Sony CES 2016 Behind the Scenes

10 Best Features of the Sony A7R II and A7 II (David Busch)
28mm f2 conversion lenses. Which would you choose? (SonyAlphaForum).
Best Adapter for Tamron SP 150-600? (SonyAlphaForum).
Sony make official statement on ‘perceived’ FS5 image quality issues (Newshhooter).

Federico: “In the spring I have organized a photo shoot with some friends: the theme was the tradition of our land, the Po Valley in the North-West of Italy and the vast ricefields near Vercelli. The rice culture is present in our countryside for nearly a thousand years, you can imagine how deep and how strong this has shaped the land and the people. In the mid-eighteenth century, the farms became small villages, where dozens of families lived. In the spring the weeders arrived: women working in the sweltering heat of the ricefields.
Since 2004 Mr. Mario Donato has created a museum of rural culture and tradition in the farm “Colombara”: the workshops of the blacksmith and the saddler, the apartments of the farmers, the school, the old stables, the dormitory of weeders that we used as a set. As models we involved the local company of actors “The Camalli” who were dressed and made up in the style of the Po Valley countriside in the early twentieth century.
All photos were taken with my new Sony A7II and a good old Contax Zeiss 50mm f1.7.
You can see the photos on my dedicated 500px gallery https://500px.com/federanghino/galleries/italian-rice-fields-old-lifestyle
The gallery is “trending” on 500px https://500px.com/galleries?show=trending“

Cameraquest is taking $100 deposit for those of you who want to preorder the new Voigtlander FE lenses.

“In October 2015, Voigtlander announced their new Sony E-Mount Lens line including the Hyper-Wide 10mm f/5.6 – the widest production full frame lens ever!  Along side the Hyper-Wide 10mm f/5.6, Voigtlander is bringing the updated versions of the 12mm f/5.6 and the popular 15mm f/4.5 III to the Sony E-mount line.    Voigtlander is also bringing both the new 10mm f/5.6 and updated 12mm f/5.6 to their Leica M-mount Line.”

and

“We estimate delivery in April.”

via MirrorlessRumors.com. Thanks James!

UPDATE: Busted! The info is not correct and a trusted source gave us the 100% correct reasonf or the delay here: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sony-fixed-the-rx1rii-issue-official-press-text-to-be-released-soon-maybe-tomorrow/

Just for fun this is the WRONG information I got:

Currently Sony has low yield production output for the RX1RII. It is a specialty product that in this 2nd generation has gotten more interest than Sony originally predicted. There is a small team of specialized engineers and assemblers that put these cameras together, mostly by hand for most of the stages. The two most critical parts of this camera, are obviously the sensor and the lens. I want to confirm with you, that the hot on the production of this camera in the recent weeks has been do to an unusually large amount of negative feedback regarding not uniform focus or sharpness issues on the far corners of the image area. No just a few units have been proven to be the fault,because of the high cost of this camera and the reputation that Sony puts behind it, sony has decided to reengineer the way the assembly is done between the key two components, the sensor and the lens. This is the most critical part of the manufacturing and because of the increased resolution of the new sensor compared to the previous version and a slightly different amount on the lens that attaches to the body of the camera, in some instances it has been detected that not uniform assembly could be properly achieved among all samples being produced. The issue has been resolved, and Sony will guaranteed the elimination of this problem. Furthermore, all current cameras that are affected by sharpness issues due to the state of problem, have priority at all Sony repair and support centers, for immediate replacement with a new camera, or a realignment of the key components of the existing unit. I would like to confirm with you that full production capabilities and shipment of the revised camera assembly will begin shipping within less than 3 weeks from now. To date less than a hundred samples of this camera, have been confirmed by Sony to be default for the reason for which the production was halted. And though this is a very low number, it was large enough for Sony to take the decision to correct the problem at a very early stage of the production run and not later. Also, I would like to inform you, that this specific camera will always have a higher image quality output then the other cameras featuring the same sensor like the a7RII, because Sony specifically picks up after thorough testing of each sensor sample, the best units of each production run. This means that from all the sensors that’s Sony produces and tests before they are integrated in the camera bodies, the ones we better yields and the highest performance, will go into the RX1RII. Though the differences are extremely small and variations between the sensors are really minimal, this is the reason why consistent benchmarking the rx1r will always most likely top the a7R2. yes, the senses are the same, but in fact they are not the same. The best components that Sony produces will always go into the RX1RII.

Thanks to the source for sharing this! And I will post the “second part” of your message soon too ;)

Konzty on SonyAlphaForum.
Venice, Italy – Second trip with A7II + Sony Zeiss 35mm f1.4 + Canon 70-200mm f4.0

–

1) Submit your picture with a message and picture here: facebook.com/sonyalpharumors or on the SonyAlphaForum image section.
2) Like and comment the pictures from other readers here: facebook.com/sonyalpharumors/photos_stream?tab=photos and on SonyAlphaForum.
3) A selection of most liked pictures by the community and by me SAR admin will be posted weekly on SAR.

Note: When sending a pic feel free to also add a link to your site to promote yourself!

Gary sent me that message:

Hi Andrea!
I thought of a better idea for solving the problem of vulnerable pins on the Sony flash shoe foot. (Animated GIF attached to demonstrate the idea.)
Here, the pins automatically retract when they’re off the camera, coming out only when the flash is in the “lock” position. In a perfect world they would have some horizontal and vertical movement when shifting into position, as this would help ensure a better electrical connection, but ultimately this will be up to the mechanical engineers who implement it.

The advantage of this idea is that Sony does not need to change the MiS specification; they can simply make all new flash feet work this way.
If the reaction from your readers is positive I’ll suggest it to Sony, who I am told is very receptive to ideas and feedback right now.

Thanks for helping to spread this idea around! Sincerely, Gary

Gary L. Friedman
Author, Photographer and Lecturer
www.FriedmanArchives.com