One Week with Sony A7 and Bolex anamorphot from Seb Farges on Vimeo.

A young fashion photographer posted a great article at Mirrorlessrumors about how he used the RX1 for some fashion shooting. Great images, but Sony should do a RX2 with 50mm lens for portrait shots :)

Sony RX100 II final review at Imaging Resource.
Sony Cyber-shot RX10 Vs Sony Cyber-shot R1 Comparison Review at ePhotozine.
Tamron 150-600mm Canon mount lens review at Wzswig.
Finally a remote for the Nex-7 via Kickstarter
A SAR friend created a new APP that some of you coul find to be very useful: iOS App texBlend and it’s is available in the App Store (Click here). More info about it at Outbackphoto (Click here).

Neef: “Not a Rumor or news , just some interesting things http://news.sina.com.hk/news/20131223/-101-3148817/1.html Hong Kong Civil Engineering and Development Department Using a R.C.Helicopter to capture image for land survey , but the most interest things are…. the camera use for the survey is a NEX camera~ i’m not sure which model it is . but it seems to be NEX 6 or 7 , maybe you can identify it clearly? it’s not a new technology , but something interesting…”

Animalsbarry: Extreme z shift test. To determine the effect of z shift on internal focus lenses I did a quick test…numbers are approximate. I used a 50-500MM. Lens at 500MM. Min focos about 10′ and 1/5 magnification. I added a 60MM extension tube..now at 10′ the magnification increased to 1/3 and the new minimum focus was about 6′. This is a much more extreme improvement in close focus than would be expected with the same extension tube on a normal lens. The reason for this is internal focus lenses focus by changing the focal length rather than by moving the entire lens. The extensiion tube allows focusing at a longer focal length for any close focus distance and closer than expected minimum focus distance because mininimum focus occurs at a shorter focal length on this type of lens. This test simulates the impact that sensor shift focusing would have on close focusing if it became available.

James: “I have been follow Sony flash F60M overheat problem is not being fixed by SONY yet, but look like will be soon after a new ‘tech fail’ article is written by ‘major tech website’. thought you should know about this one. it will be newsworthy as F60M overheat shutdown plague so many user around world. plz share! http://community.sony.com/t5/Alpha-SLT-DSLR-Cameras/HVL-F60M-Flash-Overheating-Unusable/m-p/258689#M2721″

BCnranking reports that the Sony NEX-5r was the most sold mirrorless camera of the year in Japan. That’s a good result for Sony. Things are considerably worse when you look at the DSLR ranking:

As you can see only the Sony A65 managed to get into the top 20 and with a marginal 1,5% share. A99 and A77 probably didn’t sell as well as expected. Let’s hope this will change with the soon to be announced new A-mount cameras!

Wish You all a great new Year! As usual I try to express my wishlist for 2014 and this is what I plan to do:

SAR:
– Redo the full website and make it more community driven
– Just have again a fun time with you with all these great stuff Sony will launch in 2014

Personally:
– Have more free time for me an my family.
– Climb more mountains, swim more seas, drink more red wine at Sunset.
– Train my mind to not waste energy on minor problems.
– Read and study more (Physics and German Literature are high on my list).

Yep, that’s it. What do you plan to do? :)

I was used with Kai ranting against Sony products (he didn’t do it with the A7-A7r). But he now killed the Nikon DF myth with this video. Just watch it!

This is interesting because it also supports the SAR poll. Only 19% want Sony to make a “retro styled” SLT/DSLR camera (Source: SAR POLL). And as far as I know from my sources the soon to be announced new A-mount cameras will keep the modern design (with some smaller improvements).

Credit Suisse imaging analyst Yu Yoshida shared some quite extreme forecast about the future of the digital camera market (Source: Reuters/New York Times):

– Mirrorless cameras are not selling as well as expected because 1) buyers put connectivity above picture quality 2) in USA and Europe consumers tend to equate image quality with size and heft

– “Only those who have a strong brand and are competitive on price will last – and only Canon, Nikon and Sony fulfil that criteria,” said Credit Suisse analyst Yoshida.

– Consumers don’t want to connect cameras to phones, analysts say; they want a single interface that can instantly upload photographs to social networking sites such as Facebook Inc and Twitter Inc.

– For the analyst the real future could be the Sony QX lenscameras: Sony appears to have connected with consumers as demand soon outstripped production. Some are even using the lenses in a way Sony didn’t intend: placed at a distance while they press the shutter on their smartphone to take self-portraits, or selfies.

As usual take these analysts forecasts with care. The sometimes have the same reliability as Nostradamus predictions :)

Last week gariz announced their A7-A7r case which you can find in  [shoplink 23521 ebay]Black (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 23522 ebay]Brown (Click here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 23523 ebay]Orange (Click here)[/shoplink] and [shoplink 23524 ebay]Red (Click here)[/shoplink].

Today also Angelo Pelle announced a new A7-A7r leather case. Here is the press text:

—

Angelo Pelle, a handcraft company based in Florence is proud to announce the new hand made half case for Sony A7/A7r

Angelo Pelle cases are fully hand made in Italy by some of the most skilled Italian artisans with more then 30 years of experience in this field, with the best Tuscan naturally tanned leather and high quality suede leather for inner finishing (our leather is the same used by Italian and French high fashion brands).
The case includes also a deluxe neck strap (adjustable in length) with the same leather used for the half case. The case is adjusted to fit like a glove to the camera body.
The leather case if perfectly matched to the unique properties of the SONY A7 and A7r, it is built around the camera to protect all the body from scratches and blows.
The case will be produced in a limited quantity each month.

Price: 149 euro (inclusive neck strap).The cases can be bought directly from the producer on the site: www.angelo-pelle.com