According to photorumors Sony will increase the US price of the Zeiss lenses. I didn’t hear anything about that so I can’t confirm the rumor for now. But if you are playing with the idea to get the lens you may get one now!

Direct link to Sony Lenses at Amazon, Adorama and Bhphoto (Clic on store names).

And finally Sony gave us an explanation why it is taken so long to develop and release the A77. In an interview with dpreview they said that “we want it to be superior to its competitors, that’s why we couldn’t make it sooner,“. And about the NEX future: “so we’re planning to expand NEX in a more easy way, a lighter way, but we’ll also expand to make models that have more manual control and more DSLR-like capability.“. Sony confirms that the [shoplink 3003]NEX-3 and NEX-5[/shoplink] will be replaced soon and that the next FF camera is not coming soon.

So it sounds like our rumored roadmap could be true: Nex-4 soon, A77 by mid 2011 and NEX-7 at PMA. FF? maybe early 2012…

Read the full interview on Dpreview and feel free to share your thoughts on that on SonyAlphaRumors!

In December we told you that Sony would release the new DSC-HX9V and DSC-HX100V cameras. But we didn’t know that Sony would announce that on february 2nd and not at the CES event! Finally we got some new info from trusted sources:

The HX9v features at 16 Megapixel Exmor R sensor, a 16x wide zoom that starts at 24mm. It records 1080p60 at 28Mbit/s, it has a very fast autofocus (0.1sec.) and 10fps.
The HX100v has the same features but a wider zoom range (30x that starts with 27mm).

The HX9v costs $350 and the Hx100 $450.

P.S: We will post new A77 and NEX rumors as soon as possible!

[shoplink 5117][/shoplink]

Michael Bubolo (national DSLR trainer for Sony Alpha) told Amateur Photographer that the A77 would probably be launched this year and that it would definitely use the translucent mirror technology. Michael said the A77 will feature substantially better EVF and ISO will go ‘up into the hundreds of thousands’!!! The body itself is made with magnesium alloy and the price will be in the same area of the [shoplink 5117]Canon 60D ($900-1200. Click here to check price)[/shoplink].
Michael also said that “the specification is not finalised yet and that all details are subject to change, including the shape of the body itself.”

Interesting but also frustrating that they can’t give us any release date. I guess the rumors I received saying that Sony has still some issues in working out problems with the translucent technology are correct….:(

According to Amateur Photographer the 500mm f/4 lens will be released at the same time of the A900 replacement. Sony is showing a lens prototype at CES which includes on-barrel control buttons. It’s very interesting to note that the lens prototype has a Direct Manual Focus (DMF) control which enables a 15x magnified view of the scene to help focusing. That feature works only for cameras that do use electronic viewfinders only! So I guess Sony will release a Full Frame camera with Translucent mirror!

The question now is…when is Sony going to announce the next FF camera? Not very soon…. :(

I got two mails from a new source (Thanks!) that seems to know a lot about the upcoming new NEX products. According to him Sony will:

1) release a NEX-4 (16 Mio, 1080p Video) in May 2011 (its the successor of [shoplink 3003]NEX-3[/shoplink]). It will be available as a kit (no body only).
2) The successor of the [shoplink 3003]NEX-5[/shoplink] is coming later, together with…
3) the NEX-7 (24 Mio) in October. The NEX-7 will have the the same sensor like A77 a lot of “mechanical” controls and superb build quality. The cost of nex7 together with 18-55 lens is ~1200€-1250€.
4) New lenses this year: 1,7/24 ZEISS, 3,5/30 Macro, 1,8/50 and 4-5,6/55-200.

The source will read your comments on this post so ask him whatever you want!!!

If you can confirm or deny or correct those rumors feel free to contact me at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com or use the contact form on the right sidebar (it doesn’t store the IP address and you can avoid to send me your name and email but please use some kind of nickname so that I will be able to recognize you in future). Thanks!

Reminder (SR = Sonyrumor):
SR1=probably fake rumor
SR2=rumor from unknown sources
SR3=50% chance it is correct
SR4=rumor from known sources (60-80% the rumor is correct)
SR5=almost certainly correct!

I had new talks with my sources. They all expect the announcement of many new compact camera (I did count eleven cameras). And we are pretty sure there will be no new “real” NEX or A77 announcement. The only thing we can hopefully expect are prototype presentations of the future NEX-4(?) and Sony A77 cameras. So please don’t expect to much from the Sony live press conference. Let’s keep it down to earth. All we can hope is that Sony will give us some kind of new timeline and specs of the future NEX/Alpha cameras and lenses.

Anyway the good news is that a few of my sources confirmed some of the A77 specs I already posted on SonyAlphaRumors one month ago. I will repost them here:

According to my sources Sony has chosen to use a completely new sensor for the upcoming professional SLT (Translucent) camera. The sensor will have 24 Megapixels but don’t worry, I have been told the noise performance of the sensor is equal if not better than current 14-16 Megapixels Sony sensors used for the [shoplink 3003]NEX[/shoplink] and [shoplink 3617]A33/A55[/shoplink] cameras. It will feature the highest resolution APS-C camera on market (The [shoplink 4406]Canon 7D[/shoplink] is on top with the 18 Megapixel sensor). The Sony A77 will be released by mid 2011 because Sony needed time to develop an almost perfect camera. There will be many innovations (Paul Genge of Sony UK said that “this camera will include such high specification features that current [shoplink 3228]A700[/shoplink] owners will be amazed“). It will have an improved BIONZ processor (based on the current A33/A55 processor), micro af adjustment and record 1080/30p, 720p60 and 720p30 (But we can’t exclude last minute improvements like 1080p24). I also do know that Sony original plan was to release the A750 with Optical Viewfinder but I don’t know yet if Sony will indeed bring that prototype to the market (let’s say there is a 50% chance).

See you at 1am London time!!!