The new Samyang 24mm Tilt-Shift lens is going to be released in mid May. There will be both A and E-mount versions. A few full size image samples can be seen at Samyangs website and at Popphoto. The A-mount version can already be preordered at Bhphoto.

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I like Rokinon/Samyang lenses a lot and I recommend you the following two lenses for Alpha mount:
1) The 35mm f/1.4: In US you can find it as Rokinon at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and on [shoplink 7453 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. In Europe the name is Samyang and you can find it on [shoplink 7380 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and with the name Wallimex again on [shoplink 7831 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].
2) The 85mm f/1.4: You can get for $274 on Amazon (Click here), branded with the name Rokinon on [shoplink 7456 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink] and branded with the name Samyang on [shoplink 7454 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

And here are the links to the newly announced Samyang/Rokinon lenses:
8mm f/3.5 fisheye at Amazon, BHphoto,
14mm f/2.8 at Amazon, BHphoto,
24mm f/1.4 at Amazon, BHphoto,
35mm f/1.4 at Amazon, BHphoto,
85mm f/1.4 at Amazon, BHphoto,

Zeiss Blog (Click here) unveiled the final name of the upcoming three Zeiss E-mount lenses. The name of the lens family will be “Touit“. If you are wondering where the heck Zeiss found that name her eis the original Zeiss explanation: “We decided to derive the future names of the lenses from the Latin names of birds. That fits well, as birds usually have excellent eyesight and can take unusual perspectives. Birds are also diverse and lively animals. Furthermore, the Latin names all have an attractive sound and are common in many languages and cultures.”

Touit is pronounced like the English “do it. As we told you before two lenses will be available for preorder from May 7 and those are the Touit 2.8/12 and Touit 1.8/32 (Click on the name to visit the detailed specs page). The third lens, the 50mm f/2.8 macro will be announced by end 2013.

A brand new Sony patents describes a new kind of adapter having a Lever. Sony says that this “makes it easier to attach or detach the accessory to or from a device main body” (Source: FreePatentsonline).

The image on top shows you a sort of dust blocking device that automatically covers the sensor when you detach a lens. As you obviously know the dust enters whenever you change lens. With that easy blocking plate the sensor gets covered (Source: FreePatentsonline).

Sony A99 – DSLR Fast Start

Sony hosts workshops with the World Photography Awards in London (Dpreview).
Sports á la NEX-7 (Matthewdurrphotography).
HolyManta internal ND lens Adapters (Fundedbyme).

Icie: “I did a creative environmental portrait shoot with the NEX-5R and some lights. Mostly used a tilt adapter with a Leica Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8 lens for this. http://pireze.org/2013/cosplay-photoshoot-akb0048s-atsuko-katagiri/”

Marcin: “I’m currently a member of Dyxum and I just saw one of the recent posts by Eric Lew. He recently came back from his trip to Antarctica and shared with us his amazing pictures. He mentions horrible conditions he encountered and how it not affected the way his Sony A77 worked as well as 16-50 and 70-400 Sony lenses. You can find his blog along with those pictures under this address: http://www.ericlew.com/”

JinJu: “I’ve found this info on a Korean dslr fan site. The reason for RX1’s slow AF speed is turned out to be its hardware, specially the heavy lenses that are actuated for focusing. I’ve included brief translation of the post. the first one is the translation, the other being the original text
http://englishdisabled.tistory.com/admin/entry/post/?id=10
http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?id=minolta_forum&no=729491“

Chris: “For your readers work roundup I have a test comparing the A99 to the Nex5n and EM5 video. The A99 is terrible, much worse than the Nex5n and the EM5. http://chrisjoyphoto.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/a99-interweb-video-test-part-2-sony-a99-vs-sony-nex-5n/  http://chrisjoyphoto.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/a99-interweb-video-test-part-1-sonys-flagship-vs-the-olympus-em5/.”

Sony Japan (Source DC.watch) delayed the launch of the new Zeiss 50mmf /1.4 A-mount lens because of the “exceptional high demand”. The lens should have been shipped from may but now the date has been postponed to July 26. BHphoto (Click here) still reports July 10 as shipping date but I am sure that they will change it soon. Meantime Rokinon announced that the new Tilt Shift lens will ship next week (See Bhptoto).

The Zeiss preorders can be taken at Amazon (Click here), Adorama (Click here), BHphoto (Click here) and SonyStore USA (via AlphaCameraDeals). In Europe at Wex UK and Amazon DE.

After years of losses Sony is finally back to profit!

Sony has officially doubled its profit forecast for the fiscal year that ended on 31st March, raising the tally from ¥20 billion ($201m) to ¥40 billion ($403m). Sony had “luck” because the depreciation of the yen helped them out. Also the financial service division had a stronger performance than expected. There is still no info about the digital imaging business but full Sony report will be released on May 9th.

It will be interesting to read in their upcoming report what theit forecast is. As I told you this week we will likely have only one new interchangeable camera this year. This surely doesn’t help to generate cash this year.

More info at Pushsquare, USA Today, Reuters, Heise.de.