An anonymous source sent me this first image of the pre-fina IRIX E-mount adapter version (Thanks!). He told me this:

First image of the Irix original adapter for Sony. Infinity focus works, chip for focus confirmation too. And is wheater sealed.
Prices will be below $100.
Press release will be available in around a month.

The adapter is made to support Canon/Nikon IRIX lenses on E-mount cameras. I guess that you can use also original Canon/Nikon lenses on it.

IRIX lenses are currently on sale at Amazon US, Amazon DE, Amazon UK.

Thanks to our more experienced readers we can share some additional info on the Sony patent describing a set of medium format camera lenses designed for a curved sensor:

1) The patent describes a broad use for this camera: “is applied to a telescope, a digital camera, etc.“. This is usual on patents because you want to cover as much areas of use as possible. An example is that on any camera patent Sony writes the camera could have a CCD or CMOS sensor even if all their new cameras keep using CMOS sensor only.
But that this is unlikely a pure astronomical camera is somehow proved by the fact that the patent also shows non-telephoto lenses which certainly are not ideal for industrial astronomy use (example is the 50mm FF equivalent lens which makes much more sense on classic photo cameras).

2) These are the five lenses patented for a 645 medium format camera with curved sensor. But first another important note: Sony Patents almost always have unusual focal length specs that will be rounded up once the lens gets produced (a 84mm lens will become 85mm or 258mm can become 250mm or 260mm). Also be aware that those are focal lengths on a 645 and not an FF camera. A 85mm lens is actually a 50mm lens (0.62 crop). So here are the patented lens specs:

• 387mm f/2.8 (lens length: 679mm) – in Full Frame terms this is a 240mm f/1.7 (using online calculator)
• 323mm f/2.8 (lens length: 576mm) – in Full Frame terms this is a 200mm f/1.7
• 258mm f/2.8 (lens length: 380mm) – in Full Frame terms this is a 160mm f/1.7
• 161mm f/2.8 – in Full Frame terms this is a 100mm f/1.7
• 84mm f/2.9 (lens length: 123mm) – in Full Frame terms this is a 52mm f/1.7 (it would be 2cm longer than the Zeiss 50mm f/1.4 FE)

Mistral shared to use these drawings from the patent and added the lens specs info (Thanks):

What’s clear form the patent is:

1. that these lenses do have a very simple design (thanks to the curved sensor)
2. that they are big lenses but also very fast (f/1.7 FF equivalent)
3. made for high Resolution sensors (thanksto their very high MTF)

No consumer available camera on the market so far could compete against this beast.

We have been told by a source that Tokina’s next FE lenses (a Super Wide and a fast wide FE autofocus lens) will ship in very early 2018 only even if the announcement will be made in late 2017. Tokina firsts wants to have the time to evaluate the sales of the new 20mm f/2.0 FE lens (here at BHphoto).

Reminder: Tokina will also launch a Zoom FE autofocus lens in 2018.

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Reminder (SR = Sonyrumor):
SR1=probably fake rumor
SR2=rumor from unknown sources
SR3=50% chance it is correct
SR4=rumor from known sources
SR5=almost certainly correct!

This is a roundup of rumors I got from anonymous sources and with no single hint of reliability. Unlike FAKE rumors we are here not 100% certain ALL this info is wrong. A FAKE rumor is when we 100% know the source and we know that this source keeps posting false info or fantasies like the A5 teaser source.

So have fun with this 95% unlikely to be true SR1 ranked rumors. And if one of these wil prove to be correct I will of course post their future rumors with a higher ranking.

Source 1:

Zeiss 24-105 F4  will come end of this year

Source 2:

Summer usually is the time for announcements for Sony
This year
no new RX100 will be announced
No new APS-C Camera will be announced
a new consumer compact / travel zoom is down the pipeline and one new A7 series
also there will be a new action cam sporting ultra slowmo

Source 3:

sony will launch in this year
400/2.8
200-600
24-105

(Note: that source also said A7III launch would be delayed til early 2018. The 400mm FE lens is actually a rumor which is going to happen because it got confirmed by trusted sources. But I have not heard ever from them that there is a 24-105mm FE and 200-600mm coming this year)

Source 4:

a7r111 48 mp

Notes on those kind of (im-)possible rumors:

• Fake rumors sent by so claimed sources that are known to create fake rumors are NOT included. What you see here are messages I got from unknown sources where I have no track of any “rumor history”
• It’s by readers request that I create this sum up of low ranked rumors. But please remind all that these are not rumors from trusted sources and don’t count me accountable on those kind of very low ranked rumors :)
• The last year a couple of those rumors were right (RX1rII and A6300 specs). So miracles sometimes can happen :)

Image Sensor World spotted this new 20.4MP curved sensor from CEA-LETI. It’s a prototype for astronomical applications:

“By directly correcting the field curvature in the focal plane, curved detectors help saving about one third of the optics, usually used as field flatteners, and then avoids undesirable distortion effect either in the image and also on the optical properties across the field of view.

Why does this news matter? Because back in 2015 Sony did present a similar sensor. This is the first picture of  Sony’s curved sensor via Spectrum:

And in 2015 we also spotted a patent of a Full Frame Sony curved sensor with 35mm f/1.8 lens. So this might be really the future of the camera RX series. I don’t think Sony will use such a sensor on an E-mount camera because none of the current E-mount lenses would work with it. It would make much more sense to use these sensor on a brand new system camera like a medium format Sony :)

This is just a rendering. More images via Mirrorlessrumors

On the web I found many comments and suggestions on how Sony should improve their E-mount strategy to not give up market shares to the soon to be launched new Nikon FF mirrorless system camera. I did create a POLL with the suggestion I read on the web. Of course some of these ideas are non-realistic or nonsense but this is what I found:

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Note: We don’t know yet how the Nikon FF will be but Nikon CEO said it will be better than the competition (SAR article here).

7Artisans is showing this image of a new 50mm f/1.0 APS-C E-mount lens. It will be announced this summer (no pricing info).

The Chinese company is selling a long list of their E-mount manual focusing lenses on Amazon.com, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk, and eBay.