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Wall Street Journal (via 43rumors) reports: “Olympus said Friday it will raise ¥49 billion ($631.6 million) by issuing new shares to Sony Corp. With the capital tie-up, Sony will effectively become Olympus’s biggest shareholder, with a stake of 11.5% in terms of voting rights. The two companies also plan by the end of December to set up a joint venture to develop medical devices and to study collaboration in compact digital cameras.”

Olympus and Sony didn’t disclose any detail about the collaboration and I don’t know what to expect from this. Olympus has a great experience when it comes to high quality lens design. They are for example the only one doing f/2.0 fast zooms, the 14-35mm (here on eBay) and the 35-100mm (again here on eBay).  This is certainly something the NEX system needs urgently.

UPDATE: In a PDF released by Olympus/Sony they say: “The two companies also aim to enhance their competitiveness, primarily in the area of compact digital cameras, by exploring opportunities for mutually beneficial transactions and collaboration between their respective camera businesses, including the supply of Olympus technologies such as camera lenses and mirror cells to Sony, and the provision of Sony image sensors to Olympus.”

On Monday Sony and Olympus will have a press conference and we may will learn more about their future camera strategy!

Egami (Translation here) spotted a new Sony patent describing a curved sensor technology. Having a curved sensor allows an increase in the lens performance and reduces the size of the lens. Egami speculates that this may be ideal for the future Full Frame NEX-9 camera. But of course, if you bring a camera with a sensor like this current A or E mount lenses wouldn’t work. I highly doubt the NEX-9 will have a sensor like this.

Like the A99 also the Nikon D600 is using the new Sony 24 Megapixel FF sensor. Dpreview now posted the Nikon D600 studio samples (Click here to see them). I hope the Sony A99 samples will follow soon. Can’t wait to see if Sony catched up with the Nikon and Canon Jpeg engine (RAW quality should be about the same).

P.S.: For now the D600 outsells (in terms of preorders) the A99 according to Amazon rankings. Maybe Sony has to make to make a cheaper A95 FF model…

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A99 preorders at  Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex UK, Wex Germany, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.

I am quite busy at work today but I found a bit of time to check the Sony RX1 pictures posted today by Sony. And I liked them at all. Here are just some early thoughts:
Image at ISO 100 and ideal f/5.6 aperture (Click here):
On that picture taken at the ideal aperture you can check the edge to edge sharpness of the lens. I see only a little sharpness loss on the edges of the frame but I guess we would have seen a sharper image with f/8.0 aperture. Overall this is a very Zeiss alike sharpness rendering!
Image at ISO 1.600 and f/5.6 (Click here):
This image has been taken at ISO 1.600. This is usually the top ISO limit in real daily use. You will not go above that considering the f/2.0 lens aperture. Noise is a little visible in dark areas but it’s very harmonic and not disturbing at all.
Image at ISO 100 and f/5.6 (Click here):
Pictures of clouds. Almost ideal to see how the camera renders the dynamic range, particularly the white highlights.
Image at ISO 100 f/2.0 and macro (Click here):
The bokeh is extremely smooth and beautiful. And just look at that nice sharp detail!
Image at ISO 6400 (Click here):
As I told you before you will you want shoot at 6.400 very often. Noise is very visible but again, no fancy pattern or chrome noise. It’s definitely a surprise to see such a result on a Sony JPG sample.

And now……

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RX1 preorder links Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK ,Wex Germany, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.

Sony just posted fifteen new image samples taken with the new Sony RX1. You can find them all on Flickr (Click here). UPDATE: There is one 6.400 ISO sample here. At first glance all I can say is that the superb lens and sensor combination delivers a great sharpness. The noise at 6.400 is very harmonic (no fancy noise pattern). Hope we can see some full size RAW samples soon! What do you think?

I just added new RX1 preorder options for Europe. Check out by clicking the links: Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK ,Wex Germany, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.

P.S.: ThePhoBlographer (Click here) posted the full RX100 review.
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Sony preorder list:
A99 body Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex UK, Wex Germany, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.
A99 with kit lens links Alphacameradeals.
RX1 Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK ,Wex Germany and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-6 body Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Wex Germany Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-6 with kit lens Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex Uk ,Wex Germany and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-VG900 Amazon, BHphoto, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH, Wex Uk and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-VG30 Adorama, Amazon, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony E-mount 16-50mm Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals .
Sony E-mount 35mm Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony E-mount 10-18mm Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony A-mount 300mm f/2.8 Amazon, BHphoto, Sonystore DE-UK-FR-IT-ES-NL-SE-FI-CH.