Wise announced the new superfast Type A cards that should soon be available for reorder on Amazon and BHphoto. This is the press text:

Taipei, Taiwan – May 15, 2024 – Today, the 512GB Type A returned with reinforcements in 256GB and 1TB. All bear the VPG400 logo, compliant with Video Performance Guarantee established by the CompactFlash Association.
All Wise CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II models unlock the full potential of Alpha cameras, supporting all video codecs including the slow-and-quick modes in finest HD / 4K in XAVC S-I format.
“Now that we are VPG certified and fully compliant with industry standards, Alpha users can make a choice,” said Wise Senior Product Manager, Frank Wang. “It’s about authenticity and reliability, right? There are options now.”
The Wise CFexpress 4.0 Type A Mk-II cards will be available early June, and will MSRP at US$219.99, US$359.99, and US$549.99 respectively. For more information contact your local dealers or visit our site.

In the past weeks we got a ton of new Type A cards and most of them are in Stock:

4.0 generation VPG400 cards:

• Exascend 1TB for $699 at Amazon, BHphoto.
• Exascend 512GB for $379 at Amazon.
• Exascend 256GB for $279 at Amazon.

4.0 generation VPG200 cards:

• OWC 960GB for $519 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama.
• OWC 480GB for $319 at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama.
• Prograde 960GB for $679 at BHphoto, Adorama.
• Prograde 480GB for $479 at BHphoto, Adorama.

2.0 generation VPG 400 cards:

• Nextorage 640GB for $749 at Amazon
• Nextorage 320GB for $439 at Amazon
• Nextorage 160GB for $229 at Amazon
• Nextorage 80GB for $164 at Amazon
• Nextorage 40GB for $89 Amazon (this one has max 550MB/s write and 600MB/s read)

2.0 generation VPG 200 cards:

• Nextorage 1920GB for $899 at Amazon (lowest price of any 2TB Type A card)
• Nextorage 960GB for $499 at Amazon
• Nextorage 480GB for $199 at Amazon

4.0 generation Type A card reader:

• Prograde Type A card reader for $99 at BHphoto, Adorama.

ATTENTION: High risk card: new Airusan 256GB Type A card from Amazon US and EU (Click here) with officially NOT approved VG400 cards (as claimed by them).

Sony published the full financial report for the fiscal year 2023 (ended on March 31 2024). You can download all reports here.

The very good news is that they had a 25% increase in sales compared ot the previous fiscal year! In their reports they only have two statements about the camera business:

• In FY23, digital cameras and interchangeable lenses generated increased sales and operating income thanks to enhanced product appeals, and televisions and mobile communications reduced costs, enabling the entire segment to achieve a level of operating income that exceeded FY22 results and our projections at the beginning of FY23.
• The market for interchangeable lens mirrorless cameras, which is the main source of sales and profit for this segment, showed strong growth in the previous quarter, primarily in China and Japan, and has continued to remain strong since April.

The world is back loving cameras :)

Now Sony let’s rock in 2024 too!

Activate the subtitles to understand what he is saying about this lens. I bet the video will be removed soon :)

Typoch just released two of their well known M-mount lenses as native E-mount versions:

• Thypoch Simera 35mm f/1.4 (here at BHphoto).
• Thypoch Simera 28mm f/1.4 (here at BHphoto).

A full press text can be read at Explora.

A couple of SAR readers noticed you can get the Sony 300mmf /2.8 GM for $4,799 only at Adorama (Click here). But folks, I hate to kill your dreams…I am sure this is a “glitch in the Matrix”. So if you preorder the lens make sure you contact Adorama and ask them what’s going on. Don’t know if they are “obliged” to give you the lens for the listed price…

About those rumors: I have no idea who sent them and 90% of the times they turn out to be wrong. But, it happened in the past that a couple of those were right. So I will post them today, and we all together can eventually keep track of this. If one of the sources turns out to be right than we will know we can trust it a bit more!

Source 1:

We release A7R VI this summer, the aim is to cut the legs out of canon Olympics release.
For now not many technical details can be shared, but I can tell you this, stacked CMOS and much increased video capability.

Source 2:

Sony is planning to release its latest FE 500mm F2.8 GM OSS by May/June 2024, a relatively lightweight, large aperture super telephoto lens that will be in service for the 2024 Olympics. It is slightly heavier than the FE 600mm F4 GM OSS, but less than 8.2 lbs. It also has an exclusively designed 1.6x TC that can be converted to 800mm F4.5.

One more crazy rumor:

Like I told you before I still have no reliable info about a possible A7sIV coming any time soon. But a couple of chinese SAR readers told me that there is a rumor going around their socials about the A7sIV. One of the readers told me this:

HI, Andrea. I read on a Chinese app called “Little Red Book” that A7SIV will be launched at the launch event this month. And I also read a lot of information on Chinese tiktok that you can get A7S4 around June. Although I don’t know if these messages are as trustworthy as the information sources you trust, I decided to share them anyway.

The A7sIII is the oldest camera in the lineup. It has been announced on July 28, 2020 and usually Sony’s release cycle is 4 years. Let’s hope reliable rumors will come in soon…but for now I find it hard to believe the A7sIV is coming this month already.

Just recently I told you that Topaz has completely redone the website for their AI software. Check out the new pages at Photo Ai, Video AI, GigaPixel AI. And now we got updates:

Photo Ai Full changelog for version 3.0.2:

• LrC will now export DNGs when processing RAWs without “Adjust Lighting” or “Balance Color”
• Fixed a memory leak caused by large exports of RAW images
• Fixed “Add to collections” feature for LrC sometimes not working on Mac
• Fixed autopilot not applying to batch exports in some scenarios
• Fixed PS Automate plugin not saving changes back to PS on some devices
• Fixed PS Automate plugin looping when cancelling an export
• Fixed the upscaling model selector not showing full names of models
• Fixed images sometimes being skipped during export
• Fixed switching images causing the wrong filters to be processed
• Fixed RAW Denoise being added to invalid RAW images
• Fixed context menu sometimes not opening
• Fixed the shortcuts in preferences being horizontally draggable
• Fixed invalid state when removing all enhancements on RAW images
• Fixed incorrect font rendering on machines without the Inter font
• Added support for window snapping on Windows
• Adjusted PS dialogs on Mac and Windows
• Updated Lensfun

GigaPixel AI Full changelog for version 7.1.3:

• Fixed an issue where pinch to zoom capped at fit zoom levels
• Fixed an issue which caused model flashing when toggling legacy models
• Fixed an issue where clicking an already chosen item re-loaded the image
• Fixed an issue where Shift + F (show detected faces) would not work in the comparison view
• Automatic Lensfun Update

Video AI Full changelog for version 5.0.3:

• Added back reset button for timeline zoom.
• Added .SER as an importable file type.
• Fixed certain input tiff sequences failing to load with projects.
• Fixed 0s elapsed bug when finishing export.
• Fixed stabilization not reloading in app (loading with error).
• Fixed benchmarking failing to load.
• Fixed trim + crop + rotation persistence across projects.
• Fixed EXR+DPX failing to reconvert.