Competition news: Nikon 1 V3 has similar A6000 hybrid AF.

Some news from the competition: Nikon announced their new flagship Nikon 1 V3 mirrorless cameras. First thing you will notice is that it can do 20fps in continuous AF mode and a very A6000 alike hybrid autofcus system with nearly 100% frame coverage. But they do not claim the AF to be as fast as the A6000.

Second thing you notice is the high price ($1,200 here at Amazon). Quite pricey if you consider the A6000 costs $400 less.

P.S.: Nikon 1 V3 Coverage at Mirrorlessrumors.com.

Sony clearly says A6000 replaces the NEX-7 too.

Image source: Winandmac

I still get mails from readers asking when the NEX-7 successor (aka A7000) will be announced. As I wrote many times on SAR I know from trusted sources the A6000 replaces both, the NEX-6 and NEX-7. Well for disbelievers here is an image of an official Sony presentation showing clearly how the A6000 replaces the NEX-7 too. Thanks Corto for sharing the pic!

The future of TriNavi: One source told me TriNavi navigation is certainly not coming back in any future APS-C E-mount camera. And as far as he knows not even in any Full Frame E-mount camera.

Sony A6000 preorder list with US and Europe links:
Sony A6000 at Amazon (Click here), Adorama, BHphoto (Click here), SonyStore (Click here). In Europe at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, AT, NL, BE, CH, FI, SE, PT, WexUK.
Silver A6000 at WexUK (Click here).
Sony A6000 with lens at Amazon (Click here), Adorama, BHphoto (Click here), SonyStore (Click here)Sony Canada (Click here), WexUK (Click here).
Silver A6000 with lens at WexUK (Click here).
Sony 70-200mm FE at Amazon (CLick here), BHphoto (Click here), SonyStore (Click here). In Europe at Sony DE, UK, FR, IT, ES, AT, NL, BE, CH, FI, SE, PT

 

Roger Cicala tests the A7r light leak issue (yes it’s there and it can be solved)

Image courtesy: Lensrentals

Roger Cicala from Lensrentals tested how sever the A7r light leak issue is and these are his findings:

  • We tested several A7rs and several A7s and all were the same, so it’s simply a design issue, not a batch of defective cameras.
  • The light leak occurs with the body cap in place, but is more severe with a 35 f/2.8 Sony lens mounted instead of the body cap.
  • The leak is worst when the light is shined onto the lens-release button area. It is also bad when the light shines onto the lower left quadrant of the lens mount, and directly above the lens mount. Other areas either didn’t leak or showed only a thin line that was far less pronounced than these areas.
  • Wrapping something around the lens mount stopped the left side leaks, but not the leaks around the lens-release button.

Roger fixed it by putting some rubbed material around the mount and lens release button. This helped to get rid of the problem. And he also wrote this:

And for you Fanboys who just can’t wait to Sony bash over this odd little issue, let he whose camera is without light leak cast the first stone. Because, so far the same problem has been found with Canon, Nikon, and Fuji cameras. I assume a similar solution will work just fine for those, too.

Sony knows how to fix the leak (and Fuji X-T1 has similar issue too!).

Image courtesy: SLRclub.

One more update on the Sony A7 and A7r light leak issue story:

A source just told me that “The Sony service centers know how to fix the light leak“. The cause was “an assembly issue“. This has been confirmed by a test run by an user on the Korean site SLRclub. It’s the mount ring that has to be fixed to solve the issue.

And if you think Sony is the only company having such troubles well….the porbably most popular camera of the moment, the Fuji X-T1 (here at Amazon) has been reported to have the exact same issue!!! But Fuji already offers a service where you can sind in the camera and get it back repaired within 10 days.

New RCCDroid APP makes you control the A58 (and other Sony cameras too?) via tablet/smartphone.

At rccdroid.glensk.com you can read about the new RCCDroid Android App (Download here at Pplay.google.com). It’s a new App that allows USB Tethering/Remote Control of the Sony Alpha SLT-A58. But someone on the Sony Germany community also discovered that it should actually work on other cameras like the DSLR-A700, DSLR-A850, DSLR-A900, SLT-A99, ILCE-7 and ILCE-7R).

This is what you can with the Android powered device and USB connection:
Preview of a taken picture on a large display (e.g. Tablet)
Long term exposure without touching the camera (BULB)
HDR Series
Selfportrait with correct focus

The following features are planned for future versions
Timershots (Time laps)
Change of camera properties
HDR Series with different adaptions
Automatic shutter by noise
Wireless mode via Bluetooth
Videotakes
Writing of GPS data to pictures
Support of further Sony models (e.g. A99)

Sounds great!