Debunking rumors: No delays expected on A7-A7r shipments (for now).

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A couple of SAR readers sent me emails about A7 and A7r shipment delays info they got from some Sonys tores and other US or European stores. Rumor has that these cameras will ship in early January and not mid November as expected. I contacted a couple of store managers and for now they all confirmed that there is no delay at all. What may happened is that Sony service shared some wrong info or confused the shipment date for preorders with the expected availability for those people that will order the camera now.

Those of you that ordered the A7 and A7r cameras the first days should not be worried for now.

One more thing: One of the store managers confirmed that Sony is expected to launch new great cameras in very early 2014.

Specs and Preorders in US and Canada (Click on store name to see direct preorder page):
Dedicated Sony announcement page at Amazon US (Click here).
Sony A7r body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony A7 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony RX10 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 24-70mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 35mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 55mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
70-200mm A-mount at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony A-Mount to E-Mount Lens Adapter at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
Sony A to E adapter with mirror at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
A7/A7r leather case at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
A7/A7r vertical grip at Amazon, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony W Series Battery Charger at Amazon, BHphoto.
Sony FA-CS1M Off-Camera Shoe at BHphoto.
Semi-Hard LCD Screen Protector for A7-A7r at Amazon, BHphoto.

Specs and Preorders in Europe:
Sony A7r body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PTWexUK, WexDE.
Sony A7 body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit Sony  DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony RX10 at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE.
Zeiss 35mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT,
Zeiss 55mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT

Asia:
A7r at Digitalrev.
A7 at Digitalrev, Amazon Cina.
A7 with 28-70mm lens at Digitalrev.

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New Tamron 150-500mm lens to be announced tomorrow.

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And here it is your perfect Spy Tool! Tomorrow Tamron will announce that 150-500mm f/5-6.3 VC beast that will replace the current 200-500mm lens (here at Amazon). The new lens will have a superior optical quality. Price is still not known but the current 200-500mm lens sells for almost $1,000.

via CR.

 

Two Gold Box deals For German readers:
First price drop on ILCE-3000 at Amazon Germany.
And also on the A65 at Amazon Germany.

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A7r vs Medium format vs RX1R vs D800E. And more new tests by Frank Doorhof and Digitalversus.

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Image courtesy: Imaging Resource

Imaging Resource (Click here) added a couple of interesting A7r comparisons with other cameras:
– A7r vs Canon 5DmarkIII: “the Sony A7R clearly overshadows it with much more fine detail, particularly on the mosaic and fabrics.
– A7r vs D800E: “Both cameras here show fantastic detail. The Sony actually does a better with the mosaic in its default JPEGs than the Nikon.
– A7r vs Pentax 645D: “The camera that shocked the staff of IR with the amazing level of detail it showed now has a competitor with the Sony A7R. The mosaic crop shows slightly crisper detail in the A7R’s image, while the Pentax still produces a cleaner image of the red fabric.
– A7r vs RX1R: “The A7R pulls ahead in the fabric crop however, with better fine detail in red fabric.

Conclusion: “it’s clear that the Sony A7R delivers fantastic image quality, across a broad range of ISO levels. Sony seems to have finally gotten a handle on their in-camera JPEG processing

Part two of the A7r review by Frank Doorhof is now online:

What I really like about the files from the A7r is the quality of the “pixels” now let me explain. A lot of RAW images are fine but as soon as you start pushing the pixels around they will often break down, this can be because of dynamic range, noise or simply because….. you fill in the blanks. Medium format files are in my experience always rock solid, as long as you don’t lift too much shadows they can be pushed around like crazy without “breaking”. The A7r files are very close, due to the lack of the AA filter the images are incredibly sharp, and I really mean incredibly sharp, there is detail there that you will never see on a normal DSLR, however you have to realize that your choice of glass get’s incredibly important, if you use mediocre glass you will get very mediocre results

Also our friends from Digitalversus (Click here) published their full Sony A7r review. They say the A7r sets a new standard in term of image quality. Overall score is only 4/5, but this is due to an odd rating system where short battery life or “long” starting time (3s) wheigh has much as control or image quality is the overall score.

Specs and Preorders in US and Canada (Click on store name to see direct preorder page):
Dedicated Sony announcement page at Amazon US (Click here).
Sony A7r body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony A7 body at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit lens at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS. TheCameraStore Canada.
Sony RX10 at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 24-70mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 35mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Zeiss 55mm at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
70-200mm A-mount at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony A-Mount to E-Mount Lens Adapter at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
Sony A to E adapter with mirror at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto.
A7/A7r leather case at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
A7/A7r vertical grip at Amazon, BHphoto, SonystoreUS.
Sony W Series Battery Charger at Amazon, BHphoto.
Sony FA-CS1M Off-Camera Shoe at BHphoto.
Semi-Hard LCD Screen Protector for A7-A7r at Amazon, BHphoto.

Specs and Preorders in Europe:
Sony A7r body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PTWexUK, WexDE.
Sony A7 body at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony A7 with 28-70mm kit Sony  DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE, Amazon UK, Amazon DE, Amazon FR.
Sony RX10 at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT, WexUK, WexDE.
Zeiss 35mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT,
Zeiss 55mm at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, NL, BE, CH, AT, SE, FI, NO, PT

Asia:
A7r at Digitalrev.
A7 at Digitalrev, Amazon Cina.
A7 with 28-70mm lens at Digitalrev.

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Sony, Canon and Nikon do cut profit outlook.

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The Imaging Business report from Sony.

Canon (Info on Yahoo), Nikon (Info on Engadget) and Sony (Info on CNN) did cut their profit outlook. The full Sony PDF report can be donwnloaded here: http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/IR/financial/fr/13q2_sony.pdf. While Canon and Nikon stated that the system camera market (DSLR+mirrorless) will stagnate or shrink in 2014 Sony’s main issue is the dramatically disappearing compact camera business. That’s why they came up with the Sony QX system but if that will work out for Sony has yet to be seen. The outlook is still negative:

>Imaging Products & Solutions Outlook:
Overall segment sales are expected to be below the August forecast primarily due to a downward revision in the annual unit sales forecast of video cameras and digital cameras. Operating income is expected to be significantly below the August forecast, primarily due to the negative impact of the above-mentioned decrease in sales. Year-on-year, sales are expected to be essentially flat and operating income is expected to increase significantly.

There is no mention in Sony’s report about the DSLR and Mirrorless sales outlook. Would have been interesting to see what Sony expects from the A7-A7r sales.

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Nikon DF vs Sony A7r. Should Sony go “retro”?

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Image courtesy: Camerasize.com.

With the introduction of the new Nikon DF (specs here at Amazon) one more company enters the “Retro” (hype?) momentum. Dpreview writes: “My worry about the Df is that Nikon might have gone too far backwards for the sake of cosmetic appeal, without really adding any practical benefit to the shooting experience.” That said cosmetics matters and it’s nice to buy and own a good-looking camera!

The question I would like you to answer now is. Would you like Sony to offer a retro alike A- or/and E-mount camera? Or would you prefer Sony to improve the current more modern design? They could take some inspiration from great Minolta camera slike the [shoplink 22551 ebay]X-700 (here on eBay)[/shoplink] or the [shoplink 22567 ebay]X-700 (here on eBay)[/shoplink].

Assuming that crazy rumor is true. Would you be interested to buy the A5?

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P.S.: I would be already happy if Sony would remove the orange paint from the mount ring :)

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Dpreview Interview with Kimio Maki from Sony (explains difference between E and A-mount

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Kimio Maki is Senior General Manager at Sony’s Digital Imaging and also considered the “father” of the RX and A7-A7r series. Dpreview (Click here) posted a long Interview with him and here are some interesting key info:

– The QX series has been designed for the younger generation: “The younger customers demand better pictures to get more positive feedback from their peers – more ‘likes’ on Facebook.
– On the other hand, the kind of customer I had in mind for the RX100 and RX1 products was someone who wants to be able to carry the best image quality possible in their pocket or bag.
– The RX10 is different – that’s the camera I wanted for events, like sport, when my children are playing soccer and basketball.
– He explains the difference between E and A-mount: “We can make E mount cameras and lenses smaller than A-mount. But for A mount we can realize superior image quality with better new technologies“.
– Also interesting is the answer he gave about why no other company created something like the RX or A7 series: “Our company philosophy of creating new products, of course, plus a fighting spirit. We are a challenger. We are not kings in this industry. In professional broadcasting we’re one of the biggest companies, but in the still imaging industry we’re still challengers, so we have the freedom to experiment.
– He is sure Full Frame will become cheaper: “Sony is the number one manufacturer of imaging sensors, and if we can sell a lot of them, the price will come down!

It’s a very interesting interview and Mr. Kimio Mati really appears like a very curious and innovative man. I can’t wait to see what his next creation will be!

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Competition fun: Nikon DF…ugly or not?

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Some said the A7 and A7r are ugly but Nikon made an even more crazy new camera design. UPDATE: The Nikon DF has just been announced (Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto).

After Fuji and Olympus also Nikon is trying to give some touch of “old” design to their digital cameras. Don’t know if it would be a wise move for Sony too. Let’s say, something like a [shoplink 22551 ebay]Minolta X-700 (here on eBay)[/shoplink] could be nice or not?

[shoplink 22551 ebay][/shoplink]

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