It seems Canon weren’t kidding when they said they were willing to cannibalise their DSLR sales to go full on into mirrorless. Canon Rumors report that they have “confirmed” Canon’s new mirrorless camera is out there in the hands of “select Canon pro photographers”. They note that a survey was sent out to some Canon Explorers of Light in January, asking what they wanted to see in a “professional” mirrorless camera. It seems that now, we may actually be closer than we thought to Canon actually announcing something.

Although there is basically nothing known about specs and there’s no announcement date expected, that it is out there in peoples hands shows we may hear something official sooner than we might have expected. CR feel “very confident” that we’ll have heard something from Canon by this time next year.

Given the stiff competition from Sony in the mirrorless world, especially with the recent release of the A7III, Canon has to produce something that will really blow people away. Anything less could potentially ruin them. – Canon Rumors The same holds true for Nikon, too, although we’ve not heard about that much since the initial statements. Both companies will have to pull out all the stops to be able to not only compete but thrive, in a mirrorless market. Hopefully, we’ll hear more about what the two companies are working on, with maybe a prototype or tech demo on show at Photokina in September. Even if there are no final specs or an official camera announcement at that time. [via Canon Rumors]