Photo Rumors (and Merry Christmas)

"Ordinary hexagonal dendrite" (a snowflake).
Photo courtesy Beltsville Electron and Confocal Microscopy Unit,
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center (BARC), USDA.

Well, it's that time again—being a cultural Christian, I'm closing the site down for a few days to celebrate Christmas with friends and family.

Before we go, a link to Photo Rumors concerning intimations of Christmases Future from various Japanese photo company head honchos. Higher ISOs rather than more megapixels promised from Canon; a mirrorless full-frame camera from Pentax; "smaller" (prime?) E-mount lenses said to be in the pipeline from Sony; The D3 and D700 replacements reportedly on the way from Nikon; and (can it be, Father Christmas?!?) a black-and-white only camera from Ricoh? Be still, my beating heart.

Only rumors. But then, rumors can be fun.

So, until we return, a few days hence, a very Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it, and very best wishes to you and your family whether you celebrate this particular holiday or any other, or none at all. Thank you again for visiting The Online Photographer this past year. Good health, good wishes, and very best regards to you. See you again soon.

Mike

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2011 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Featured Comment by John Krumm: "I like the Olympus rumor over at 43rumors.com, showing a patent for a squarish-looking camera with a 36x36mm sensor."

Comments

[Patrick Dodds]

Happy Christmas Mike - thanks for another entertaining year of posts.

[Jim Bullard]

A B&W only camera? Add to the wish list for it to have a 4K square (16MP) sensor. There's a Christmas dream for you.

[Gaspar Heurtley]

Finally, a Canon camera with a high ISO number, the 25600 of the 5D II were soooooo low!

I keep my brain skeptical and my fingers crossed about the Pentax though....

[TBannor]

Have a great Christmas Mike.

[John London]

. . . and all best wishes to you Mike. May good health, good fortune and a good year be yours for 2012.

[Robert Howell]

All the best to you Michael.

[ianinbc]

Merry Christmas Mike, I wish you and your family the very best this holiday season. Thanks again for all your hard work maintaining this site.

I have a great idea to make this coming year the best yet at TOP: regular readers should consider starting recurring payments to Mike. It just occurred to me recently that it would not be out of order for me to throw mike a few bones periodically. My payments are embarrassingly low and yours can be too, but if enough of us do it in 2012 we may see the following improvements:

A. More quality guest writers that will be hand$omely compensated for their work.

B. Aforementioned guest writers will also free up Mike to focus on bigger and better projects for himself.

C. As Mike will now be rolling in it we will see more hands on reviews of all Mike's fancy new gear.

D. Mike will be able to stop just talking about the cars that he likes and actually by 2 or 3 of them.

E. Monthly draws for for the unwanted overflow from Mike's gear room!

F. Ctein will document his own actual journey into space using his fancy new camera.

G. Weekly photos of Mike's trophy wife in bikini.

Can it get any better than that?

Ian

[levonne]

Merry Christmas to you then! Stay safe. Give away love every chance you get.

[Abdul Rahman]

Merry Christmas Mike, thank you for making photography entertaining and have a wonderful New Year.

[Bambang]

I like from Fuji and Pentax:

"A mirrorless that beats full-frame cameras"

and

"Mirrorless for full-frame and 645"

I even predict that Nikon D4 will be mirrorless, or if it's too soon for them to grab, at least in D5..

[Sthlmstreet]

Merry christmas, Mike. I'm looking forward to another year of TOP (and that FF mirrorless Pentax of course) :P

[Jimmy Reina]

Mike,
Thanks for keeping the conversation going for another year.
Best of everything in 2012.

[Pritam Singh]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2012 to you, Mike. Thank you very much for keeping the 'essential reading' - TOP - coming. You do a sterling job here.
Good wishes to all contributors, readers, their families and extended kin...

[Mike O'Donoghue]

This came in my post the other day:

Hi friends,

I wanted to send some sort of greeting to my friends and colleagues, but it is difficult in today's world to know exactly what to say without offending someone, so I met with my lawyer yesterday, and on advice I wish to say the following:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress , non addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious / secular persuasions and / or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2012, but not without due respect for the calendar of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her / him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. The wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
Best Regards (without prejudice)

[Will Frostmill]

Hmm, I'd really like to see what Ctein would write and photograph from a trip to space. (Or even LEO.)
A fantastic, implausible rumor would be a fast, low resolution scanning back that runs on AA batteries and fits in a Grafmatic-sized back for 4x5. You know, as long as we are asking St. Nick for toys.

[Will Frostmill]

Merry Christmas, Mike. All the best to you and yours.
Will

[Armand]

Merry Christmas to you and your family. I think I am done buying more camera bodies. These days, I am enjoying my film cameras. Best wishes!!

[Bjorn]

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year Mike. And thank you for all you do with this site. It is appreciated.

[Bryce Lee in Burlington, Ontario, Canada where it shall be a green Christmas]

As to the regular donations, a good idea, have tried to ensure a continual supply to Mike; his daily and not so daily jottings
are good read, always.

[Nimesh Patel]

This website has a lot of useful info on snowflakes:

http://www.its.caltech.edu/~atomic/snowcrystals/

[Dean Johnston]

Hi there.

Happy Xmas / festive season / etc.

And also, thank you very much Mike and all the other contributors for making this site what it is. Your efforts are very much appreciated.

Peace & associated stuff.

[Eric Rose]

Merry Christmas to you Mike and thanks once again for bringing us such a top notch blog.

Also a very merry Christmas to all my "friends" on TOP. May your film and/or sensors be happy over the this wondrous Christmas season.

[Michael]

Hi Mike
Seasons Greetings and a happy,healthy and prosperous new year to you from Western Australia. Thank you for probably the best photographers site on the web, always a quality read from you and your contributors.

Michael Ward
perceptivelight.com

[jb]

Christmases future don't bode well for my bank account...