sounds better than 5.6 but who knows if this is his speculation, or he actually knows something.
I suspect we're going to see MILC systems in 2 varieties for the next few years:
1) Cheap and small sensor for those who want IC lenses but P&S IQ (or a G12 with IC lens). Call it the Auto 110 retro.
2) MILC APS-C sensor either like what Fuji is doing, or IC lenses with backwards compatibility through adapters for those who do not want to compromise IQ and stay brand loyal.
Every M4/3 shot I have seen on a recent gen camera fails the IQ test for me. ISO and DR are much worse. You need significant PP to get them up to speed. It's a portable snapshot system with IC lenses. Wheee!
Most camera-happy soccer Moms I see (and I coach junior soccer) wield good ole fashioned DSLR's with big honking lenses. The whole portability factor is a non-factor for the minivan set. They've got a 3,500 sq.ft. house with plenty of wall space for quality family photos blown up big and IQ matters to them. I speak to them regularly about cameras and this is foot soldier basic market analysis. Back in the day Oly (I have a 35RC), Canon, Nikon, etc. made pocketable cameras with excellent fixed lenses that took great shots with any film as pro as you could put in your Nikon F.
Guess what? Big SLR's made Canikon far more money than this pocketable subset. Even the Pentax Auto 110, Contax, etc., for all their compactness, marketing innovation, and IQ improvements barely made a dent in the SLR juggernaut. This is just basic market history.
The statistical history of profits and success in this industry does not show the demise of larger format, larger sensor DSLR's anytime soon. Canikon are what they are precisely because they focus on such systems, sell them by the truckload, have entry-level models that sell extremely well at price points well below the current mirrorless group. This is not about market space or economic replacement, but complement. Canon is hardly a "frantic" company. They just released (gasp!) another entry-level DSLR at a bloodletting price point. Their marketing and development divisions know a thing or two that maybe most on this board do not. I suspect their patience will pay off. Thy have their own sensor fabs and can scale what they want when they want. The real issue is the balance between price, IQ, backward compatibility, and marketing. Odds are the'll bracket M4/3 both in IQ and price with s slightly smaller than M4/3 MILC and an APS-C version. That Nikon has also been hesitant speaks volumes. Unlike Oly and Panny, they have multiple lines; so if a marketing effort stalls in one, they have other revenue streams.