Nikon Head Hints at Miniaturized Professional Camera

Nikon chief Makoto Kimura told Reuters that the company is readying a miniaturized professional camera for launch by the end of the company’s fiscal year ending in March. Speculation has it that Nikon would be launching Micro Four Thirds camera, but there hasn’t been any leaked photos of prototype devices thus far leading many to believe that such a model won’t be ready until early 2011 calendar year and not at this year’s Photokina event.

“We want to propose another type of photography,” Kimura said in an interview on Thursday. “I don’t think there is any need to limit it to two categories. We want to create a new market.”

Although Nikon’s camera business in the U.S., Europe, and Asia are profitable and growing, the company is seeing threats in the mirrorless, Micro Four Thirds format from companies like Olympus and Panasonic. These cameras offer the benefits of a consumer digital camera in that they are compact and smaller, making them attractive as travel companions, but also merges in the positives of swappable lenses of the SLRs, or single lens reflex cameras.

Casey Pham
Categories: Photo-Video
Tags: Camera, digital camera, micro four thirds, Nikon, slr