(SR4) UPDATED ->The Sony A-700 has been discontinued in Holland. The Alpha 800 is coming!

One of our reader J.V from Holland just received the information from Sony Europe directly!

Here you have the original message in dutch:
From: SONED.NL.Contact@eu.sony.com
To: xxx@xxx.nl
Sent: Wednesday, November 25, 2009 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: Webform Enquiry from x(Case: 2519xxxx)

Geachte heer V.,

Na aanleiding van uw verzoek, heb ik het voor uw onderzocht.

Het klopt dat de DSLR-A700 niet meer beschikbaar zijn.
De vervanging van DSLR-A700 zal tog de Alpha 8-serie’s zijn.

Ik hoop u hiermee voldoende te hebben geinformeerd.

Met vriendelijke groet,

Sony Support

In short:

“True, the DSLR-A700 is no longer available. The DSLR-A700 will be replaced by the Alpha 8 series.”

(SR2) “the a700 successor will have video and AF with video/LV through main sensor.
It will be APS-C and not FF, its display will be a tilting LED and not a LCD and a good OVF.
” (Just speculation or does he really know the truth?)

(SR3) Thom Hogan predictions for 2010!

Every year Thom Hogan predicts what’s coming next from Nikon (and not Nikon only! He also made a Sony prediction!):

Read the article at http://bythom.com/2010predictions.htm

I like this phrase: “Put another way, I’d say that Olympus, Panasonic, Leica, and Sony have a plan. Pentax has no plan. Fujfilm thinks they have a plan, but don’t actually possess one. Nikon and Canon have their old plan and think it will work forever. ” :)

And what is coming next from Sony?

  • Sony. Lots happening at the new Minolta.
    • First up will be Sony’s GH1 killer. Only it won’t kill the GH1, especially since Panasonic will be on the next model soon, too. APS sensor, interchangeable lens video/still camera without a mirror. Check. Unfortunately, it will be larger than many of the m4/3 cameras. This has been a crash project for Sony, and I think it may explain why some of the other rumored items have been delayed. Still, I don’t expect it until near Photokina time-frame, which means it shows up after Panasonic’s next offering and after Samsung’s. That puts a lot of pressure on it to be better in some clear, significant way.
    • The A700 replacement, which is long overdue. And yes, it will have video. As with Sony’s latest fashion, it will probably come as multiple models (e.g. A750, A775) instead of a single model, though. Difference between the two models will be sensor (say 14mp and 16 or 18mp). Sony’s using a shotgun to hit the target, then going back and finding which pellet hit the target and trying to figure out the gun that would do that by itself.
    • I think we’ll see the low end lineup go through some modest, small changes during the year, too (after analyzing which pellets hit the target).
    • This should be a strong lens year for Sony, too. We’ll finally see their 500mm, and we’ll get a couple of fill-in-the-blanks lenses, too.

(SR4) More news about the rumored GH1 Sony competitor…

As you know 10 days ago we reported that Sony is working on a Panasonic GH1 competitor. We received the news from one of our trusted sources (and a second source confirmed the rumor). We also received the rumor saying there will be a November 18 Sony announcement. Both rumors were/are true, but our mistake was to think they were connected to each other! In this days we tried to understand what’s really going on with the supposed new Sony mirrorless video and still camera. Now we can tell you a little bit more!

Sony has already a REAL! prototype of mirrorless video and still camera which uses a APS-C sensor. The bad news is that the camera is going to be presented on Photokina 2010…that’s in September only :(
As soon as we have more infos we will post it. We will also be a little bit more careful in future (to not repeat mistakes anymore).

In the meanwhile let Sony know what you want:

What do you hope to see announced at CES on January 5?

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(SR2) Latest japanese rumors

One of our readers sent us the following “rumor” coming from Japan:

– Sony will unveil a Camera with “Alpha” brand.
– Made for high-end movie with Alpha lenses.
– The camera is not compact.

(SR4) Tomorrow Sony will not present a DSLR but something else?

Since 10 days we know Sony will make some kind of announcement on November 18. We asked our sources if they know something more. The original source which told us that there will be a new Sony camera didn’t answer our latest mails. In the meanwhile another trusted source told us that Sony will not present a new DSLR tomorrow. The “business solution” Sony will unveil tomorrow could be a new videocamera or a new camera roadmap.

Stay tuned!

(SR5) November 18th Sony’s presentation about broadcast solution

The November 18 announcement is real! Sony is going to present a new “broadcast solution”.

http://www.business-i.jp/news/business/index.nwc (japanese)

Our source were right with his “November 18 announcement rumor“. So is he also right when the says that Sony is going to present a Panasonic GH1 competitor? “broadcast solution” doesn’t sound like Sony is going to announce a mirrorless digital video/photo hybrid camera.

Thanks MNZ for sending the link!