It looks like Canon may be announcing a true successor to the PowerShot G12 next week prior to Photokina 2012. Recall that the Canon G1 X was announced earlier this year at CES 2012, causing speculation that the G-series may move to a larger sensor format.
The above leaked image appears to confirm, however, that the more compact-oriented camera line will continue with a PowerShot G15.
How relevant such cameras will be remains to be seen. Certainly, if Canon has chosen to bump the sensor size up to something akin to Sony’s excellent RX100, the PowerShot G-line could be a real contender. If the G15 is simply an incremental upgrade to the G12, then I fear the line may be dead in favor of cameras like the Sony RX100 and mirrorless cameras like the Canon EOS M and Sony NEX models.
[via Photo Rumors]
If that photo is correct, it looks like they squeezed an f/1.8 – 2.8 lens into the G15. Not bad considering the G12 was an f/2.8 – 4.5. And they kept the same focal lengths of 6.1 – 30.5 (28-140 in 35mm equiv.). Hopefully they did this without making the sensor smaller (like Panasonic did with the LX7). It also looks like the might have moved the flash to a pop-up option like on the S-Series and lost one of the dials on top. I think this has a spot in the market alongside the LX-Series from Panasonic and the ZX from Olympus.
It certainly won’t contend with the likes of mirrorless and RX-Series cameras from Sony and other manufacturers. But then again, it’s probably not supposed to. Wonder if this means we’ll see an upgrade to the S100 rather soon?