And the Camera of the Year is... (in our opinion)

The time has come to reveal the Camera of the Year (2009). This is strictly our opinion, not the universal truth and not an undisputed fact. Both reasonable and unreasonable minds can differ on selections of this nature :)

Please note that the following criteria and restrictions are in-place for the Camera of Year nominees:
+ camera must have been generally available for purchase in 2009
+ a considerable amount of information is available on the camera
+ based on the above, the Nikon D3s, Canon 1D Mark IV, Leica S2 and X1, and Sigma DP1s, among others are disqualified
+ we held off making our picks as long as we could

In our opinion, "Camera of the Year" takes into strong consideration the position of a camera in the market and its impact, whether it adds diversity to the market or is a sequential update, and whether it tries and manages to meet otherwise ignored or under-served needs and wishes of photographers. In other words, we would make different picks for "Camera of the Year", "Best Camera (regardless of price)" and "Best Camera Value". This post focuses on the "Camera of the Year".

We had nearly 200 new camera models this year, just like 2008. However in 2009 we had more "interesting" cameras than in 2008, even though 2008 was a Photokina year and 2009 was a year of global financial pain.

Runner Ups (in alphabetical order)
Canon 7D: Canon got punched in the mouth two years ago by the Nikon power-duo of D3 and D300, and their aura of invincibility slowly dissipated. But they went back to work (figure of speech), and came back with the 7D and 1D Mark IV. The 7D pushes the envelope beyond the typical 50D/40D/etc range, and tries to jump over the Nikon D300s/D300. The $300 D300s price-drop is one of the many signs of early success by Canon. The dual-core showed that Canon was serious and meant business with this DSLR. As usual, especially with Canon DSLRs, the pros and cons are magnified and dramatized to the Nth degree. Some are thrilled they have 18-megapixels to worth with, others lament that 18mp was not the best choice of megapixelation considering the limits of current technology. And on and on...

Canon S90: Not as big of a punch as the D3/D300 power-duo, but the Panasonic LX3 managed to give Canon a black eye. But Canon managed to come back with an "LX3 killer" attempt in the S90 IS. With Canon being a pro-techie type of company, it was probably not easy to convince the powers that be to "downshift" to a 10-megapixel sensor. If Gawker was snooping on these, I'm sure they would have reports of bloody noses in conference rooms ;-) As you can see, most of the Canon DSLRs are "ahead" or "equal" to other manufacturers in the number of megapixels. Not to belabor the point, but just like every other camera here and there and everywhere, the S90 has its list of pros and cons. With both cameras now in-stock and priced at exactly $400, photographers can make their LX3 vs S90 pick regardless of price.

Olympus E-P1: By no means perfect, the Olympus E-P1 managed to pay homage to the legendary Pen film cameras of the past, especially in the year that the father of the Pen, Yoshihisa Maitani passed away, and at the same time bring the Pen to the digital age. No disrespect to the G1 and GH1, but it was the E-P1 that got non-FourThirds and non-OlyPanasonic photographers really curious about Micro Four Thirds.

Panasonic GF1: This was a close call. If the GF1 existed in a vacuum, it could have won the 2009 CoY award. But part of the success of the GF1 was because the Olympus E-P1 manage to break-out Micro Four Thirds to the general photographic population, paving the way for the GF1. If the GF1 and the E-P1 could form a coalition, they would have won the camera of the year.

Pentax K-x: This was the little engine that could in 2009. An ISO-friendly sensor, sensor-shift stabilization, AA batteries, reasonable price, matched with the brilliant marketing campaign of the "100 colors" (it's not often that we praise marketing people!) helped this camera escape the orbit of Planet Pentax-fans-only.

Sony Alpha A850: For a number of photographers, 35mm full frame is the holy grail of photography, and APS-C is the holy grain of photography :) Not everyone agrees, and many agree to disagree, but for those who care about 35mmFF, the Sony Alpha A850 made history as the lowest-priced 35mmFF DSLR at launch time. Certainly $2000 is not pocket change, but it brings the price-point to the critical $2000 mark. As you may recall, PMA 2002 was the big breakout of DSLRs for advanced photographers and enthusiasts, with a quartet coming out at around $2000. At the time, that was considered a price-breakthrough. And the rest is history.

And the Winner is...
Pentax K-7: As you may recall from the build-up before the official announcement, the market badly needs compact DSLRs that offer more advanced features than the frozen-in-evolution "SLR Traditionalists" at Canon, Nikon and Sony allow them to have. Pentax was the last best hope, and the K-7 got a couple of steps closer towards that goal. It is by no means perfect, and it certainly has a long list of issues (like almost every other camera) and perhaps not the ideal sensor (although you can't necessarily blame Pentax - considering their size, the number of sensor choices they have may often be 1 or 2).

However, they showed that making such a camera is possible (see reviews) and this is a segment of the market that is intentionally being ignored. Nothing against the big DSLRs, but not every project, and not every photographer who is serious and hardcore wants or needs to carry a 10-pound DSLR-tank everywhere. This message has been repeated for years and years in multiple photography forums, but kept falling on deaf ears. A poll we had earlier this year had 90% of the participants interested in a pro-caliber compact-DSLR. (The Leica M9 took away a lot of the excuses the "traditionalist apologists" had been using when defending camera size).

That is what tilted the scales in favor of the Pentax K-7 over the other nominees...

The 2009 CoY Store
We have put all the nominees and the winner in the 2009 Cameras of the Year Store powered by Amazon. As usual, your purchases through the store support this blog. You can see it in pictures at the bottom of this post.

Many more picks
You can check out plenty of picks across the photo-blogo-sphere from a vast variety of websites and blogs. Some of them were chosen as "cameras of the year", others were "best cameras" or "best of what's around", others were picked as part of buyer guides.

Innovation Honorable Mentions
This is a list of honorable mentions of cameras and companies who come up with new or different technologies and approaches to doing things. The honorable mentions are:

Fuji 3D camera system: Along with Ricoh (see below), Fuji took one of the biggest leaps of faith with the launch of the new 3D system. Leap of faith because there is very little infrastructure at the moment for 3D. And the camera system consists of the camera and a picture frame. Just about everybody and everything else is in a 2D world. But as they say, luck favors the bold (and sometimes the bald).

Nikon S1000pj: They were the first to put a mini projector inside the camera. As strange as it may sound, this has its uses and its niche. Yes, every 2-3 years the Coolpix people wake up and try to try something new. It looks like this time they were on the right track.

Ricoh GXR system: Ricoh managed to surprise the market by launching an unexpected interchangeable system, where the sensors and the lenses are coupled together in blocks that can fit camera-bodies. It is a rather bold idea for sure. The last attempt at something like this was a few centuries ago by Minolta.

Samsung dual-view digital cameras: Samsung has been trying for years to "hit it out of the park" with a consumer-geek camera. Finally, it looks like they have a success story in their hands, after many, sometimes interesting and sometimes strange attempts. The front-and-back screen is not just a geek-chic thing, it actually has practical value.