A very good news: Zeiss 55mm FE lens already shipping in Europe!

Good news for European readers. UNlike previously stated on Sony Europe sites (late January) the Zeiss FE 55mm is shipping…NOW! First preorders have been shipped yesterday and all single Sony Europe stores changed the delivery date. Click these direct Zeiss 55mm links to Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT.

You will likely get the lens for Christmas! :)

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Specs and order links in Europe:
Sony A7r body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT,  WexUK, WexDE.
Sony A7 body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit Sony  DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony RX10 at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE.
Zeiss 35mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT,
Zeiss 55mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT
Zeiss 24-70mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, SE, PT
Sony G 28-70mm lens at Sony DE, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO.
Sony 70-200mm lens at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT.

New Sony one inch Sony Global Shutter sensor in use in Grasshoppers cameras. New HXR-NX3/VG1 announced.

The video on top is the presentation of the new Grasshoppers USB 3.0 camera. The camera itself is nothing interesting for us. What’s nice to know is that it actually uses a new Sony 1 inch Global Shutter sensor. All specs and details can be seen on the video you see on top or on that pdf file. Sounds like Sony cameras with Global Shutter will come soon too :)

Sony also announced the new HXR-NX3/VG1 camcorder (more at Sony UK).

The future is not the DF or A7r (PetaPixel and Kirk Tuck).

On our rumor sites we talk a lot about DSLR and Mirrorless cameras. But will these cameras still be here in future? Kirk Tuck and Petapixel posted two interesting article about an ongoing paradigm shift in the camera industry. Kir writes that the younger generation isn’t bound to the past film camera history. They think differently and they are not going to use DSLR or Mirrorless system cameras:

They are living the golden age of photography from their perspective, and their heroes in the field are names we don’t even know. This is a generation that values a personal vision that arrives as quickly as a phone call and has a much shorter half life than the one we experienced for our work, but then again, what doesn’t move faster these days?

Allen from Petapixel writes:

The future isn’t the Nikon Df, the Olympus OM-D EM-1 or the Fuji X100s. The future isn’t the Sony QX-100, which awkwardly attaches to my phone. The future for photographers willing to carry around a dedicated camera adopts paradigms from the phone.
WiFi, GPS and a touch screen are built-in, and its open source software allows me to launch Instagram (or whatever app is the soup du jour) and have the camera automatically pair with my phone so I don’t have to do everything twice.

SAR’s note: Predicting the future is almost impossible. Even big marketing guys failed in that and they will keep failing in future. So this is just my pure instinct talking. In my opinion there will be always a big enough market for System Cameras. But these cameras will not look like old Film Cameras anymore and also act very differently and have completely different and new features. A couple of these new tech details will be discussed in future posts on SAR ;)

More info about the two next MXcamera adapters

[shoplink 23285 ebay][/shoplink]

The new Deo Tech Mark 2 Contax G to NEX adapter is shipping on eBay at [shoplink 23287 ebay]MXcamera (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 23285 ebay]MXcameraEU (Click here)[/shoplink]. As you know you can use it to get full AF support and it works fine on your A7-A7r too.

And I got the following note from MXcamera about the two new adapters for the Sony A7-A7r (and all other mirrorless cameras):

In our production plan, we will release the brand new 3nd gen. of DEO (Canon EF to NEX) Full frame adapter in Dec., it will also carry “Bluetooth” inside which will be used for framework update.

To sum up all the upper information, since December DEO will still have two adapter models:

1. DEO (Contax G to NEX) Full frame supported adapter (Mark 2), Named Eagle;
2. DEO (Canon EF to NEX) Full frame supported adapter (Mark 3), Named Falcon;

The highlight features of Falcon (EF > NEX)
1. “Bluetooth” inside for framework update in the future.
2. “Full frame support”, Sony A7 and A7r for sure.

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Here is the list of great G lenses with links to eBay price:
Hologon 16mm; 1:8 on [shoplink 16235 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Biogon T* 21 mm; 1:2,8 on [shoplink 16236 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Biogon T* 28 mm; 1:2,8 on [shoplink 16237 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Planar T* 35 mm; 1:2,0 on [shoplink 16238 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Planar T* 45 mm; 1:2,0 on [shoplink 16239 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Sonnar T* 90 mm; 1:2,8 on [shoplink 16240 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
Vario-Sonnar T* 35 – 70 mm; 1:3,5-5,6 on [shoplink 16241 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Samyang 10mm f/2.8 comes for A and E mount. First image samples!

Samyang just released a new lens that will be available for both, A and E-mount camera owners. It’s the 10mm f/2.8 “ED AS NCS CS” lens. It covers the APS-C sensor area and is priced at around $400. It will ship from end January. Image samples can be seen at Samyangs website (Click here).

 

Samyang press release:

Prototype version of Samyang 10mm f/2.8 lens has been presented to the public on Photokina 2012 fairs. Samyang has stepped its gear and introduced a focused development program to obtain the highest possible optical parameters and reduce the product’s size at the same time. These efforts resulted in the latest version of Samyang 10 1:2.8 ED AS NCS CS lens featuring parameters and capabilities comparable to the best wide-angle prime and zoom lenses on the market.

 

Samyang 10mm 1:2.8 ED AS NCS CS is an ideal tool for indoor, architecture and landscape shooting. It provides an exceptionally wide field of view of up to 109.5 degrees and rectilinear image mapping function. Owing to a fast f/2.8 lens speed you can also use the lens in low light conditions. This is why it turns out a useful tool for sport photography and photojournalism purposes. The product’s optics comprises 14 elements divided into 10 groups, this includes 2 aspherical AS lenses and one lens made of extra-low dispersion glass. During development works on the prototype version the lens was fitted with an embedded lens hood which ensures more compact size of the lens and reduces its weight by approximately 160 grams*. * – applicable to a version with Canon E mount

 

NCS (Nano Coating System)

Samyang 10mm 1:2.8 ED AS NCS CS is the first Samyang Optics lens featuring a nano crystal anti-reflection coating system. This technology provides lower reflection factor than (U)MC system as the coating is now applied more evenly on the surface of the lens. Benefits brought by the nano crystal layer include better light transmission, increased resistance to reflections and higher contrast, and all of this translates into supreme optical resolution of the lens.

 

Sony Q&A at Imaging Resource (says cheaper RX1 version is possible).

Imaging Resource posted a Q&A session with Sony. These are some of the most important info:

– Sony’s spirit is to create something new which never existed before. We (Sony) will keep on working to create that kind of product in the future, with that spirit.
– Every single RX1 lens-sensor gets adjusted with an accuracy less than one micron.
– There will be cheaper RX1 alike cameras
– Why are FE zooms that slow? Sony says “f/2.8 isn’t very reasonable, but f/4 is reasonable for every consumer in terms of pricing point, and also the size.”
– Sony is selling more QX cameras than expected
– The RX10 processor has less power consumption than the RX100MII. And therefore less overheating issues.

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Thanks Mistral for sharing the link!