Nikon 1 and Pentax Q to be the first victims of the mirrorless war.
Too small sensor for the Nikon 1 in combination with big lenses is going to make it just about as bulky package as comparative offerings from m43, NEX and Samsung NX though with a small sensor as disadvantage.
Trying to keep it small and still offer very competitive image quality - That's is what I think that mirrorless was and still are about when Olympus presented their carrot-coloured mockup. I guess Nikon and Pentax still have to figure that out.
What they are going to offer are not very small. Samsung NX200 with a 20 or 30mm f2.8 pancake are not going to be too large to compete very successfully with Nikon J1 and a pancake. Despite a jpeg engine which certainly could be better. Nikon may have the fast phase detection AF but what about noise levels at higher iso and dynamic range?
As earlier said, it is the small size with the image quality of APS-C Dslrs that many are after when they look towards the mirrorless offerrings. Sony NEX may have the image quality but also the huge prime lenses called pancakes. Guess that they've slightly missunderstood what mirrorless is about.
What about Pentax Q? Smaller sensor than even the Nikon 1 and not even Phase detection. I guess them might find it hard to compete unless they somehow finds their own niche that might make some sort of sense.
Samsung NX. I think that they've got many things right so far except for the noisy sensors and jpeg engine which could be better. Certainly m43 or larger sensor size is the way to go if one are after image quality. The NX200 with a 20 or 30mm pancake is not too bulky and unlike Sony NEX the prime lenses are not too big but still offer some quality. The bokeh which sometimes turns out distracting are something Samsung need to care about though and also try to get the NR jpeg engine right. An other con is the fact that lenses for Leica M which often are compact can't be used at infinity with the NX mount.
m43. Are doing fine atm. Compared to aps c m43 stands at a disadvantage for DR and high iso. Still, it can be rather compact with a pancake lens and with good image quality.
Both Nikon and Pentax have many loyal fanboys which might go for their mirrorless offerings at almost any cost. Then what about newcomers to photography which haven't become a fan yet or like myself, independently look to their needs, what they want and chooses after these criterias? or real photographers? The later are likely to have a look at either Sony NEX, m43 and Samsung NX. The former might have a look at both and eventually choose what a salesperson think are the best from what the consumer might want to achieve with the gear.
Ricoh GXR. The A12 50mm macro is not pocketable at all but at least Ricoh have taken notice and the A12 28mm is not that big. Buying same sensor twice to have the both these two modules are not making much sense to me. Just very unnecessarily stupid. Ricoh should instead have created their own mount module with very short flange for GXR and released pancake-lenses for that one. The M-mount module offer no AF and are niched for manual focus optic.
I've not decided what I'm are going to go with for myself. But one thing is for sure, for myself it won't be anything smaller than APS-C. I'm After image quality, not a practical joke like Nikon 1 or Pentax Q.
