Sony announces they will sell the PC and reduce TV business. Imaging business is a priority.

Sony is still facing a deep financial crisis and they plan to recover by completely selling their PC business and reduce their TV investments costs. And Sony.net reports:

In the imaging, game and mobile businesses that Sony identified as the three core businesses that would drive the growth of its electronics business, Sony has made significant progress in executing this strategy.

And Reuters reports that Sony:

will cut 5,000 jobs and trim 100 billion yen ($988 million) a year from fixed costs, while splitting off its loss-making PC and TV units.

The camera (and sensor) business is one of their high priority. Just let’s hope Sony can manage to move out of the deep crisis soon. We will patiently wait for more their new A-mount cameras, FE lenses and a more clear marketing and customer support.

Panasonic officially opens the 4k battle. Sony’s answer coming soon.

Today Panasonic launched the first mirrorless interchangeable lens camera with 4K recording feature, the GH4 (specs at Amazon). It has a 10bit 4K output over 3G HD-SDI and records on fast SD cards at 200mbit/s. It’s certainly a well made camera but Sony is about to answer soon.

Like in one month from now Sony will release their first 4K camera. It will be A-mount although I don’t exclude there will be an E-mount 4K camera too. The image of the Sony 4K camera has been shown last year:

Sony-Prototype-4K-DSLR-NAB-2013-616x409

The 4K Sony displayed this year at NAB show (Image courtesy: Engadget).

Expect a 4K marketing bombardment soon. And after that 8K will follow (in 1-2 years). It never ends :)

Source confirms: No IBIS on E-mount cameras yet. Sony website makers did a huge mistake.

Well this is quite a story and an embarrassment for Sony. My sources confirmed that the next A6000 definitely has no on sensor stabilization. And one of the source told me that:

The Sony Europe sites are undergoing heavy changes. And the company outsourced by Sony to do the website thought that also E-mount cameras have on sensor stabilization. That’s why they made the design you see on top of this post. It means even companies working for Sony are confused about what’s the difference between A and E-mount cameras! Bad joke I know :)

After reading the post here on SAR Sony quickly reacted and removed the sketch from their sites.

 

Tamron announces the APS-C 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 and 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Full Frame superzooms.

No, you are not drunk! The image  doesn’t show the same lens twice…theses are two different new Tamron lenses!

On the left you see the 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 Full Frame and on the right the Tamron 16-300mm f/3.5-6.3 APS-C lens. Both will come in A-mount too. Imaging Resource reports:

Both lenses contain aspherical lens elements as well as Ultra-Extra Refractive Index glass, and both will be shown off at this year’s CP+, which is set to begin on February 13th in Yokohama, Japan. Pricing and availability for both lenses have yet to be announced.

Nice lenses!

New Pentax 645D2014 also uses the 50MP Sony CMOS sensor!

Images via Popco.

At the end it looks like every medium format camera maker will use the new Sony 50 Megapixel CMOS sensor! Pentax Ricoh announced the new Pentax 645D 2014 medium format camera that uses the Sony sensor just like the new Hasselblad and Phase One cameras.

This is the official info about the camera from Ricoh-Pentax:

Model name (tentative): PENTAX 645D 2014
• Latest, super-high-resolution CMOS image sensor
• High-speed response in a variety of photographic applications
• Tilt-type LCD monitor
• Market launch scheduled for Spring 2014

 

Images via Popco.

Sony 24-70mm short shipment delay in USA. But shipping in Europe!

The new Zeiss 24-70mm f/4.0 FE lens will ship from February 20 according to SonyStore US (Click here), 3-6 weeks at Amazon (Click here) and in March at BHphoto (Click here).

SAR readers Joseph wrote: “After being told by Sony on the phone that the 24-70 lenses were going to ship on Feb. 2nd (a strange date because that was a Sunday), with warehouse updates as recently as last Friday Jan. 31st, I was not told, finally, that the lenses have been delayed until Feb. 20th. I am pretty sure my order is in the first batch, so I don’t think anyone in the U.S. will be receiving this lens prior to Friday February 21st or so.

The good news is that Sony Europe is shipping the lens and this has been confirmed by many SAR readers. It ships at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, SE, PT!

Darin sent me some images for download: “With the delays I couldn’t resist having a friend send me the 24-70mm f/4 from Japan. Plus Sony Japan throws in a free three year accidental water damage warranty. Not sure what to think so far, sharp until f/8 then this copy gets oddly soft, no idea yet what that is all about. There are raw images for download too: http://www.kayakphoto.com/darinmcquoid/Sony24-70.html

Zeiss 24-70mm preorders: EUROPE at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, SE, PT USA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.