Well, Leica knows how to make ane exclusive camera! They just announced the Leica T APS-C mirrorless camera ($1800 here at BHphoto). It has the same 16 Megapixel sensor of the $398 NEX-3n. But the NEX-3n comes with a lens while the Leica T does not. And the (slow!) Leica T kit zoom costs another $1750.

Just like Hasselblad (but admittedly much better than the latter) Leica tries to appeal the luxury market. It’s a kind of market Sony has no access and were usually the brand is what matters. Obviously, the Leica T has some appealing features (mainly design and build quality) but sometimes I wonder how Leica can survive focusing on that small niche market.

Anyway, what matters to know is that here we have another Sony sensor inside a new camera. Sony may not completely successful in selling cameras but they are incredibly successful in selling sensors.

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Egami spotted the second Sony patent describing a semitransparent mirror that can be locked up to get rid of the small light loss. But I still don’t know if that is going to be used by the future A77II or A99II successor cameras. What I know for sure is that in the mid-term Sony will get rid of the semitransparent mirror as soon as the A6000 hybrid AF system proves to be as good as the current SLT solution!

P.S.: A77II will be announced next week (May 1). Likely specs: 24MP, 11fps, Wifi, super fast af, $1200 price.

NAB 2014: NewsShooter – Panel: To 4k, or not to 4k from Teradek on Vimeo.

If you watch the video on top you will hear Garrett Brown’s excitement about tha A/s (although he didn’t see it). But he loves the fact you can shoot 4K on a compact Full Frame camera. Quite a statement from the inventor of Steadicam and cameraman of Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” movie! If you don’t know Garret he is the guy on the extreme right of the guest plot. And here is his Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garrett_Brown.

And Shawn had the pleasure to interview Sony manager Juan Martinez and writes:

I wanted to share with you an interview I conducted at NAB that will be of interest to SAR: streamingmedia.com. In it, I discuss the upcoming firmware update for the Sony FS700 and 700R video larger sensor video cameras.  Specifically support for shading and geometric distortion.  We also talk about the new zoome lenses – the 28-135mm f/4 FE concept lens and 18-105mm f/4 E-mount lens. The support for geometric distortion is huge because the otherwise great 18-105mm powerzoom f/4 lens can’t be used for video as it has way too much pin-cushion distortion.

A7s sites in different languages at Sony US, DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, SE, FI, PL.

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Cool! Making Sony a7 / GX680 technical camera

Sony A6000 review at LesNumeriques.
Sony A7 review: Is the best full-frame mirrorless camera also the most affordable? (Imaging Resource).
Sony A5000 review at SonyAlphaLab.
24-70mm FE lens test at Pchome.
Alexander Heinrichs about the new 50mm ARt lens on the A7r (Youtube /German).
How to do Car Photography – Shooting Guide by ItsDanKReviews on Youtube (he used the A7 for that video).
a7 with optical viewing lens on Flickr. Image samples can be seen here on Flickr.
orean A6000 Af test at SLRclub.
German 24-70mm FE lens review At Cetus-a.
A7R not weatherproof. £175 repair confirms (Tobinators).

Jacek: “It seems that the recent Sony Image Data Converted is unable to process properly raw files from A6000. I have the camera from yesterday and I was in shock how bad IQ it has. Finally I found a reason – take a look at: http://www.dane.pixel-tech.pl/jpytportfolio/A6000/idc_raw.jpg”

Jeff: “A5000/A7/A6000 lowlight af test http://youtu.be/G4gfAZgH0yM. Continuous focus test http://youtu.be/DELBkI6kyeM. AF-S focus test http://youtu.be/Lra77vXaxXs”

Jimmy: “I upload a review of the A6000 for Sony Singapore a week ago; especially on the AF system against the NEX 5R and the viewfinder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KM1JF4yUZig”

Craig: “I’ve come from the Minolta ages and moved into Sony, finally buying an A99 when it was first released. I had to drop it off for a warranty repair that turned into me getting it replaced under warranty as that was their quickest solution. The whole process has taken 2 months though as Sony Australia didn’t have any A99’s in stock – I couldn’t believe it, they replaced the camera because parts were going to mean waiting 3 months instead! I would have happily paid the freight from Japan if they’d given me the option!
I wrote about the whole process in detail here à http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/a99-replaced-under-warranty_topic105572.html”

Edward: “Last week I converted a Sony A7 into Full-Spectrum. So far I’ve concentrated on the infra-red abilities, but I hope to do more soon. With it’s EVF and great lens compatability the A7 makes a great camera to convert, so I thought some of your readers might appreciate my first impressions review here: http://infraedd.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/cameras-sony-a7-converted-to-full.html“

Jordy van Solm, Netherlands
www.jordyvansolm.com
Model: Melissa Howey, Los Angeles
Sony Alpha 850, Carl Zeiss 85mm f1.4

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These are some of the weekly SAR readers pictures. You can see all of them at facebook.com/sonyalpharumors?filter=2. As usual share your best pis and like the onese you like from the other members!

Egami spotted a new Sony patent describing the 28-100mm f/1.8-2.8 lens design for the RX100 series. The good news is that the lens is a lot brighter at the tele end compared to the current 28-100mm f/1.8-4.9 lens used by the RX100/RX100II.

The current RX100II sells a s low as $632 at [shoplink 25977 ebay]6ave eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. A successor is likely to come the next couple of months!