Flagship Pile-Up Scheduled for Next Week

OM Digital, the second son cast from the Olympus brand family, appears to be teasing the launch of its “wow” camera for next Wednesday. But Nikon seems to be readying its new flagship Z9 launch for the very next day.

Nikon has been putting out cheesy teaser videos (is there any other kind from Japanese manufacturers?), indicating four will come out prior to release. The third one broke this morning, this time with some specs apparent – none surprising. The camera appears to shoot 20 frames per second (FPS) which is significantly less than its competitors, but likely significantly more than even pros need. It will shoot 8K video and do the same sort of object tracking for autofocus that all the major brands have had to develop to be considered competitive. Gannon over at DPReview did a clever sound waveform analysis to nail the likely 20 FPS spec.

Just what OM Digital considered to be “wow,” remains very unclear. This may indicate that the coming Micro Four Thirds (MFT) mount shooter will “wow” based on the new venture’s stated strategy of developing new features that emphasize some of its natural advantages – such as lean data requirements given its sensor size. A global shutter or similar feature that would not be ready for launch in full frame format could appear next week. Then again, it might be something somewhat useless, like a 60 FPS frame rate.