Photokina 2016: Winners and Losers

COLOGNE—Two years after the fact, it's clear that Canon was the clear champion of Photokina 2014. The Panasonic CM1, a smartphone that wowed us with its image quality was the darling of the show, but ultimately tanked in the market. Meanwhile, Canon dropped the 7D Mark II, PowerShot SX60 HS, andG7 X. Sure, Canon also dropped the underwhelming ConnectStation and the N2, but not every chance at bat gets you on base.

Fortunes have changed this year, with winners becoming losers, or non-existent in the market entirely, and previous underdogs coming through with very positive marks. Here's my take.

Fujifilm
The GFX 50S, the company's first entry into digital medium format photography, stole the show. Visitors were packed shoulder to shoulder trying to get a look at the 50MP mirrorless camera. We don't know the price yet, but the appeal of a medium format sensor with fairly snappy autofocus and a compact body should be pretty large.

Fujifilm also announced a new Instax film format, Instax Square, which is coming to Europe next year. As of now there are no plans for it to go one sale in the US. In other Instax news, add Leica to the list of companies using Fujiflm's Instax Mini format in cameras—the Sofortwill now be sold in black-and-white and color.

GoProI'm going to put GoPro in the win column, but just barely. The newKarma drone looks promising, but may be priced a bit high. Its new Hero5 Black and Hero5 Session cameras, on the other hand, add waterproofing sans external housing and come in at lower price points than their predecessors.

OlympusThe OM-D E-M1 Mark II has the potential to be a great camera. It promises to deliver superlative results in burst shooting and autofocus, has a strong lens system behind it, and while we don't know the price yet, will likely be priced within reach of serious hobbyists and pros alike. It's joined by a trio of new lenses, including a high-quality walkaround zoom, a wide aperture standard-angle prime, and an inexpensive macro.

PanasonicThe company's new Micro Four Third model, the G80 is overshadowed by announcements from rival Olympus, but looks like a strong midrange option in its own right. It's joined by the LX10, another competitor in the strong 1-inch pocket camera market, and the FZ2500, a long zoom model with a very strong video feature set. It also announced the development of the GH5, which is due next year and will record video at 6K resolution.

SonySony only brought one camera to the show, the Alpha 99 II, but the 42MP SLR has the potential to change the way we think about pro cameras. It's the only model out there that captures images at a very quick burst rate (12fps) without dropping resolution to the 20MP range. It's a feat unmatched by others in the market, and it comes in at a price ($3,199) that is competitive with other pro-grade full-frame SLRs.

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2017So you want to go out and buy a Fuji GFX 50S, Panasonic GH5, or an Olympus OM-D E-M1 Mark II tomorrow? Not going to happen. All three models aren't shipping until next year, and we don't know exactly when. Also delayed is the Nikon DL 1-inch compact series, first shown at CES. Nikon acknowledged that a circuitry design issue is part of the DL delay, and while I'm not putting Nikon in the winner column, I'm also not calling the company a loser. It's better for Nikon to address such an issue and delay a product than to rush it to market, and in the same release Nikon also reminds us that many camera manufacturers are still dealing with damage from the Kumamoto earthquakes in April.

CanonThe EOS M5 is the mirrorless camera that Canon should have released a couple of years ago. There are some things to really like about it—including on-sensor Dual Pixel AF, which delivers snappy results both with native and adapted SLR lenses, and the built-in EVF is a good one. But it lags behind the competition in video features—Panasonic mirrorless models offer 4K video and high frame rate photo capture for the same price—and its native lens library is in its infancy. Canon still has some catching up to do in the mirrorless space.

LeicaLots of folks anticipated an update to the aging M rangefinder, which has remained essentially unchanged since its 2012 introduction. Its 24MP image sensor is showing its age, especially when you compare its with the newer (also 24MP) sensors used in the SL and Q. But Leica was quiet, announcing some new SL lenses and the Sofort instant camera. That's a pretty lax showing for a semi-annual trade show held on the company's own home turf.

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  The Best of Photokina 2016

SamsungAt the last Photokina, Samsung showed off theNX1, a mirrorless camera with 15fps image capture and 4K video recording. Perhaps it was ahead of its time—the choice to use HEVC compression for video, which proved very difficult to edit two years ago, didn't help things. The market didn't embrace the NX1, and now it, all of the other cameras in the system, lenses, and the like are no longer produced. The NX system is dead, and aside from smartphones and the Gear 360, Samsung is out of the camera business.

DID NOT PARTICIPATE
DJI and Ricoh are on hand at Photokina, but neither is using the show to announce a new product. Hasselblad has had a big anniversary year, but only announced a concept camera and a special edition of its X1Dfor the show. Phase One came with a new, less expensive version of itsXF 100MP in the form of the IQ1 100MP, but was otherwise quiet.

The next big photo show is about a month away. PhotoPlus opens on Oct. 20 at New York's Jacob Javits Center. I'll be there to cover the show for PCMag (minus the jet lag that comes with a trip to Cologne). Sometimes PhotoPlus is simply a chance for the US audience to see Photokina products first-hand, but I won't be surprised if there are a second spate of new products that debut in New York.