Dpreview met Sigma COE Yamaki and those are some of the hot news:

1) The native FE mount lens autofocus is faster than what can be achieved with the MC-11 adapter. This because:

What we did was to optimize the communication, for Sony. It’s faster, smoother, and we were able to utilize Sony [communication] protocols in the lenses.

2) About a possible size advantage of designing FF E-mount lenses from ground up for Sony only:

The wide-angle lenses would be smaller, yes. But any lens longer than 35mm, they’d be about the same size.

3) About the possibility of making new lenses designed for Sony FE only:

We are working on lenses designed from scratch for Sony E-Mount. This is just the beginning

4) About new APS-C E-mount lenses:

We’re going to release another APS-C lens for Sony E-mount this year, probably around Photokina. We need to see what the response from customers is like. If it’s good, we’ll continue development.

5) Sigma also offers mount conversion:

If you own a Canon EF mount version of any of them, we can convert your lens to a Sony E-mount version, for a charge. And if that user decides to go back to Canon EF in the future, we can even re-convert the lens back again.

To sum up: Don’t worry folks, Sigma will make lenses designed for Sony FF E-mount cameras!  And the new APS-C E-mount lens he is talking about should be a new 50mm f/1.4 ;)
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Sigma FE lens preorder links:
All lenses listed on one page at BHphoto (Click here). In detail:
Sigma 14mm f/1.8 for $1,599 at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma 20mm f/1.4 for $899 at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma 24mm f/1.4 for $849 at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma 35mm f/1.4 for $899 at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma 50mm f/1.4 for $949 at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma 85mm f/1.4 for $1,199 at BHphoto and Adorama.
Sigma 135mm f/1.8 for $1,399 at BHphoto and Adorama.

Photosku posted that accurate size comaprison between the new Tamron 28-75mm and the Sony 24-70mm GM.

Note that Tamron said the image quality will be on par with the GM lens while the price will be similar to the much cheaper 24-70mm f/4.0 Zeiss (check at Amazon US and Amazon DE). The only big trade-off is the “missing” 4mm at the wide end. But you gain 5mm at the tele end and you have a much smaller and lighter lens.

Here is also a new interview with Tamron by Personal View (follow their Telegram channel):

CameraJabber reported this:

Sony has sold more cameras on Day 1 of The Photography 2018 than during the whole of the show last year, retailers have told us. In fact, we’ve heard rumoured figures that Sony sold £200,000 worth of gear on Day 1 of the show, largely driven by keen interest in the company’s new A7 III.
One retailer told us the business had sold more Sony equipment on Day 1 of The Photography Show 2018 than it did during the entire show last year, while other retailers confirmed to us that Sony gear is flying from their shelves.
Another retailer confirmed for us that of all the major camera manufacturers, Sony was dominating the sales at the show so far.

I had no doubt the Sony A7III would become a hotseller. In terms of performance-price balance this is the best Sony camera in years.

Sony A7III preorder links:
Sony A7III in USA at Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon,  BestBuy, FocusCamera, BuyDig.
Sony a7III in Europe at Amazon DE, Calumet Germany, Amazon UK, ParkCameras UK, WexUK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, Amazon ES.
Join our Sony A7III Facebook group!

Well folks, you can hate the subscription model as much as you like but for the company this is working quite well. Adobe reported this:

• Adobe achieved record quarterly revenue of $2.08 billion in its first quarter of fiscal year 2018, which represents 24 percent year-over-year revenue growth.

I still use the old Photoshop 6 for my photo editing. But it literally pissed me off that Lightroom is now available on subscription only. This is why I am switching over to Capture One. In general I can recommend two alternatives:

Capture One:
I think this is the only TOP level alternative to Adobe. And in some aspects it even beats it (like RAW editing). Use the coupon code “AMBSAR” to get a 10% discount on Capture One 11 (Click here) and Capture One 11 for Sony (Click here).

Luminar:
It’s certainly NOT on par with Adobe but they are growing fast. The big news is that they will release a DAM module this year which should give you similar Lightroom functions. And it’s also a lot cheaper than anything else out there. And if you use the coupon code “SAR” you will get $10 off! Check out Luminar 2018 here.