Kipon announced the new Leica M-mount to Sony FF E-mount Helicoid macro adapter. It costs ¥21.500 (close to $200).

Batis 85mm with Sony a7 and a7ii

Zeiss Batis 25mm f/2 on Sony A7S II Aperture Series: Blue Dusk Settles on Snowy Lundy Canyon (Diglloyd).
Lomography Petzval 58 Bokeh Control Art lens Review (Photobyrichard)
α7R II + PO3-3M 50mm F2 (Dc.watch).
Is it Time to go Full Frame? Weight These Pros and Cons Before You Decide (Digital-photography-school)
Frozen Landscape Photography with Sony a7ii (SonyAlphaForum).
Hands-On Review: The Sony FS7 and Sony’s FE PZ 28-135mm Variable Speed Zoom Lens (Explora).
Interchangeable Lenses versus Built-in Zoom: What Filmmakers need to Know (Explora).

Martin: “I will have a german webinar on using Lightroom for a streamlined workflow. http://xritephoto.com/ph_learning.aspx?action=webinars&eventid=-125&eventdateid=-151. All images were shot on the A7mk2 and A7R. Maybe its cool for some of your german language readers.”

Sony posted the full Q3 financial results (PDF file here). Here are a couple of key info:

1) The overall Sony Net income increased 21%
2) In the imaging segment Sony reports a 5% decrease in sales. But the profit had a 4.0 bln yen increase. The profit has been achieved thanks to cost cuts and “improvement in the product mix of digital cameras”
3) Q4 Forecast for the imaging segment: Sales estimation is 10 bln yen less than expected. This because of “Lower than expected sales of broadcast- and professional-use products”. But Sony also increased the operative income forecast (5 bln yen upward revision) because of “a shift to high value-added models”
4) For the first time after many years Sony reports a decrease in Image Sensor Sales (-12% sales). This reflects the current “crisis” of the smartphone market.

Overall the news is good for Sony. Like any other company the digital camera business sales are shrinking. But Sony shift towards high-end products with higher net margin is paying off.

Sony a7 Series Eyecup Comparison Part 1

Long Exposure Photography with Sony a7ii (SonyAlphaForum)
Sony To Use FD-SOI in Stacked Image Sensors (eetimes).
Thibault Roland on how he creates his images (Imagingambassadors.sony.net).
Comedy Sketch – Sony A7S II & 3DR Solo Drone (SonyAlphaForum).
High ISO noise – Sony A99 vs Pentax K3 – first impressions, and software NR (SonyAlphaForum).
Test Zeiss: Otus vs Loxia vs Sony-Zeiss (Thecinephotographer).

Bernie Aniciete: “Music video filmed using Sony a6000, LX100 and DJI Phantom 3 Pro. Used Nebula 4000 for stabilization: https://www.facebook.com/BnEPhotography/videos/10208666761053581/?l=6260241802673447734
www.BnEPhotography.com
www.Facebook.com/BnEMediA
www.YouTube.com/BnEMediA
@TheRealBnE – IG/Twitter“

This is somehow unexpected and SAR readers can try to figure out why this happened: According to the just posted new BCNranking 2015 Japanese market sales report Sony lost almost 10% of the mirrorless market share. The big winner was Olympus that went up 12%.

I am no sales expert but probably Sony’s focus on high-end cameras didn’t pay back in terms of market share. Not everyone has $3000+ to spend on cameras. Sony should probably focus more on the entry-level market to attract the “mass” of photographers. Those figures may suggest that non releasing a new A6100 and maybe an entry level A5 FF camera did come at some costs. Or maybe people feels Sony is not “serious” enough with their APS-C system. As Sony seems to be very focused on making FE lenses (big and expensive) instead of properly designed APS-C E-mount lenses.

What are your thoughts on this?

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via Mirrorlessrumors

Adobe added full support for the Sony ILCA-68 and many lens profiles for Samyang/Rokinon A and E-mount lenses. They also added a new feature. Here is the presentation text:

Introducing Boundary Warp

Stitched panoramas often have non-rectangular boundaries. There are several ways to handle irregular boundaries. The most common approach is to apply a rectangular crop. This is straightforward, but important image details near the boundary may be lost due to cropping. Another approach is to use Content Aware Fill (in Photoshop) to fill in the transparent areas outside the boundary. This can be effective, but may require multiple attempts to obtain a satisfying (smooth, artifact-free) result. It can also be expensive and requires rendering out the panorama to an output-referred(non-raw) format. Boundary Warp is a feature that provides another approach to handling the irregular boundary of panoramas. The feature analyzes the boundary and warps the image so that its edges fit a rectangular frame.  Here’s a visual example of the feature:

Sony released a new firmware update for the FS7 E-mount camcorder and the F5/F55.

The FS7 firmware can be downloaded at Sony Japan (Click here). It fixes a major RAW issue. And below you can find the major FS5 an F55 firmware upgrade info via Sony community:

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We are very happy to announce the release of Version 7.01 firmware for both the F5, and F55 digital motion picture cameras.

This release is v7.01. The firmware v7.00 package is not released due to last minute changes. Version 7.01 is an updated package from v7.00

Among other features and improvements, Version 7 implements the Quick Menu using the high-resolution sub-display. Three silver keys above the display and three keys below are context sensitive and give you direct access to often used, powerful features without needing to navigate the menu system. Each key will call up a special submenu page – Project, Monitoring, MLUT, Media, Viewfinder and Others – for fast, efficient navigation.

Improved viewfinder zebras – extended range

Documentarians and natural history DoPs have asked us for better viewfinder exposure tools when shooting off speed material in S-Log2 and S-Log3 without a LUT loaded in the VF. In addition to the already implemented High Brightness mode, and 1D Tone curve for the VF, we have responded with an improvement that will benefit all cinematographers in all shooting modes. We’ve extended the adjustment range of the viewfinder zebra pattern.The zebras can now indicate 18% Gray when you’re shooting in S-Log2 and S-Log3.

It’s easy to appreciate the extended ranges when you consider the output IRE levels that correspond to 18% Gray.

New Simultaneous recording mode:

This capability was requested from Documentary, Reality productions needing to shoot 4K 59.94p

For those needing to shoot HD and 4K of 50i with 50p or 59.94i with 59.94p we are implementing simultaneous recording to the same SxS Pro+ card of MPEG2 50Mbps 4:2:2 and 10 bit 4:2:2 XAVC in either 3840×2160 or 4096×2160. And as always with all simultaneous recording modes the files will have matching timecode and file naming for robust off line, on line conforming in post-production.

Rec. 2020 Color Space in Custom Mode (F55 ONLY)

To “bake in” Rec.2020 on a 4K XAVC™ recording, in Custom Mode.

A new generation of 4K Ultra HD televisions is poised to deliver unprecedented entertainment experiences to millions of viewers. The combination of Rec.2020 (ITU-R BT.2020) wide color gamut, High Dynamic Range (HDR) and 3840 x 2160 resolution will offer piercing highlights, significantly more shadow detail and a range of intense colors that Rec. 709 HDTV cannot match. Sony S-Gamut3 is perfectly positioned to take advantage of Rec.2020 home viewing. Version 7.01 firmware uses Custom Mode to capture Rec.2020 color into 4096 x 2160 and 3840 x 2160 XAVC recordings.

If you are shooting in CINE EI MODE select S-Gamut3 if your intended deliverable requires Rec. 2020. For further details please read the v7 update chart below (page 2), and the release notes

PMW-F55/F5 Firmware Version V7.01 Release note     Jan. 26^th, 2016

This document explains about the firmware update of PMW-F55/F5 V7.01 from PMW-F55/F5 V6.02. The latest firmware version of related products is below.

This firmware can be updated from V6.02, V6.01, V6.00, V5.11, V5.10, V5.0, V4.12, V4.11, V4.1, V4.0, V3.0, V2.11, V2.1 and V2.0. When you want to update F55 and F5 from V1.22 and earlier, you must update to V2.0 first. Regarding the procedure and functions about V2.0, please refer to “PMW-F55/F5 Firmware Version V2.0 Release note” which was released on Oct 4^th, 2013. The F55 and F5 must not be downgraded to previous versions after updating to V2.11. We cannot guarantee trouble free operation after downgrading. http://community.sony.com/t5/F5-F55/NEW-Firmware-release-Version-2-0/m-p/195623#M6582

An “All File” saved by a previous firmware version can be loaded to V7.00 in the F55 and F5. On the other hand, “ALL File” created by V7.01 is not compatible with F55/F5 installing earlier firmware version.

NOTE: The new Firmware V7.01 for PMW-F55/F5 is only compatible with AXS-R5 running with Firmware V4.1.

If your AXS-R5 has earlier firmware installed, please update to the current Firmware V4.1 at the same time. http://community.sony.com/t5/F5-F55/NEW-F5-F55-Firmware-Version-v4-11-and-AXS-R5-v4-1/m-p/410782#M19…