Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens production increased. And $60 price drop in US!

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Fifteen months ago Sony announced that nice Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 but Sony never managed to produce enough lenses to fulfil the demand. According to top sources Sony finally found a way to increase the lens production and it’s expected to ship in large amount to EU and US stores in a  few weeks. And destiny wants that today we had the very first price drop on that lens too! Sony authorized retailed Beachcamera is selling the lens with a $60 discount at Amazon (Click here) and on [shoplink 15680 ebay]eBay (Click to check it out)[/shoplink].

In Europe the lowest price I found was at Wex Germany (Click here). No real price drop in EU for now :(

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To get notified on eBay price drops on that lens login, set your country and save this search on Slidoo.

Sony TidBits…


What’s Next for Sony Interchangeable Lens Cameras

The Orphanage: a photo essay by Mike Kobal, shot with the Sony A77
Sony Real Time Gallery – World’s First (ePhotozine).
sony Cyber-shot DSC RX100 + magfilter adapter ring 52mm + hoya Pro1 Digital 52mm MC PL-C at Cadabras.
NEX-6 and powerzoom AF testing by SonyAlphaLab.
NEX-7 review at SansMirror.

New jackar 34mm f/1.8 lens

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Jackar Optical released a new 34mm f/1.8 lens with native E-mount. It is a manual lens and all specs and images can be read/seen at Snapshooter.jackarlens.com and on Flickr. The lens will be for sale on eBay by early December and cost $190. Jackar adapters and fisheye lenses can already be found on [shoplink 15550 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
The lens design is based on the current [shoplink 15551 ebay]C-mount 35mm lens ($40 here on eBay)[/shoplink]. What they changed is the material, finishing, the ring is larger and turning has been improved. Plus the lenses are multi-coated and of course mount is NEX. It comes with a lens hood and genuine leather case as you see form the images below:

Fitch Downgrades Sony to Speculative Grade.

Fitch downgraded Sony “given the company’s loss of technology leadership in key products, high competition, weak economic conditions in developed markets and the strong yen“.

The problem is certainly not the camera business: “Fitch believes that continuing weakness in the home entertainment & sound and mobile products & communications segments will offset the relatively stable music and pictures segments and improvement in the devices segment which makes semiconductors and components.“.

As you know Sony is completely restructuring the company and Fitch writes: “Fitch believes that the strategic initiatives announced in April 2012 to turn around the company’s electronics business are the right approach, but execution is a risk and macro headwinds and intense competition across almost all of Sony’s key products may delay the recovery.”

That will probably bring to a long discussion now if such rating agencies are trustworthy or if Sony is trustworthy. We have to see it globally. It’s a hard time for many companies and many countries. And I am not sure how to decipher what is happening now. In short, I am not worried about Sony, I am more worried about us learning how to come out of a global crisis liek that!

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Black Friday hourly deals: Amazon (cameras), Amazon (all stuff), Adorama, Bhphoto, J&R, TigerDirect, Bestbuy and eBay.

One Rokinon review, one Rokinon delay and one Rokinon deal :)

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Today we have a triple Rokinon/Smayang news:

The delay: On Facebook Samyang announced that the Samyang T-S 24mm 1:3.5 ED AS UMC release has been postponed to March 2013.
The review: SLRgear tested the 85mm f/1.4 Rokinon/Smayang lens and writes: “Samyang’s approach to make an economical manual focus lens was a wise one: if you don’t need autofocus, but want the razor-thin depth-of-field of a fast lens for not a lot of money, the lens was already on your radar.”
The deal: The Rokinon 8mm fisheye got a $70 discount at BHphoto (Click here).

Two reminders:
1) The first one is that like The Count of Montecristo (book I am reading now) also Rokinon has dozen names. In USA: Rokinon, Samyang, Opteka, Bower and in Europe: Samyang, Rokinon, Walimex, Falcon, Vivitar.
2) Keep watching these Black Friday deals on Amazon (Click here) on Adorama (36 pages of deals!) and on BHphoto (Click here). They are updating every hour and I am not going to update you with every deal on every camera and accessory :)

Happy shopping!

P.S.: The Count of Montecristo is the perfect book if you like me dream a revenge but you want do it for real :)

Sony 10-18mm E-mount lens shipd in Japan (and UK).

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One after another the new Sony stuff starts to be shipped. Now the 10-18mm E-mount lens is in Stock in Asia (like Amazon Japan) and in [shoplink 15473 ebay]UK (via eBay reseller)[/shoplink]. SOme image samples can be seen at ePhotozine.
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Sony E-mount 10-18mm preorders at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.