At Viewbug you can watch the five best pictures of our Viewbug-SAR fast shutter speed contest. The overall winner is Shikhei with his “Splashing” photo! Congrats!

Our reader Jim noticed an issue with the new Zeiss Touit 50mm macro lens:

I have recently purchased the Touit 50 macro for my Sony a6000 and was delighted with the combination until I found that the lens is unusable with the camera when the flash is deployed. There is a 3 second delay from pressing the shutter button to the flash and shutter operating.

He contacted Zeiss to ask for a solution and that’s their answer:

Yes, this flash problem with the Sony cameras could be solved with a firmware update for the Touit lens. A new firmware is under development and is scheduled to be released during this summer.
When a new firmware update is available, we will inform you by email.

This is likely one of the most unexciting camera updates ever. Nikon announced the new D810 (specs at Amazon) which features the Sony 36MP sensor and brings only very minor improvements over the D800 (electronic first curtain and so on). The news that matter for us are:

1) There is no new Sony FF sensor in use with the camera. This is the same A7r sensor. Don’t know if that means that Nikon has no exclusivity on new Sony sensors anymore…
2) This may be a chance for Sony to close the gap with their new A-mount FF that could be announced at Photokina in September.

It will be far more intersting to se what Canon is up with their new FF sensor tech. Going to be an exciting rumor summer :)

Stunning Aerial Video of Spring Flooding in Alberta Shot with a Drone-Mounted NEX-5N (via PetaPixel).

Having a blast with the Sony A7s (Steve Huff).
Sony A7s test at Kasayapa (google translation).
Sony Action Cam Blog! Comeback at http://sonyactioncam2.blogspot.com/
A7s test at Cnet Japan.
Review: Sony RX100 Mark III Top-of-the-Range Compact Camera (Digitalversus).
Sony AX100 review at Camcorders.Reviewed.
video comparing the RX10 and the FZ1000 at Cameras.reviewed.
Mirrorless Cameras for Professional Work: Where they prevail & where they fail (Bestmirrorlesscamerareviews).
Sony A7 vertical grip review at SonyAlphaLab.

Nick: “Actually not a rumor, I did somewhat of a comparsion between the Mark III and the new Mark IV Metabones Canon EF to NEX Adapter. You will find it here:
http://www.iso72.de/metabones-sony-nex-smart-adapter-mark-iv-vs-mark-iii-sealed-comparsionreview/”

Chiek: “I just let us know GX680 modification project is Done. http://chiek.co.kr/6807 image https://imageshack.com/a/zViz/1”

Jason: “A crazy guy shoot amazing milky way photos with RX100M3, great unboxing article in Chinese – http://www.mobile01.com/topicdetail.php?f=545&t=3960833”

Carlo: “Thierry Weber from Breew. His Talk is gonna to be about Drones’ history, rules, laws & procedures. And most importantly, how to use them to take beautiful pictures and videos. He’ll share his tips and the luckiest of us will have the chance to control one for a quick flight! http://www.swisstechtalks.com/events/drones-video-mariage-parfait/?l=L1”

Jörg: “I wrote a german review about the Sony A7r with the Zeiss Distagon 18mm F3.5 – which is a really great kombo! It’s now one of my favourite lenses and a great choice for the A7r. http://www.cetus-a.de/blog/2014/5/sony-a7r-und-zeiss-18mm-f3-5-zf2-das-dreamteam”

Luke: “Just received my RX100iii from Amazon yesterday and went out and filmed some of my friends working, and then having dinner. I must say that I am very happy with the new additions . I have a first version of the camera that I use at my work and while I liked it was never overwhelmed by it. The new XAVCs codec is awesome, and I am kind of disappointed this was not included in the flagship A7R and is only now coming out with the A7S. The popup viewfinder and ND filter put this camera over the top. https://vimeo.com/99033121”

[shoplink 27366 ebay][/shoplink]

Zyopticlens (aka Mitakon) started to ship the new [shoplink 27366 ebay]Speedmaster 50mm f/0.95 Full Frame E-mount lens you can buy on eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

This is the shipping schedule based on the manufacturer’s delivery schedule:

Customer who purchases from MX Camera.com:

Customer who purchases from [shoplink 27366 ebay]E-bay US.COM[/shoplink]:

Much earlier than expected the first batch of Sony A7s shipped tonight via BHphoto. I haven’t got any info about Europe and Asia yet. These are two of the mails I received from SAR readers:

UPDATE: BH released that note:

B&H Photo apologizes for inadvertently releasing a small quantity of Sony A7s preorders due to a transitory error that also made this item available on our site for a brief time. We are sorry for any confusion as to our intentions with regards to provision of the A7 and stand by our initial declaration of a July 1st ship date for inventory claimed via pre-order and in stock at that time.

And Henrick sent me this: “This is a test video I shot with the a7s. It appears to indicate the camera processes video at 2.7K internally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1x3jPqntmM”

Sony A7s preorder in USA/CA at Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Sony USA, Sony Canada.
Sony A7s EU pages: Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PL. And Wex UK.

Sony Cyber-shot DSC- RX100M3 vs Alpha A6000

Carl Zeiss 16-70mm f/4 Vario-Tessar T* ZA OSS review by Admiringlight.
Full review of the Sony PZ 18-105mm f/4 G OSS is up on Admiring Light.
Quick Test: Sony A7s and the Voigtlander 15 Heliar (Steve Huff).
Sony A77II shooting report at Yodobashi.
Sony Action Cams are ready to stream live internet video (Engadget).
Metabones SpeedBooster: 9.8mm f/2 Ultra Wide on Sony A6000 (Diglloyd).
Das VNEX Fokussystem für Vergrößerungsobjektive (SystemKameraForum).
Cambo ACTUS View Camera (Captureintegration).

Thomas: “I’m a daily reader of your site and it’s a great site for news and inspiring stuff. I thought you might find this to be interesting for you readers: We shot 4 promo-videos with the SONY NEX 7 for our startup company COSYSPEED. COSYSPEED has a unique bag system for mirrorless cameras, the CAMSLINGER bag (which fits perfectly to the SONY NEX/Alpha 7 and 3/5/6000). When we were planning our first Promo-Video for the CAMSLINGERs back in August 2013, it was a basic requirement that our videos have to be shot with a mirrorless camera. Jan, director, and Birgit, camerawoman, first were absolute against. “You can`t do that with such a tiny thing” they said. But I pushed my idea and bought a NEX 7 and some lenses. And then we shot the first video about a shootout between a mirrorless guy and a DSLR guy – and you know what? They loved the NEX 7! Inbetween we made 3 more videos all with the NEX 7 and the results are very nice. Recently we bought the a6000 for our future videos and Birgit, the skeptic camarawoman, owns now the NEX 7 we were using before :-) Here are links to the Videos:
The Mirrorless Hero – Always ready for the next photo (it’s just new)
The Mirrorless Hero – Shootout with the past (it’s from August 2012)
A Photoblogger’s Philosophy – Chris Gampat in Berlin
A Photoblogger’s Philosophy – Thomas Leuthard in Frankfurt
Here is a “Making of“, of our first video.
And this is a link to our website www.cosyspeed.com and Shops in Germany (Enjoyyourcamera), USA (B&H), France (MMF-Pro) and the international shop on our website.”