New A7s review/videos (with most sexy model yet). A7s is leading the Amazon’s Professional Video Cameras ranking.

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SAR reader Isidor Taylor sent me his last A7s video shot with Top model Lise Olsen. Doesn’t tell a lot about the A7s quality but she is a beauty!
And here some more A7s news:
Behind the Scenes with the Sony A7 & A7s (Joshmcleodphotography).
Dirty slow motion video test between a Sony FS700 at 240 frames per second, a7s at 120 and a NEX7 at 60 (Dave Tameling).
Sony A7S Image Quality Analysis (Imaging Resource).
Sony A7s Compared To Sony A7r At High ISO Settings + Full Size Resolution Jpgs (Soundimagesplus).
A7s CINOFLEX (Vimeo).
Stills from 4K: How Many Megapixels Does it Take to Make a Great Wedding Album? (Planet5d).
German High ISO test (Sony Germany Forum).
Drifting From Shore shot on the A7s on Vimeo.

Zach:Commercial video for TxBands.com shot entirely on the A7s. The camera performed very well in an incredibly fast paced environment. Only had a few hours to shoot the event and publish the video before the event ended. The camera never got in the way and just allowed me to focus on shooting. https://vimeo.com/110933800

Laszlo:here two links to clips shot using Sony a7s in one voigtlander 35mm lens and in the other Loxia 35 mm lens. enjoy. https://vimeo.com/106631345 and https://vimeo.com/110671055″

Ashley:We recently filmed a black friday advertisement for our store using the Sony A7s with only available light.  Most of the night shots are at ISO’s of 8000 or more, we would love to hear what you think of the video and if you think it is something the SAR community would like to see.  Really shows how the A7s works in such low light conditions and still can deliver an image with great contrast and saturation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULy-dQuhu4I

What I never noticed before is that the Sony A7s is the leader of the Professiona Grade sales ranking at Amazon (Click here to see the full ranking).

A7s

Sony A7s store links:
Sony A7s in USA/CA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony USA, Sony Canada.
Sony A7s in Eu at Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PL. And Wex UK.
A7s Gariz leather case in [shoplink 27569 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 27570 ebay]Brown (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 27571 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 27572 ebay]Orange (Click here)[/shoplink].

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16-35mm FE review by Jörg Haag.

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16-35mm
Image courtesy: Jörg Haag.

The 16-35mm FE is shipping in Asia (Amazon Japan and Digitalrev) and Europe ([shoplink 30495 ebay]eBay UK[/shoplink]). And it will ship soon in USA too (check dates at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony Store US, Sony Canada). SAR readers are getting their lenses and this is a review published by Jörg Haag (Click here):

The FE 16-35mm is an adequate replacement of the A-Mount, at least from the perspective of image quality. An aperture stop less light is something to get over, because this is easily compensated by the better ISO performance of the α7 in comparison to the α99. I am looking forward to many hours of photography with this lens and I think this lens will not be inferior to the A-Mount counterpart in the field of architectural photography.

You can discuss with Joerg directly on SonyAlphaForum. More image samples have been posted on Photographyblog.

Check the full shipment date info here:
USA/Canada  at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony Store US, Sony Canada.
Europe at Sony DE, UK, ES, IT, FR, CH, AT, NL, BE, FI, SE, NO, PT.
Australia and Asia at Sony AUS, Amazon Japan and Digitalrev.

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Hasselblad about Design center closure: “will not have any effect on our production or product portfolio”

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Hasselblad-IDC-closed

As you know recently we reported about the closure of the Italian Design center responsible for the [shoplink 22672 ebay]Hasselblad Lunar (here on eBay)[/shoplink], [shoplink 22673 ebay]Stellar (here one Bay)[/shoplink] and the Hasselblad HV (here at BHphoto) design. DPreview now reports:

Hasselblad has responded to our questions about the design center closure. It confirms that the center has closed, but states that it ‘will not have any effect on our production or product portfolio’. It appears that while the northern Italy facility is gone, the re-badged Sony cameras may be here to stay.

To me it still sounds very clear that those rebadged Sony design strategy failed and will not continue. They may keep current production but If they close the design center…I do not think they will make new kind of luxury designed Sony cameras. But I may be wrong with my logic… :)

 

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Still no word from Sigma about the exact 50mm ART A-mount shipment date.

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Bildschirmfoto 2014-10-20 um 14.51.57

Sigma managers if you are reading this: Can you please tell us when you plan to ship the amazing 50mm f/1.4 ART A-mount version? It’s now quite a long time Amazon says shipping in 2-6 months :(
Recently Gordon from Cameralabs wrote:

The new Sigma 50mm f1.4 ART is a truly excellent lens which comfortably out-performs anything costing even twice the price. It sets a new standard for 50mm lenses and easily earns our Highly Recommended award.

This is likely the best A-mount lens you can buy and it’s pity Sigma is letting us wait so long to get it.

The A-mount lens can be preordered in USA Amazon (Click here) at BHphoto (Click here) and Adorama (Click here). And in Europe at WexUK (Click here) and WexDe (Click here).

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In Stock: Tamron SP 150-600mm for Sony!

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tamron_sony

The Tamron SP 150-600mm for Sony is finally in Stock in USA at Amazon (Click here), [shoplink 30420 ebay]KenmoreCamera (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 30417 ebay]Cameta (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 30418 ebay]Samys (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 30419 ebay]Photo4less (Click here)[/shoplink]. A larger Stock will ship in a few days at Adorama (Click here).

And the great sniper-lens-cover :) you see on top can be ordered at BHphoto (Click here).

Reminder: Full Black Friday deals can be seen on at that Amazon US page (Click here to see the long list). Specific photo deals of Sony/Sigma and accessory stuff can be see on that Amazon page (Click here).

More Sony US deals:
Tough E-mount replacement is finally in Stock at Amazon again (Click here)
A7/A7r: trade-in program at Adorama (Click here).
A77II: Up to $500 off on the body and kits at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
A6000:
$100 off on the body and kits at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
A5100: $100 off on the body and kits at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
A5000: $100 off on the body and kits at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto and SonyStore.
Open Box Sony A7 for $1198 only(!) on [shoplink 30334 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] $200 off on the Sigma 150-500mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$200 off on the Sigma 70-200mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$150 off on the Sigma 50-500mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$80 off on the Sigma 10-20mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$75 off on the Sigma 12-24mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
$50 off on the Sigma 8-16mm lens at Amazon and BHphoto.
$25 off on the Sigma 75-300mm lens at Amazon, Adorama and BHphoto.
Rebates on Sigma Flashes and Teleconverters at Amazon (Click here to see the full list).

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(SR4) Hot news! Sony revolutionizes the sensor world? Makes world’s first Active Pixel Color Sampling sensor (APCS).

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Important Note: I got this image from Cnbeta. But I already saw patents of that tech before and that’s why I rate the rumors with SR4!

Sony kills the long Bayer Sensor story:
If  what you see here on top will become true than this will change the photography industry! Say goodbye to the classic RGB Bayer sensors because Sony is going to announce a new “Active-Pixel Color Sampling sensor (APCS)” in 2015! The specs sheet above shows the new 1.5 inch sensor with 4,8 million pixels. And I guess some of you would think that’s way to low but here comes the big news:

Every single pixel can take the full color info with the help of an electrified moving color filter!
How this works in detail is yet not described on that paper. But basically instead of having four pixels “RGBG” interpolated into one single pixel information (as it happens on usual Bayer sensors) every pixel on the APCS sensor grabs the full color information. On paper there is no need of interpolation (we still don’t know exactly how this works). But please keep in mind that in real world the difference may be much smaller (current RGB sensors indeed also uses all sort of interpolations to increase resolution).
This is a more advanced solution than Sigmas Foveon sensor used on DP cameras. Sigma uses three vertically ordered R-G-B layers. But also here you need to merge three pixel information into one and you also struggle with noise level because electrons get absorbed (or lost) on each layer.

Positive effects of such a sensor design are:
– Bigger pixels compared to same resolution Bayer sensor. This means more electrons captured and therefore higher dynamic range and lower noise (crazy ISO possible…even crazier than those of the Sony A7s).
– No moire issues anymore. No Anti Aliasing filter needed (increases per pixel sharpness).
– That tech also allows to make crazy high megapixel sensor. For example if you keep an Sony’s APCS pixel size same as the current Sony A7r 36MP RGB pixel size sensor you could in theory make a much higher resolution sensor with same noise level.
– Less pixels to read means also faster processing and readout.
– You actually can have a “full-monochrome” sensor :)

Other key features of the new APCS sensor:
– Electronic Global shutter. No more “jello” effect on videos!
– Records 2K with 16,000 frames per second (processor doesn’t have to be interpolate between RGBG pixels and therefore can use full power to read out more frames per second!). Note that the current Arri Phantom Flex shoots 4K at 1,000 frames per second.

When are we going to see that sensor?
I believe that sensor will make it into a Z4 phone first. “Classic” Alpha photocameras will get the same sensor tech on APS-C and FF sensors later!

What I know beside that spec sheet:
Trusted sources told me “complete new” sensor tech would be introduced on the verge between end 2015 and early 2016. I also saw plenty of sensors describing such kind of pixels with electronic color filter. I will now try to collect some of them to show them to you in a future post. So while I posted this rumor with an SR4 ranking only (see ranking description below) I have a strong feeling this rumor is true. I will wait for my trusted sources to upgrade this to SR5 as soon as I can!

To not miss any of the (I promise you) damn exciting rumors follow SAR here:
RSS feed: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/feed/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonyalpharumors
Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonyAlphaRumors
GooglePlus: https://plus.google.com/104216500156717934391/posts

And if you have some “rumor” to share just send me an anonymous messages here:

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

Hot: The full Black Friday deals can be seen on at that Amazon US page (Click here to see the long list).

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rumor coming soon :)

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I swear this isn’t intentional guys! Just got an image from an INCREDIBLE new Sony APS-C sensor. I don’t know if it’s true as I didn’t get it from trusted sources. So once again, please stay tuned. Will try to get 30 min off from work to post it as early as I can. This is SR3!

Again, I swear, this is not an intentional tease! I really got the rumor while I am busy at work! Really strange how things do happen sometimes…

One more thing: If true this is a MASSIVE improvement in terms of image quality! GAME CHANGING. Wanna bet I am right? Stay tuned ;)

 

To not miss any of the (I promise you) damn exciting rumors follow SAR here:

RSS feed: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/feed/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sonyalpharumors

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SonyAlphaRumors

GooglePlus: https://plus.google.com/104216500156717934391/posts

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