The Sony Kunamoto Center

While Sony is facing a strong competition in areas like TV and Smartphone production it is having a huge success on the image sensor market. Sony issued the following press release to communicate that it will boost the production up to 80,000 wafers per month from the current 60,000 wafers per month. Here is the official Press text:

We finally have good financial news about Sony:
1) Sony’s operating profit doubled to 178.3 billion yen ($1.52 billion) in the October-December quarter, well above estimates of 96.6 billion yen in a Reuters poll. Sales rose 6 percent to 2.56 trillion yen, above consensus estimates of 2.38 trillion yen.
2) Every single business unit was profitable
3) Sony also announced an improved outlook for the full year ending in March, forecasting a net loss of 170 billion yen, up from its previous projection for a 230 billion yen loss.

There is yet no specific info about the camera business but a very curious note: Sony’s Image sensor business is booming mainly because “The demand for front-facing camera modules is going through the roof, because everyone wants to take high-quality selfies, and that doubles the market size for Sony” (Source: Bloomberg)

via Cnbc

The Canon 5ds is now officially listed at Adorama and BHphoto and therefore also officially dethroned the A7r and becomes the new Megapixel resolution King. They do not specifically mention on their press release who makes the sensor. But I guess they would say it’s “Canon designed” anyway. Curious that the Canon’s new camera preorder (yes! not shipping) will start on April 30 too according to Amazon (Click here). Sounds liek the camera actual shipment may be summer only…this gives Sony quite some time to answer with their new A7rII or A9 High Res camera! Afterall in their latest financial results presentation they promised to deliver us “the ultimate resolution”:

Within the next very few days o will announced the new FE lenses. To get notified when this happens just subscribe on SonyAlphaRumors here:
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Now let’s hope those lenses will not cost too much!

While Sony seems to focus on the new FE lens launch other companies are throwing out their camera announcements. And there are some interesting news here:

The big FFs from Pentax:
Pentax announced that they will release their first digital Full Frame DSLR by end of 2015. As you know Pentax use Sony sensors on their APS-C DSLR so I guess it’s highly likely Pentax will use the new 46-50MP Sony FF sensor on that camera too! P.S.: The full Canon 50MP camera specs are out at CanonWatch.

Two news from Olympus:
The launched the new Air Clip (43rumors.com) that works just like the Sony QX1!
Their new E-M5II camera has a multishot trick to take 40 Megapixel images (43rumors.com). It uses the on sensor stabilization system to shift the sensor to take 8 shots in different position. I guess Sony could do the same on the A7II!

Samsung news:
Samsung launched the 4K APS-C NX500 (mirrorlessrumors.com). Something Sony should do soon too…launch a cheaper 4K camera.

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Sony Japan just published their official CP+ Sony event page (Click here). And it shows all the upcoming new FE lenses and converters in their final production version. There is also a text in Japanese:

The whole page shows the list of conferences and promotes all latest products like the A7II, A7s, A6000 and even (at last) A-mount (A77II).

There is no hint whatsoever for a possible new camera launch. As I told you previously it’s very likely Sony may announce new cameras few weeks AFTER the CP+.

The rumored lens price and launch date is:
Zeiss 35mm f/1.4: to ship in March 2015. 1399 Euro?
Sony 28mm f/2.0: to ship in February 2015. 499 Euro?
90mm f/2.8 G OSS macro: to ship in March 2015. 999 Euro?
24-240mm f/3.5-6.3 OSS: to ship in March 2015. 1099 Euro?
converters for 229 Euro each?