Canon, Panasonic Halt China Production Amid China Sea Tensions

News of plant closings in China amid violent protests over the disputed sovereignty of islands in the East China Sea were a distraction from digital camera announcements released Monday on the eve of the critical Q4 sales season. Protests broke out in various Chinese provinces over the weekend, and Panasonic and Canon closed several plants Monday, according to news reports. Chinese protests followed the Japanese government’s announcement last week that it was buying several of the disputed islands from a private Japanese owner, which prompted China to send six surveillance ships to the area, news reports said.

Canon planned to halt production lines at a digital camera factory in Guangdong, a copier plant in Jiangsu and a laser printer factory in Guangdong, according to an online NBC report quoting Japanese news agencies. It said Panasonic reportedly closed several components factories Monday, with plans to keep them closed Tuesday, a memorial day in China when the country marks the anniversary of Japan’s 1931 occupation of parts of mainland China.

Japanese camera companies Panasonic, Canon, Olympus and Fuji meanwhile issued a flurry of new camera announcements Monday, with the models slated to ship over the next 3 months, during the holiday sales quarter. Questions to the companies about possible impact from plant closings in China weren’t answered by our deadline.

Wi-Fi connectivity and Micro Four Thirds compatibility are among the step-up features digital camera manufacturers were hawking in full-featured cameras. Canon’s EOS 6D ($2,099 for the body and $2,899 with a 24-105mm zoom lens) packs a built-in wireless transmitter that can share images and video with other wireless devices including smartphones, tablets, compatible PowerShot cameras and cloud-based social networking sites through Canon’s Image Gateway, Canon said. With Canon’s EOS remote app for iOS and Android devices, users can control a connected EOS 6D wirelessly from a smartphone or tablet. They can also tap data from a built-in GPS receiver to record longitude, latitude, elevation and Coordinated Universal Time for geo-tagging while shooting. GPS coordinates are tagged to each image and sync with Canon software or mapping apps on social network sites to show image locations, the company said.

Panasonic’s new DMC-GH3, a Micro Fourth Thirds model, integrates Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11 b/g/n) for image transfer and control from a smartphone or tablet. Through the smartphone or tablet, users see what the camera lens sees and can control focus, shutter release exposure compensation, ISO, and white balance, the company said. Users can upload images to the Lumix Club Cloud Sync service and send them to DLNA-compliant (Digital Living Network Alliance) gear in the home, Panasonic said. The DMC-GH3 is the top model of Panasonic’s compact mirrorless single-lens cameras and is designed for use in rugged conditions due to a magnesium alloy body and sealed design, the company said.

The new 16-megapixel Live MOS sensor in the Panasonic DMC-GH3 boosts dynamic range and high sensitivity image recording at ISO settings reaching to 12,800 or 25,600 in extended mode, Panasonic said. To reduce noise to achieve those levels, engineers minimized noise in the sensor and prevented sensor noise from entering the output signal and the signal processing circuit, power supply line and grounding line, the company said.

Olympus’s new Wi-Fi digital imaging solution requires an add-on to make a Wi-Fi connection. The Stylus XZ-2 ($599, November) point-and-shoot camera comes with a smartphone connect function that works with an outboard Toshiba FlashAir SDHC card with built-in wireless LAN to transfer images to a smartphone using a thumbnail index, Olympus said. The Toshiba FlashAir card has been selling in Japan since February, according to news reports, but our search at Toshibadirect.com for a card came up empty. We found an 8GB Toshiba FlashAir card on eBay for a buy-it-now price of $130. Olympus’ Image Share smartphone app, due later this month, allows XZ-2 users to add art filters to images on a smartphone, the company said. Other features include a hybrid control ring, touch-sensitive tilt screen, TruePic VI image processor and 1920 x 1080 video recording.

Olympus also announced Monday a pair of PEN Micro Four Thirds cameras targeted at users who want the lens-swapping capability of a DSLR, without the complexity. The monitor on the E-PL5 ($649.99) swivels 170 degrees up and 65 degrees down, for shooting from high or low angles and self-portraits, the company said. The PEN E-PM2 ($549.99), the smallest and lightest camera in the line at 9.49 ounces, includes touch navigation, Olympus said.

Fuji added the XF1 ($499.95, October) to its flagship X-series line, combining an F1.8 wide angle lens with 4x manual zoom. The 12-megapixel aluminum-framed camera shoots 1920 x 1280 video, the company said, and will come in synthetic leather finishes in three colors: Black, tan and red. Olympus also said it has launched the Stylus brand worldwide for its point-and-shoot cameras. Stylus is a “new brand, not a revival of the product name from the past,” said a company spokesman. She said “Stylus (in the past) was a brand in the United States only. Mju was the name of the brand in every region, except for the U.S.” With the “new” Stylus brand, a spokesman said the company hopes to “establish a consistent vision and concept common to all point-and-shoot products.”