(SR5) All future fullframe cameras will have GPS
When you reader asked me if the Sony A77 would have built-in GPS a source sent me a text saying that not only the A65 ad A77 would have built-inGPS, but also the future Fullframe cameras. And while the rumor about the A920 32 Megapixel fullframe camera posted by an external website is certainly NOT true I have been told that there will be some exciting fullframe news soon. The next fullframe cameras will be announced in 2012 but if all works fine I will get some details about those cameras soon! I repeat…”cameras” and not “camera” 
Let’s cross our fingers!
P.S.: The A850 has been discontinued (Check Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay) and soon the A900 should see some price drops (Check Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay).
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Comment from Thom Hogan: Indeed, I'm well aware of how Sony tries...
Comment from Matthias: Sorry to say this, but there is somethin...
Comment from b shaw: @Thom
I'm not as worried about mfg c...- Comment from Thom Hogan: Let's actually look at that more closely...
RDOE
11 months ago |Wow, nice. Can not wait what plural means in this context. Still loving the a900 though, but improvement in AF and ISO is welcome! And a more customizable menu please!
ES
11 months ago |What about the NEX7? any word if it would have GPS?
Thanks for all your work!
Frosti7
11 months ago |Nex FF?
And please sign the Petition to Introduction of Sony NEX 30mm f1.8 Pancake lens!
you can make a difference!
http://www.petitiononline.com/NEX30mm/petition.html
Colamango
11 months ago |repeat…”cameras” and not “camera”
hand up for this
Me
11 months ago |Now you just need to get this link into some forums and on some website, otherwise it won’t get the votes to carry any weight.
Ben
11 months ago |I wonder if cameras will end up with “find my iPhone” type functionality coupled with the GPS. I know that I’d rather have the ability to track down a $2000+ stolen camera than a cellphone.
Carl
11 months ago |That would be a really cool feature, actually. Pros would probably love it, given the amount invested in their gear.
Basic algebra
11 months ago |any statement is always true for all the elements in an empty set
pancanikonpus
11 months ago |who isthat guy in the picture? what mean cross the finger…
Voohoo
11 months ago |Crossing fingers is for good luck. On one hand you place the middle finger over the pointing finger making them cross. Usually this action is done on both hands at the same time.
Dulaney Ward
11 months ago |That guy is Toru Katsumoto, head of Sony’s Imaging division
Alfonso Cuitiño
11 months ago |Nice, I’ve always dreamt of working as a feature/firmware developer for Sony or Nikon ^^.
Gino
11 months ago |I am hoping a a99 as 900 replacement and one above that to compete with canon’s topmodel
Carl
11 months ago |As long as they don’t ditch the 5DII/D700 class, there’ll be no harm in that. To my eyes the 1DIII/D3X have way too much markup, though, given the parts cost doesn’t seem that different from the cheaper full frame models. Hopefully Sony won’t also try to cream it.
saiman
11 months ago |FT5 ??
Carl
11 months ago |Getting the websites mixed up again, it seems.
Niklas
11 months ago |Cn’t wait for more FF news!
tom
11 months ago |Seems Sony has taken a while to figure out how they fit in the market but full speed ahead now.
A65/77 cameras should be quite impressive when considering all aspects together (price being one of those aspects).
Five years ago they would have been considered technical marvels – now just very good value.
contraspirit
11 months ago |When will cams have access to the Internet?
Badly missing that)
Edgars
11 months ago |I expect one of new cameras would be 40Mpix monster which really demands best of FF lenses and largest CF cards. Hovewer, with apropriate lens there will be unlimited crop possibilities and some competition agaist MF (portability, high ISO, AF etc.).
Me
11 months ago |Very good. Although I’m happy for all the a77/a65 news, I hope that Sony doesn’t forget that there are a few Sony FF shooters out there.
What about lenses?
Andrea, earlier this year you said that there will be a few new Zeiss lenses. Any new info on what to expect?
Rob
11 months ago |I agree that the new sensor will likely be in the 40 Mpix realm, which will provide competition for the Sigma SD1 that was just released, as well as the low cost MF Pentax. Note that the SD1 body alone costs about $6900 US and the Pentax more than $10,000. I definitely am interested in MF performance, and am saving up for the new body and a couple prime portrait lenses (Zeiss 85 and 135).
admin
11 months ago |Working on that do. The Fukushima-Tsunami disaster delayed everything for 2-3 months.
RB
11 months ago |Finally…
I’ve got bored about all those APSC stuff…. What do you understand by “soon” Andrea? Tonight? Tomorrow? Monday morning?
admin
11 months ago |Next weeks!
andy
11 months ago |Andrea while its good to hear there will be more than 1 new FF body in 2012, do you have any information on new and updated ZA lenses (85 & 135), which will be needed to exploit the full potential of possibley a 40MP FF sensor?
admin
11 months ago |I heard about new Zeiss primes (but more in the 21-50mm range)
Carl
11 months ago |Make that a 21mm f1.4, and I’ll be there with skates on.
IHUR
11 months ago |More about NEX-7/Pro please..
MJr
11 months ago |full frame good ! *looks at 24/2 zeiss*
JB
11 months ago |Admin,
Any Alpha lens news besides the new lens kit?
JB
Walt
11 months ago |Only if Sony learns that GPS is only supposed to record the actual location and never some other location as it does now on the a55. What a childish thought process to record some previous location when it can’t get a lock on current location.
FullFrame (24x36) NEX
11 months ago |Please give us a Full Frame NEX SONY!!!
I’d buy one in a second, you have a customer, here!
Frosti7
11 months ago |here too..
i’m signed
perhaps we should start a FF petition?
mugen
11 months ago |Cheap Full Frame SLT will be the BIG HIT for Sony, they know that.
The fast SLT cameras maybe will attract some sport/wildlife photographers too.
someone
11 months ago |i’ve talked to an authorized sony dealer recently who told that there will be a fullframe model with ovf coming next year… hopefully that is true…
Dulaney Ward
11 months ago |I wouldn’t trust any dealer to know anything much until it is in his hands.
araru
11 months ago |Gps is necessary for photography…. like video recording and live view. We need large optical viewfinder… not technical shit!
Lonnie
11 months ago |I think someone never learned the difference between “want” and “need”…
FullFrame (24x36) NEX
11 months ago |Samsung announced that it is working on a 36×36 sensor. Most Fullframe lenses can handle it. It would be cool if Sony could make a similar NEX model.
A 36×36 sensor would have a similar surface area as the Leica S2. Impressive!
RB
11 months ago |Really? Or is this just wishful thinking? A 36×36 mm Sensor would have a diagonal of 51 mm, means the lens must be corrected to imaging circle of 51 mm, where ordinary FF lenses are corrected for 43 mm, only. Wonder how they should be able to handle those extra 8 mm or extra 19%…
c.d.embrey
11 months ago |Not all of us want/need GPS, so please make it possible to de-activate the GPS via menu.
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |Yawn. My Sony FS-100u has a GPS in it, too, but I haven’t found a reason to turn it on.
This is where Apple and Sony design differently. Apple adds a GPS to something and builds the software ecosystem around uses for that. Sony just throws in a GPS. Short of fully developing the ecosystem around it, Sony ends up adding cost and complexity to a device for not much gain. Yes, I know some of you users like it. But a well designed option would serve just as well in this instance. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to pay for more electronics we don’t use.
Rob
11 months ago |Never miss a chance to slag SONY Thom. How does Nikon handle this? Does Nikon do as good as Apple? Do you go online to complain if they don’t?
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |You obviously don’t read my site. I probably ding Nikon more than any other company in terms of design. So the answer to your last question is yes.
Rob
11 months ago |Also, didn’t you publish an article or two that stated Sony was going out of the full frame business? It’s a good thing most of us pay no heed to your blathering. I would say, rather than carping about GPS in an article about FF, you should be owning up to your inability to analyze the marketplace. In short, your credibility with many is shot.
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |Ah, I see the fanboys are out running defense.
I wrote on my Web site that Sony management above Sony Imaging was questioning the investment in full frame products and that there was a battle internally about whether they would continue. At the time, Sony Semiconductor had another full frame sensor in development. My understanding is that it will show up in a Sony camera in 2012. However, I also am told that this is a make or break thing for full frame at Sony Imaging.
As for “going out of the full frame business,” the A850 has been discontinued and the A900 appears to be limited to stock on hand. There may be a long gap between full frame bodies, which won’t help Sony fully establish that line.
I stand by what I originally wrote: there is a strong debate within Sony corporate about full frame being worth the investment.
b shaw
11 months ago |@Thom,
Although I agree with you regarding product design principles, I am encouraged that Sony is adding this to their feature list. Why? Because it has to start somewhere and, as you know, competition drives innovation in technology markets. If it’s a reasonably useful feature, it may drive competitors to one-up the functionality. So, *perhaps* eventually, Sony, Nikon, Canon et. al. may provide a more robust GPS capability.
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |My point wasn’t to discourage the incorporation of GPS. My point was that all it really does is record an EXIF entry and represents a cost to all users, even those who won’t use that EXIF entry. I used my Sony FS-100u as an example for a reason: for my work and most videographers work recording an EXIF entry into a video stream isn’t something we use right now; if we enable it we are draining the battery faster. So we turn it off almost all the time. Now, if I were filming a police chase from a news helicopter the GPS data information could be used by the TV station to update a map. (I’m not sure that’s actually true–I’ll have to look to see where Sony is putting the GPS data, I suspect it’s not in the HDMI stream I’d be broadcasting from, but only recorded in the file saved to media.)
LEdgars
11 months ago |Walt just before talking about limited usability due to flaws of cheap antenna. I think GPS antenna and additional chip costs few USD and therefore price increase is negligible.
Regarding soft. Mobile phone world completely different, because their soft is completely open, while digital camera soft is almost completely close to third parties aps. I would rather bash Sony for overall terrible RAW conversion soft, but fortunately we have LR, DXO, C1 etc.
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |Multiply “few dollars” by 3.5x to get the actual cost to you (rule of thumb of manufacturing). Those “few dollars” add up pretty fast if you’re not using the features that required them.
b shaw
11 months ago |@Thom
I’m not as worried about mfg costs as much as I am concerned about feature selection and opportunity costs from a R&D and product development perspective. Since you seem to be familiar with how Sony works then you know they think in terms of product families and in terms of product family life cycles. That is, if they are going to manufacture something, they work very hard to make sure they get reuse of the component in other products. This helps to spread mfg costs around a bit.
So, mfg costs aren’t my biggest concerns. My biggest concern is the focus of their limited resources of R&D and Product Development for two reasons. 1) Since they are using a shared services model for R&D, there is only so much time the smart engineers can give to the Alpha division. 2) Sony’s effort to integrate as much as possible from a product design perspective, (e.g. HDNA), can preclude the best camera designs for the sake of alignment to corporate Sony edicts. For example, much of the development of the CMOS sensors is focused (no pun intended) so that it could be applied to videography as well as still photography.
Apple is a fairly different model compared to Sony so it’s hard for me to discuss any comparison.
Oh. BTW, the 3.5 times rule-of-thumb, is actually a rule of thumb for business valuation for small manufacturers, not a ratio of product price to it’s corresponding mfg costs. Price is always market driven, there isn’t a direct correlation to mfg costs other than it has to profitable, (or be part of a larger, profitable plan).
Lastly, are you the real Thom Hogan? Or, are you a fan claiming to be Thom Hogan?
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |Indeed, I’m well aware of how Sony tries to think across their product lines. I’m surprised they didn’t put a GPS in my TV ;~). You are correct about sensors, a problem I’ve been writing about for some time now. An awful lot of engineering energy has gone into the video applicability of all sensors, to the point where we’re about to get a full range of 1080P/60 capabilities across the line. 3D is another initiative that runs wide within the company. Sometimes those things have big payoffs, but I think Sony in particular has yet to show that they have. This has been especially true with the various content/software/hardware integration attempts, but I think it’s true at just the hardware level too.
I’ll be the first one to admit my Silicon Valley “small is better” bias. I’m not a fan of large companies that become bureaucratic and eventually become design by committee or consensus. Sony’s corporate edicts result in a lot of layers of management fighting one another, in my observations.
The 3.5 number I cite ranges anywhere from 2 to 3.5 depending upon who you ask, and is indeed a rule of thumb in taking a raw part cost and figuring out the implied MSRP. I learned this in the IU MBA program, though I’ve never applied it in my work. In my experience rules of thumb are just that.
I’m sure that 3.5 shows up in other rules of thumb, too.
###
11 months ago |I may be a liiiiitle bit rude, but why you are so idiot?
Apple built an ecosystem? Around GPS? When?
When gps was introduced in iphone it had only google maps, which had little navigation functionality and required CONSTANT internet connection.
How much time passed before apple gave gps module access to third-party developers and normal software appeared?
And you call in “building a software ecosystem around”?
Don’t be so fat.
Carl
11 months ago |Time to go on a diet, Thom.
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |I guess you never looked at the iOS SDK. On my iPhone I now have a ton of GPS-enabled apps. Things that add value in real time, not just create an EXIF data entry.
dyna
11 months ago |Thom, let’s not forget that Apple’s GPS also requires a monthly fee and uses both satellite and cellular signals. Nobody offers cellular level GPS in a camera because licensing fees would be ridiculous and very few users are going to pay for that, especially when so many of them in fact have an iPhone or an Android with reasonably good GPS capability. All they have to do is sync time, date, and take a shot with their smartphone at the same time as their DSLR (within a minute or two is fine, tripod work isn’t exactly mobile), and metatag the information later.
Or get the mobile GPS units that tag to memory cards
Or get something in your camera that can, true, take bloody forever to find a signal… but is still better than nothing.
Thom Hogan
11 months ago |Let’s actually look at that more closely: I have a GPS in my iPad 3G. I do not enable the 3G data stream. The GPS works just fine. GPS does not require a monthly fee.
Apple was actually very clever in their geolocation features. They look at WiFi IP location, current cell tower location, AND the GPS signal. The first two allow them to get close before getting a lock on the GPS satellite data, which, once obtained, gives them the precise location. But the system isn’t dependent upon any of those signals. It only needs one to start location services.
Personally, as a camera maker like Sony, I’d see more benefit in linking to a Sony/Erickson phone that had GPS than incorporating a GPS. Since I know how much the fan boys hate it when I write about rumors floating around INSIDE Sony, one current discussion has them killing Sony/Erickson and bringing it back inside the Sony electronics realm so that they can do exactly that kind of integration and better leverage the Sony brand.
Letten
11 months ago |Some what new to this but I get the feeling we are still chasing the quality my grandfather had with his rolleiflex even his voigtländer (which I choose to inherit).
Hawk
11 months ago |Really cheap FF camera with mirror flip-up mode? Yeah, I can get SLT for that, but otherwise I’d buy classic FF DSLR with OVF (a900) as my next camera. I’d also consider paying more for FF NEX than for a99 to have digital FF body for my rokkor lenses.
Mike/Canada
11 months ago |My belief is the GPS is for Geo tagging only with programs like google earth etc, and not as a equipment tracking devise in case of lost or stolen gear.
SLTPro
11 months ago |Yessss! Bring on da FF Nikon killers!
Twaddler Belafonte
11 months ago |Would be cool, but seems unlikely.
Sky_walker
11 months ago |Well, this would require camera tracking GPS all the time, including when it’s turn off. So you’d need two ‘off’ modes – standard and ‘deep’ with GPS turn off to save battery, one that’s difficult to find out in order to avoid thiefs shutting the gps.
(by the way in standard sleep mode you’d have much much less problesm with badly tagged photos right after turning the camera on)
But yes, this propably would be one of most useful and important ‘gadgets’ in SLR for pro shooters. Something that would have a real value for them.
Just… Sony – dont forget to implemet tracking from iPad and other iOS devices – it will really help in case of stolen gear as many photographers have iPads for work.
Chad Matthew
11 months ago |If only they could be used as navigation systems, now then I’d be impressed!
Twaddler Belafonte
11 months ago |I’ve always wanted my camera to tell me where to go.
pancanikonpus
11 months ago |pretty sad that a77 didn’t have the video bitrate like their digital camera 28mbps.
Dulaney Ward
11 months ago |And you know it won’t?
John Sison
11 months ago |more than one full frame camera? More choice but more money to spend =( cant wait
My December
11 months ago |GPS…? so? D:
SkywAys
11 months ago |Stolen gears aside, you have to be careful in future when uploading pics taken at home. They could track and knew where you stay.
Sony for Life
11 months ago |Lens!
Lens!!
Lens!!!
Now that you rocked the world Andrea with your a77 pic,
amazed us again with some new top class a-mount lens news. Please start with the upcomig 16-50mm/2.8
Is it a CZ? Or, G?
You won’t get the “thank you” mail yet as Canada Post is on strike!
knurd
11 months ago |Hopefully the FF SLT will inherit the low production costs. Under 2K for us enthusiasts here please. Why can’t companies bring out a rehashed version of an older model at a lower price…like how Apple offers older phones for $99. Would be great to get a tweaked a900 or 5D sensor in a cheaper body for around $1500. Only pros need the weather sealing and that bumps up costs.
Terryfried
11 months ago |I remember some time ago it was mentioned ther will be 2 FF cameras released in 2012 one to take on FF and one to have a go at med format.
So what is everyones guess on sensor size? (in mega pixals, obviously they will both be FF.)
My guess is one about 36 Megapixals the other around 50.
Matthias
11 months ago |Sorry to say this, but there is something that really distracts me. I hesitate to speak it out, but I feel, someone has to do it.
Articles on this site are often illustrated with photos not dealing with the actual subject of the articles. This has repeatedly caused confusion among readers, when, for example, an article about a Sony image sensor was illustrated with the picture of an unrelated sensor, or when a technical concept or patent gets illustrated with a drawing showing something quite different. And there is certainly no point in presenting a photo of released camera X, when an article is all about unreleased camera Y…
Now the intro of this article “All future fullframe cameras will have GPS” shows a photo of a Sony manager posing in front of the Sony logo, just as if that headline was a quote from a recent speech or an interview.
If it really were, fine, but I remember this portrait of Toru Katsumoto from a totally unrelated Digital Camera Watch interview dated 2009-12 (http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/interview/20091204_333059.html). However, less aware readers will assume, that it has been him who made this GPS statement, or at least they will assume some implicit connection with that statement of yours or your sources. People just tend to believe in pictures, even if they are completely bogus.
I find this inappropriate on multiple levels, in particular because with this portrait, things get beyond the usual anonymous stuff shown here. I can’t see how this Sony manager can be happy being presented in a completely new context on a rumor site about Sony.
Therefore, Andrea, I would like to suggest to reconsider this practise. Not only does it mislead readers, but this way it may even cause some harm to people.
Thanks,
Matthias