Back in February I told you Sony would announce this lens in summer and here it is!

I guess the likely Sony announcement roadmap is this:

1. Sony 12-24mm GM lens maybe to be announced next week?
2. Sony A7sII successor sometimes in late July
3. “mysterious” new kind of Full Frame E-mount camera in late August/early September

Stay tuned folks!

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Image via Nokishita

EVF image of a current Sony camera (not from A7sII successor)

I don’t even post this as a rumor because I got a proof (sorry I cannot share here) that this is true :) More over two other reliable sources confirmed it! This makes it officially the first spec we leak about the new Sony As7II successor:

It has the world’s highest resolution new 9.44 million dot EVF!!!

By comparison the new Canon EOS-R5 will have a 5 million EVF “Only”.

I shall get some more info soon!

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Kenji Tanaka, VP and Senior General Manager of Sony Imaging Business (Image via Dpreview)

Well our rumor was spot on Sony just OFFICIALLY confirmed via Dpreview the A7sII successor will be announced this summer! Here is what MR. Tanaka said:

We’ve received many requests, especially from professional video content creators, and I can confirm that a successor to the Alpha 7S II will be coming, later this summer. Right now we’re focused on the launch of the new camera, and it will be a complete redesign of the whole system, including the image sensor. Everything is new. We hope it will meet and exceed the expectations and requests of our customers. I’m very confident that our new model will meet their demands.

The ‘S’ originally stood for ‘sensitivity’ but now I think it should stand for ‘supreme’ in terms of image quality, and expression. It comes from having really big pixels. I think that many professionals and high-end users will enjoy the new camera.

He said he got many features requests like:

Mainly things like 4K/60p, 10-bit 4:2:2… really what you’d expect. We’re aware that there is a certain amount of demand for Raw video. As you know, our customers include a lot of professionals, so we’re working hard to be able to deliver Raw data capture to these people.

Well glad to hear my 2020 rumors weren’t off…and indeed Sony A7sII will be announced after the Canon EOS-R5 like I told you last week :)

The question now is will the As7III overtrump the future EOS-R5? I think that from a pure video perspective it certainly will. And I like that they say the “S” now stands for “Supreme image quality”. That’s very promising!

This week Sony started to show the A7sII successor to press and store owners. Like I told you before I didn’t know until today when Sony would actually make the general public announcement of the camera. Well I now have been told that Sony decided to make the PUBLIC announcement shortly AFTER the Canon EOS-R5 launch. The timeline for the public announcement is this:

– Sony A7sII successor by mid-end July
– Sony second FF camera announcement (A5?) by end of August-early September

The Canon announcement:
I have been told that the reason is that Sony wants to unveil the A7sII successor after the Canon EOS-R5 (coming on July 9) to position it appropriately with the price and marketing. If you think that’s BS and there is no way Sony would wait for the competition read these facts:

1. History is repeating itself: Back in April Sony decided to postpone the already promoted April 20 NAB live announcement to April 30 after Canon announced it would unveil new products on April 20 too.
2. Sony A7sII successor is already registered in Asia since April 28 (article here) and the second FF camera by end of May (article here). Nokishita also spotted the 12-24mm GM lens registration a month ago. It’s the first time in 10 years a registered High end camera and lens takes more than two months after registration to be announced!

I know you are disappointed but I am 100% sure I am right on this. As this is a rumor coming from the same sources whom correctly shared this years rumors:

May 6: ZV1 launch
February 17: Sony 20mm FE specs
February 13: Sony 20mm FE info
February 7: Sony 12-24mm GM lens rumor (lens not announced yet but Sony registered the code confirming it’s real)
February 7: Prime lens rumor

I also have been told that first journalists and film makers already got the A7sII successor in their hands during internal meetings happened this week (there will be more meetings the next days). This is also very unusual for Sony to show them the camera one month ahead of the official announcement. And I think this time we might get some specs ahead of the announcement because of this (which would also proof that Sony indeed changed strategy in last minute).

Image on top shows the current Sigma 14-24mm FE

The same source whom correctly shared our first exclusive 20mm f/1.8 FE lens rumor also shared new details on the future Sony 12-24 f/2.8 GM lens:

1224GM announcement delayed by the Coronavirus outbreak.
the price could be around 4000$ !
lens can be equipped rear filter, maybe like 400/2.8.

The 12-24mm GM lens was previously rumored to be announced in Q2. I guess it’s no surprise the Covid19 outbreak will delay the launch of this lens.

What’s impressive is the high price tag! $4,000 for a wide angle lens is a lot. But from what I heard this is a superb quality lens and surely the fact that it might have the same 400mm GM rear filter system makes it clear this lens is made for landscape PRO photographers.

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Rumor ranking explained:
I now post only  two kind of rumors:

RUMOR: Marks rumors that  are somehow more solid and likely to be true
WILD RUMOR: Marks rumor that are from anonymous and first time sources. We post them just for the sake of fun and clickbait of course  :)

Note: Please hold me accountable for the “RUMOR” and not for “WILD RUMOR”  :)

Tamron released their full financial report. And within the document they discloses they plan to launch THREE new lenses for mirrorless in 2020 beside the 20mm FE and 70-180mm FE. No specs have been shared but we can safely assume those are FE lenses (also because my sources tole me “many” FE lenses will be announced this year). Tamron is quite confident those lenses will sell well:

“With newly launched mirrorless models, the sales of own-brand models is expected to increase the sales compare to the previous year”

Moreover they report:

the backorders on the 17-28mm f/2.8 RXD (A046) are expected to be cleared by the end of this month

This means they might be ready to start the 70-180mm f/2.8 FE lens production. The lens pricing (and preorder) is likely to be announced on February 27.

So what are the three lenses you wish to get from Tamron? Drop your ideas in the comment system!