On November 7, 2023 Sony announced the A9III. The unusual news is that exactly 6 months have passed without any announcement of new cameras. Now, I know the next camera announcement is coming this month but we are getting the ZV-E10II…not exactly a camera we Alpha shooters were hoping to get after a half year long wait :)

The only comfort I can give e you is that in Q3 Sony will announce at least two new Full Frame cameras. And in Q4 we should get more. So patience my friends…. patience!

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Maybe Sony took some time to implement the new 4.0 CFexpress standard on their future A7sIV, A1II and A7V. Only this week we finally got the very first new 4.0 generation CFexpress Type A cards are in Stock at Amazon US! Those are the options:

• 480GB for $319
• 960GB for $519

If you need a “never ending” power source check out the new NP-F970 USB-C Rechargeable Camera Battery you can get now at Smallrig (Click here).

Mamiya 645 to Sony E Shift Adapter – Adapt Mamiya 645 Lenses to your Sony E Camera with Shift!

Today deals at Amazon, BHphoto, Adorama, Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon FR, Amazon IT, FotoErhardt DE, FotoKoch DE.
The Sony “G Master II Trio” with Allison Anderson
7artisans 50mm f/1.8 Lens Review – Real World & Lab Photo & Video (Jason Hermann).
Sony f/2.8 GM vs. f/4 G Lens Showdown—Which Holy Trinity to Pick? (Explora).
New DJI Mic 2 Wireless System Features Noise Cancelling & 32-Bit Float Internal Recording (42West).
A Glossary of Storage Terms and Acronyms (Explora).

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The brand new Exascend 1TB CFexpress Type A card is now in Stock at BHphoto (Click here). This card supports VPG400 ans is therefore more expensive than the OWC CFexpress Type A cards that are in Stock at Amazon US (on preorder but not in Stock at BHphoto, Adorama)

Why buy such cards?

No Sony camera yet has the hardware to support these Generation 4.0 cards. But there are three good reasons why to buy them anyway:

1. Those cards are backwards compatible and will work just fine on any Alpha camera on their max speed possible (900MB/s)
2. When you download the file to your computer it will be running at max speed of 1620MB/s Write via the new 4.0 card readers
3. I suspect that future cameras like the Sony A1II and Sony A7V will support those cards. So if you buy those cards now you are future proof if you switch to a future new Sony camera!

There is an interesting discovery made by one of our readers:

I wanted to show you potential proof, that the Sony A9 III sensor might be ‘welded’ from two smaller sensors. As a part our test of this camera we always do 3-minute long ‘dark’ exposures to see how a device would behave in an astrophotography applications.
Here’s a 3-minute exposure with the lens cap on taken with an A9 III at ISO 51200: pliki.optyczne.pl/SA93/darki/SA93_i051200.JPG

You can clearly see a line in the middle of the sensor that may (but we obviously can’t be sure) suggest, that the A9 III sensor is actually two smaller sensors ‘welded’ together. For context – Arri does that with their larger format cameras. The Alexa LF has a sensor that’s two ‘standard Alexa sensors’ joined together. And for Alexa 65 they weld together 3 standard sensors.  And they’re pretty open about this, so such technology is proven to exist.

Here’s the chapter of the test containing the dark frame analysis: optyczne.pl/499.7-Test_aparatu-Sony_A9_III_Szumy_i_jako%C5%9B%C4%87_obrazu_w_RAW.html

Now, I do not have the engineering skills to investigate this. It seems very unlikely to me that two sensors were welded together. But perhaps some Sony engineers reading this post can give us an answer to this phenomenon?