Zeiss had an official presentation in Japan and the image on top shows their strategy and planned activities (Source: DC.watch). As you can see they don’t think that compact cameras and classic DSLR are growing markets. Smartphones, mirrorless system cameras and the very high end cameras are the growing (or stable) markets. That’s why they want to focus on high quality lens productions for top DSLR and Mirrorless cameras. And they also anticipated a new line for the future. My guess is that this could be the new Full Frame Zeiss lenses for the NEX-FF system

As I told you months ago the new NEX-9 Full Frame camera is due for mid 2014. And there will be also a couple of primes coming along it. Yep, exciting and expensive

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Zeiss Touit preorder links:
12mm f/2.8 at BHphoto, Adorama and Uniquephoto. In Europe at CameraCenter UK and FotoMundus.
32mm f/1.8 at BHphoto, Adorama and Uniquephoto. In Europe at CameraCenter UK and FotoMundus.

For a couple of years companies market “3D” as the huge future for the television and camera industry. It didn’t really work out fine (at least not on cameras). Nowadays “4K” is the big new marketing trend. And for the first time Sony has now 4k Televisions in Stock and shipping at Amazon (Click here) and Adorama (Click here). As you know the NEX-FS700 (here at BHphoto) can now shoot 4K via the use of the external HXR-IFR5 unit. I think that by end of next year also high end A or E-mount cameras could be able to shoot 4K. That is the “new” future.

A little bit of history: The WDC A900 camera presentation

Absolute first 18-200mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS Powerzoom Lens Review at ePhotozine.
70-400mm F4-5.6 G SSM II lens test at DC.watch.
10-18mm E-mount lens review at Exifphotoblog.
NEX-6 review at Letsgodigital.
Sony wins Japanese invention award with the back-illuminated CMOS sensor (DC.watch).
First shots with the Sigma 60mm 2.8 DN Art lens on Nex 7 at Photocinenews.

Brad: “I have a few items on my website regarding the NEX 5N and associate bits, in particular though I have posted a review of the Minolta 28-135 on the NEX using my “beast rig” and also an older review on the Nikon 35-70 applied to the NEX. Here is the link to the Minolta review/story www.01imaging.com/section208294_260431.html
And this is the one to the Nikon review: http://www.01imaging.com/section402157_231458.html
It is probably a good idea of people read “how I test lenses first” to get some perspective as it might be a little different to what they normally think a lens test involves. http://www.01imaging.com/section402157_231453.html”

Vedran: “I have just uploaded Sony RX1 snapshots on my web page: http://www.vedrantolic.com/p998924976.”

David: “Just wanted to share a mini-documentary I shot for one of my clients this past week. It was done with the Sony a99. http://www.sin3rgy-creative.com/portfolio/cool-beer-story/”

Meng: “Some test shoot on the 70-400mm f4-5.6 G SSM II with SLT-A99. Corp closed to 100%. Editing done on LR4. At 400mm on FF it is still not enough.Better view here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/meng_keat/8730216365/“

As you know there is a very deep restructuring ongoing within the Sony company. This also affected the A-mount camera roadmap. There will be no new A-mount cameras this year because the new Sony strategy is to release a camera only when it’s really ready to challenge the big ones (Canon and Nikon). This means new A-mount cameras will be due in early 2014 and we are looking forward to get some specs of the new stuff.

In the meantime Daniel Loeb, CEO of Third Point LLC, the largest owner of Sony Corp. stock, published an open letter asking Sony to focus on few profitable areas, image sensors among them (Source: Image Sensor World). Loeb is that guy that made big profits on his bets on Greek bonds, mortgages, website operator Yahoo Inc and a fall in the Japanese yen. A real hardcore speculator! The investor believes that spinning off a portion of the entertainment business to Sony shareholders could sharpen the company’s focus and lead to higher profit margins, while helping to revive the core electronics business (Source NYT via The.me).

How could he influence Sony’s digital camera business? If Loeb pressure succeeds this will force Sony to cut unprofitable business even more than they did until now. This could mean for example, drop the compact camera business and focus on high quality RX cameras. But that’s just speculation for now. I don’t think Loeb will influence the new RX-NEX and A-mount roamdap.

Sorry to bother you again with Lens Turbo and Speed Booster news. But quite many SAR readers and NEX owners are interested to grab one of these. And since today they are now available in UK stores too:
Canon FD to NEX (Click here).
Nikon Ai to NEX (Click here).
Pentax K to NEX (Click here).

There is also a news on the original (and probably more high quality) Speed Booster from metabones. A new New Speed Booster Nikon G electronic adapter to be released by end of May. And Philip Bloom is right now testing the adapter on his Blackmagic Cinema Camera. We should see his reviews soon on his website.