(SR5) Full VG900 Full Frame NEX camcorder specs! With Full Frame A-mount adapter!
Image on top: The current VG-20 (not the new VG900!).
As I told you a weeks ago for the first time we are going to see a new Full Frame E-mount camera! It is actually a camcorder, the NEX-VG900. According to top sources it will use the same Sony A99 24 megapixel sensor and current NEX lenses like the superb Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 or Sony 50mm f/1.8 will work in crop more (and you can take 16 Megapixel pictures with it). The new Zeiss E-mount lenses will cover the full Full Frame area. The CP.2 25/T2.1 and CZ.2 70/200/T2.9 E -> Click here to get again a new shock by reading the price 
The camera itself records in 24p/50p (or 60p in USA) at 24Mbit/s (AVCHD). It has a Quad Capsule Spatial Array Stereo Mic, a 3 inch 9k and 270 degree swivel touchscreen. An XGA electronic viewfinder. A manual control jog dial. A dual SD card slot, remote AVR/IR, mic jack and hdmi. The body looks like the current VG-20 camera (here on BHphoto). What changes is the sensor size
The price of the camera is around 3300 Dollars/Euro and includes(!) the new A-mount LA-EA3 Full Frame adapter!
While this camera may not be interesting for 99% of our readers the big news here is that:
1) It proves that a Full Frame NEX camera is possible
2) A Full Frame Sony NEX-7 alike camera could really be announced in 2013 (as I have been told by sources)
A Full Frame NEX-9 could allow us to use Leica M-mount lenses (here a list of them on eBay) and Canon FD lenses (here a list of them on eBay) on it! Sony has yet no plan to make FF NEX lenses but I hope they will “feel” the pressure from you folks! And they may change their mind…
Reminder: The announcement of the A99 along the NEX-6, A and E-mount lenses is scheduled for September 12th! Stay tuned on SAR on that day! Subscribe the RSS feed and join the Facebook page to not miss any new rumor!
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!
Rob
9 months ago |Will it be upgradable to 4k?
Lollo
9 months ago |No, but it will be delivered inside a BMW M3 for you to keep.
No firmware upgrade required.
Rob
9 months ago |Yeah, hilarious. But with 4k tvs coming out this year, content had better be 4k in the near future or it’ll just be out of date in a few years. Do documentary film makers want to make videos in a format that will be out-of-date that soon? Given a choice, would you want to be committing to an old standard, now that the new one is on the horizon?
MattH
9 months ago |I can’t see 4k really happening in a big way any time soon. The first tvs will be stupidly expensive and HD broadcasts now are really heavily compressed. PS3 games run output at 720 and no-one seems to know or care. Blue rays are still lagging behind dvds in sales. most digital cinema projectors project at 2k. good 1080p is 10 years away from being “out of date” at least and if ever.
Rob
9 months ago |From what I’ve read, most digital cinemas have, or are upgrading to 4k right now. Electronics manufacturers will be keen to push 4k since 3D hasn’t really gone anywhere. Several noted pundits also note that 4k is on the way as affordable cams are becoming available and affordable (e.g., http://www.luminous-landscape.com/essays/4k_future.shtml ) and that even scaled down the image is superior to regular 2k images. So I ask, are you shooting for present and near present, or the future? I’m betting 4k screens will be in the $6000 range in the next few 2-3 years, which is when I’ll be ready to jump. I’ll plan to have my trips to the Grande Canyon, etc., ready to roll ahead of that.
Eduardo
9 months ago |If you have the money for 4k go Red or buy the FS700. I am an independent filmmaker principal work is documentaries and cannot afford the amount of storage needed for the 4k workflow. Five years from now, that’s a different story, storage will be way cheaper.
FujicaFighter
9 months ago |This is awesome, at least to demonstrate that a full frame sensor fits the e-mount. That means I will be able to use a shitload of legacy manual lenses as intended soon… 2013! We´ll see.
matgay
9 months ago |1
2
3
lets count the professional expertised idiots who said a full frame cannot no way possibly by laws of physics fit inside e-mount… who will own up?
Randy S.
9 months ago |who would say that? The NEX E mount is larger (but shallower) then the lens mount on a Contax g2 or Leica M.
GreenLens
9 months ago |Great news LA-EA3 is coming! Any details..?
jon
9 months ago |triple pdaf!
NEXfive
9 months ago |LA-EA3 should be closer to EA1, because with phase detection on the sensor there’s no need for a translucent mirror any more.
Joe
9 months ago |ND filters? not that impressive apart from full frame sensor
Sky_walker
9 months ago |What do you mean “no ND filters” – just move your ass and screw one on the lens!
Bobby
9 months ago |No XLR? -> FAIL
Bill
9 months ago |The XLR-K1M audio input terminal rumored with the A99 may help if the camera shares a flash/accessory shoe with the A99. Add $800
Somebody
9 months ago |Shouldn’t APS-C crop mode take a picture of only about 11Mpix? 24 /(1.5×1.5)
Maximus
9 months ago |yes,
16MP in crop mode would mean the Sensor had 36MP
Hans
9 months ago |why should it not have the 36MP Sensor inside?
Bill
9 months ago |Rumor says 24 MP. So 11 MP crop. So either the 16 MP crop is wrong, the 24 MP FF is wrong or the e-mount lenses have an image circle slightly larger than APS-C and in reality only have a 1.2X crop factor, or the rumor maker only divided by 1.5 instead of 1.5 x 1.5. From a video aspect, 10 MP is plenty for good 1080p HD, 10 good MP also is a pretty good still image.
Booe
9 months ago |Smaller pixels are more prone to colorshift, with large pixels colorshift might be non-issue.
LifeStoryImages
9 months ago |Didn’t say “APS-C Crop.” If 24 -> 16, then the crop factor is 1.33; 16x24mm image. “Regular” e-Mount lenses will handle that, perhaps with some vignetting in the last couple mm of the corner if shot wide open.
This unit is simply amazing for all the reasons already stated. And what comes close for twice the cost?
Bimbo
9 months ago |Would using native APS-C lenses affect corner sharpness at all?
waldomarek
9 months ago |a photography semi-newbie here, i got a question: the current e-mount lenses on the current nex cameras (3/5/c3/5n/7/f3/5r/6) have a crop factor of 1.5 simply because of the sensor? so if you place these lenses on this new camera, it will be full frame?
Torsten Bronger
9 months ago |Current E mount lenses are unable to direct light to the full frame. The rim would be black.
waldomarek
9 months ago |thanks for the answer, i think i understand now that these lenses will be in crop mode when used on that camera?
“According to top sources it will use the same Sony A99 24 megapixel sensor and current NEX lenses like the superb Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 or Sony 50mm f/1.8 will work in crop moDe (and you can take 16 Megapixel pictures with it).”
Sky_walker
9 months ago |Yep, APS-C mode for APS-C lenses. Simple.
Douglas Grillo
9 months ago |I never understand this kind of medium-baked products, a new and technical advanced sensor in a consumer body?, too expensive for the average Joe and too simple and lacking of options for professional work.
I’m from the other 1%
Savic13
9 months ago |“a new and technical advanced sensor in a consumer body?”. In this case sensor is designed for still image with options for move. state of art designed for move sensor is in the high-end FXX line of camcorders.
István Gábor Takács
9 months ago |Awesome! Im glad they kept it as small as the VG20. (no need for XLR input, you can record that separately)
the question whether moire would be strong (with the vg20 rooftops for example are going wild)
Mathias Pettersson
9 months ago |Why isn’t it an A-mount camera?
John Maverick
9 months ago |Because e-mount allows use of both Sony’s lens ranges (E and A). The reverse is not possible (adapting E lenses to A mount) because of the longer flange distance.
Sky_walker
9 months ago |On the other hand A-mount could give better AF and more solid body, possibly a weather-sealed one.
The real reason is that there are E-mount video lenses, but there are none for A-mount.
A-mount is for photographers, E-mount is mixed.
Mathias Pettersson
9 months ago |Thanks!
Shawn
9 months ago |To the poster that said the A mount lenses aren’t for video obviously hasn’t used the SSM lenses from Sony (particularly the SAL16-50 which is very quiet for video work), the HSM from Sigma and USD Tamron lenses. In fact the PDAF on the current crop of Sony DSLT is amazing for continuous AF video.
Art
9 months ago |These SSM lenses are NOT video lenses. Cine/Arri/PL mount are real video lenses. E-mount can adapt them via adapter. The A-mount cannot.
There will never be A-mount camcorder. It’s a still camera mount.
Beachrider
9 months ago |So an a77 (or 65 or several others) isn’t usable as a camcorder? Some would argue with you.
Mathias Pettersson
9 months ago |Ah, thanks John!
Rooru S.
9 months ago |As many said, there the possibility of using either E or A-mount lenses is the reason of why they choose E-mount over A-mount… Also, You cannot fit many lenses from other brands on A-mount compared to E-mount… That’s what is more important to Sony right now, offer a way to use whatever lens you want to use, but with Sony bodies.
quobetah
9 months ago |Couple this with a Hyperdeck shuttle and you get a fantastic full frame prores camera!
Rick
9 months ago |Seems odd, we’ll see. If Sony intentionally deletes features the way it did with the VG20, this will be a non-starter compared to the A99. The built in mics in the VG are good, but not great – I got comparable results with a Rode Video Mic Pro on my 5d2. The VMP and a small rig would still cost less than the VG900 and you’d have a much better photo camera as the A99 has (on paper) arguably a superior AF system to pretty much anything on the market right now.
Basically it comes down to E-mount or A-mount?
Art
9 months ago |With LAEA3 adapter, the AF would be close to A99. But most video people don’t care about the AF anyway. Given you can use most Canon/PL/Nikon lenses on E-mount is the reason enough that people who only care about the video and don’t own A-mount lenses will pick this over A99
Mick
9 months ago |Autofocus is very important for video work (especially documentary video work–like weddings). I was able to do focus tracking shots with the LA-EA2 and Sigma 70-200 OS HSM at f3.5 which would be otherwise impossible with manual focus. Keep up the good work Sony!
T
9 months ago |Does this camcorder record to VHS?
Lollo
9 months ago |No! But it will do Ektachrome super 8!
Arnold
9 months ago |Logically when used in APS-C mode there will be only 10 megapixels.
See the D800 in crop mode has about 16.
saiman
9 months ago |I don’t understand Sony’s strategies these days.
- Release FF camera with no plans of FF lens.
- Release 1080p camcorder (not even a 4k one) and put a 24MP sensor in it.
- And… anways, I don’t want to whine about their choice of specs in a99 on this post.
John Maverick
9 months ago |All of the A mount full-frame image circle lenses will work just fine. Thats the important point. And it only requires a minimal e->a adaptor.
Beachrider
9 months ago |- Camera is not released, yet
- Lenses are in the same rumor-only status
- You aren’t reading all the rumors
Ay
9 months ago |Try mounting the zeiss emoubt zoom on a vg20 like body. Makes no sense ergonomically. Again way too many products Sony. Make an fs700 with canon c100 form factor and well all be happy
John Maverick
9 months ago |All of the A mount full-frame image circle lenses will work just fine. Thats the point. And only requires a minimal e->a adaptor.
Booe
9 months ago |Yup, except crappy LA-EA1 doesn’t work for FF. It’s even bad for APS-C.
Vladimir
9 months ago |I’m waiting for Full Frame NEX-9. Can it be Nikon,Canon,Pentax? Who’s first?
matgay
9 months ago |Nikon,Canon,Pentax can make NEX???
passer-by
9 months ago |FF mirrorless? Leica already did that. But comes with a price, very high one. Waiting for an affordable(relatively) full frame mirrorless.
Palp
9 months ago |Would current NEX lenses be technically usable on a FF NEX camera without cropping?
Mistral75
9 months ago |No.
matgay
9 months ago |yes. if it fits the mount it works. heavy vignettes, but yes.
Keith
9 months ago |Before developing e mount FF lenses, they want to produce a decent quality G standard zoom for the bodies we’ve got!!!
E
9 months ago |… and they will continue to develop 18-200 lenses until they succed!
Danonino
9 months ago |HAHA! F*ck You to all stupid people who has been nagging about how the E-mount is to small for a FF sensor to fit asf!
Looking forward to the NEX9 with FF sensor next year.
Thankyou Sony.
Sky_walker
9 months ago |well… they were at least partially right – there’s no way to use E-mount lenses in Full Frame mode nor any plans for supporting FF E-mount lenses (there’s hardly any need for them in a first place – Sony needs to fill in the APS-C line before looking up ahead cause right now E-mount lineup is still lacking (thankfully we’ll see 2 more lenses soon). Who needs FF can use FF A-mount lenses, no hassle involved, as adapter probably will allow PDAF focusing as well as using screwdrive lenses (yay Zeiss 135 f/1.8!).
Carl
9 months ago |The ZA135 doesn’t exactly sound ergonomic of the camera is going to be a similar size to the NEX7. Thankfully there are good+small A mount lenses (24/2.8, 28/2, 35/2, 50/1.4, 85/2.5, 100/2, 135/2.8) that will work nicely, if a tad longer than ideal.
matgay
9 months ago |zeiss compact primes “ARE” full frame e-mount! oh geee i cant use my DX lenses on FX cameras and dont want to buy FX lenses boo hoo
customercopy
9 months ago |The ‘stupid people’ understand things you don’t such as the need for telecentric and retrofocus wideangle lenses under digital, issues with colour-shift, smearing and vignetting and the practicality of using large glasses on a small camera.
You people must understand this. A FF NEX IS NOT COMING. Not in the form you imagine. It would resemble a NEX with an A-mount sized lens on it. The sensor would have to be a special design along the lines of Kodak’s Leica sensor and it would need lots of software correction to deal with all of the corner issues on wideangles and vignetting on everything else.
Khuzul
9 months ago |Sony has Zeiss by its side.
Zeiss makes an awesome range of small FF leica-M lenses.
Keeping the optical design and adding E-mount and AF to these lenses would make for an incredible lens line-up for a FF NEX.
I so hope they are going down this road.
Sky_walker
9 months ago |You can’t just “add AF” – adding AF would require redesign of entire lens. Adding AF isn’t as easy as re-painting or chipping the existing lenses (ZF->ZF.2).
Joel Richards
9 months ago |True. And I doubt Zeiss will be selling Sony the lens designs whole-hog, but I’ve been led to believe the optical formula is the most difficult part of lens design. Zeiss does have that done for a range of very good (and very pricey) rangefinder lenses. More important, and more immediate, than adding AF is whether Sony has fixed the angle of incidence problem that causes color shifting in their APS-C sized sensors. That was a big break through for the M9 and part of the reason why Leica justified their high cost initially (the other reason is that red dot). The M9 is hardly new and it is likely that Sony is solving/solved the problem for Lecia’s next FF sensor now that Kodak is in no place to develop a next-gen sensor for them, but still…
Booe
9 months ago |You can… at least sometimes
That all depends, on if on-sensor PDAF will work good enough.
It’s CDAF that requires changes in lens designs; if you have good PDAF you can go with minimal changes.
sholky
9 months ago |Sensor designed for photography with far too many pixels for video and no 4K at a time when Sony is making a 1/1,7″ sensor that can do 4K.
This will probably not be that good, but I’m looking forward to a Full Frame E-mount camera with a “real” video sensor.
saiman
9 months ago |+1
kingrenas
9 months ago |I was right a few weeks ago when I said this; Sony will make a new A-mount LA-EA3 Full Frame adapter.
exm3racer
9 months ago |Hi, thanks for the update!
Do you know yet if LA-EA3 will have SLT technology? Or will it be more like a bigger version of LA-EA1, but with a motor built-in?
windrincar
9 months ago |LE-EA3? I hope it has built-in image stabilizer
Rolleiflex
9 months ago |And how do you propose it would be able to do that? I thought a FF user would know such basics by now.
Booe
9 months ago |Do you think using FF camera teaches one engineering? How is that possible?
windrincar
9 months ago |Enlight me then, please
MF Mohamad
9 months ago |woot! LA-EA3!
Couldn’t agree more with Windrincar.
Renato S.
9 months ago |If Sony is doing a very stupid and crap job releasing lenses for the APS-C NEX alone, imagine if they decide to add FF NEX lenses to their to-do list.
Fly Moon
9 months ago |I am not sure why you always insist on saying “In US” instead of “In North America”? Canada is the same standard, you know!
Jurka
9 months ago |Stabilization?
Randy S.
9 months ago |Andreas that price on the zeiss is not that out of line. In fact its pretty cheap in comparison http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/buy/Lenses/ci/1884/N/4292338124
Rick
9 months ago |Why is the price of a $19,000 cine lens shocking? Its not some cheap plastic AF lens, its far more robust and precise, stepless aperture, focus doesn’t breathe and T-stops give you constant exposure across lenses, something photo lenses don’t do. Its not a walkaround zoom like the $2000+ Sony/Canon/Nikon 70-200/2.8′s.
Canon has two cine zooms that are $45,000, Schneider cine primes are $10,000 each – far more than Zeiss CP2 lenses. Few actually buy big dollar cine lenses anyway, if you’re shooting a movie or commercial simply rent them for a few hundred dollars a week. Then you look at many Cooke and Arri cine lenses, some are easily $100,000+, but again few buy them, just rent.
Bear
9 months ago |here’s hoping that the FF NEX will have IBIS. If that happens, Sony, shut up and take my money!
ageha
9 months ago |Of course not. Asking for it is getting annoying.
Stephen Linhart
9 months ago |The talk of 4K is a bit strange since there are no cameras at any price which currently output 4K except for lossy Redcode output from the Red One and Red Epic (which are $100,000 cameras before you add all the system components).
The more significant question is, does it use all the pixels on the sensors and process down to 1080p, or does it just sample a subset of the pixels for reasons of processing speed like most DSLRs recording 1080p. If it senses a full 24MB while outputting 1080p it will be very popular with the Indie film industry.
DaveT
9 months ago |Fingers crossed for a FF NEX-9. 11 of my 12 lenses are adapted full frame manual focus glass anyhow.
As for this camera, I’ve heard from some local dealers who’ve seen it that the VG-30 has XLR jacks. Hard to imagine this one wouldn’t.