NHK reports that Olympus and Sony may have reached an agreement and Sony will invest 50 billion yen into Olympus in exchange of a large Olympus share. The main interest for Sony is the medical business but I guess there will be some effects on the camera business too. By the way, the popular Olympus E-M5 camera already uses a Sony sensor!

UPDATE: Some still don’t believe my words…Olympus manager Sasa confirmed some time ago that the E-M5 uses a Sony sensor. Here is the source of the news: DC.watch.

The image on top shows you how much you can spend on accessories once you have decided to buy the RX1 :)

The new RX1 is certainly the most unique camera announced by Sony and could be the most unique camera announced this year by the whole digital camera industry. The preorders are up at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK ,Wex Germany (and more links at Alphacameradeals). And the first indication we get from the digital camera popularity ranking (Click here) is that the camera preorders are higher than the ones of the Sony A99. Time has come to make a roundup of the interesting news I found about the RX1 today:

Image samples:
The only RX1 image samples I found have been posted on Cameraegg. These are full size jpeg images taken at 100 ISO. I would like to see an image comaprison between the RX100 and A99 to see if the new FF translucent mirror on the A99 takes away some minor bits of image quality or not. Drop me a message if you find a test like that on the web!

The RX1 ripped off:
ePhotozine, Photographyblog and Engadget posted many images of the RX1 including details of the ripped off camera. Particularly that picture shows the large last lens at the “mount-level”. There are some discussions on forums (example on Fred Miranda) saying that such a lens design would not have been possible to do if the lens would have to fit on an E-Mount. And a lens with the same specs and quality would be bigger if done with an E-mount. I may ask our more expert readers to let me know if such a statement is correct or not. Hope DK form Photoclubalpha may can give us a clue on this!

The viewfinders:
Techradar Shows some pics of the camera withe the optical viewfinder. There is a big blue Zeiss logo on the viewfinder I personally don’t like to see there. A picture of the camera with the electronic viewfinder can be seen here on Flickr. There is no blue Sticker on top and I like that :) A fake Hello Kitty eidtion on Imageshack.

Early thoughts here and there
Lori Grunin writes: “While the flash pops up, it doesn’t seem to tilt back for bouncing the way the RX100’s does.”
Gizmodo writes: “This is a Cyber-Shot camera, which means it’s not just point-and-shoot sized, it’s a point-and-shoot with a prime 35mm f/2.0 lens. It’s a Carl Zeiss lens, so it’s surely lovely, but the lack of interchangeable lenses and no possibility for zoom is going to turn a lot of people off.”
Techradar: “As Sony rightly points out, this camera is entering a segment of the market which doesn’t really exist, so the company will be carving out a new category for the RX1. How will it will perform is a bit of a guessing game at the moment, but if image quality lives up to expectation we can see it being a very aspirational camera that many will save up for.”
Ken Rockwell: “I expect the DSC-RX1to be very popular with the folks who always buy the latest new photo gizmos, and those who spend more time talking about them online than actually shooting them.”

About the price:
The RX1 is not an expensive camera. If you would buy the NEX-7 (APS-C sensor) and the Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 you would have to spend around $2,200. There is “only” a $600″ price difference with the Full Frame RX1.

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A99 body Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex UK, Wex Germany, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.
A99 with kit lens links Alphacameradeals.
RX1 Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK ,Wex Germany and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-6 body Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Wex UK, Wex Germany Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-6 with kit lens Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Jessops, Wex Uk ,Wex Germany and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-VG900 Amazon, BHphoto, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, Wex Uk and more links at Alphacameradeals.
NEX-VG30 Adorama, Amazon, BHphoto, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony E-mount 16-50mm Amazon, Adorama, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals .
Sony E-mount 35mm Amazon, Adorama, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony E-mount 10-18mm Amazon, Adorama, Wex UK, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH, and more links at Alphacameradeals.
Sony A-mount 300mm f/2.8 Amazon, Sonystore DE–UK–FR–IT–ES–NL–SE–FI–CH.