Great news for Sony. The new A55 and the two NEX cameras made it into the Japanese top10 of the most sold system cameras in September! Source: BCNranking.
Speaking of manufactures shares. In May Sony had 6.1% of the Japanese sales share. After the NEX camera release Sony jumped up to 19.4%. And in September with the release of the SLT cameras the share further increased to 21.2%. Now they are pretty close to Nikon that is holding the second place (behind Canon) with 24.4%.
I would be damn curious to know how it is going in Europe and US. Sadly those kind of reliable and detailed rankings are available in Japan only.

If you purchase a product using our shop links we will earn a small commission that helps me to cover server costs and to keep running that website. Thanks!

Order the new Sony A55 at: Amazon, BHphoto, Amazon DE, Amazon FR, Pixmania DE, Pixmania BE, Pixmania AT, Pixmania UK, Pixmania NL, Pixmania PL, Pixmania IT.

Order the Sony NEX cameras at: Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon France, Pixmania DE, Pixmania BE, Pixmania AT, Pixmania UK, Pixmania NL, Pixmania PL, Pixmania IT.

[shoplink 3003][/shoplink]

Download page: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/swu-download.pl?upd_id=6191&mdl=NEX5KB

Improvements over version 02:

• Adds “Soft key Settings” to the “Setup” menu to allow customization of the soft keys
• Adds the “Menu start” function
• Adds two more settings to the “MF Assist” function
• Improves menu item selection using the Control Wheel
• Changes the aperture setting function so the setting is maintained when using “Background Defocus Control” or “Aperture Priority” movie recording modes
• Adds support for auto focus with A-mount lenses (see Supported A-mount Lenses below)
  Note: This feature also requires a firmware update for the LA-EA1 Mount Adapter (Mount Adapter sold separately).
• Adds a function to enlarge the image when “Release w/o Lens” is set to “Enable”

Order the Sony NEX cameras at: Amazon, Adorama, BHphoto, Amazon DE, Amazon UK, Amazon France, Pixmania DE, Pixmania BE, Pixmania AT, Pixmania UK, Pixmania NL, Pixmania PL, Pixmania IT.

As you might know Lensbaby announced a new Tilt-shift lens. You can preorder it now at Amazon (Click here).

Amazon just did a small “revolution” for their Bestseller rankings. They added a new category for digital cameras: “Compact System Cameras”. Let’s take a look on it. Sony NEX cameras are selling extremely well in Germany and UK (where they are on the very top). They are not doing really well in US but at least much better than Samsung cameras.
Check out the current rankings for yourself:
– Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon US (Click here). Amazon makes a big mistake here and calls the section “Micro Four Thirds Digital Cameras“!
– Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon Deutschland (Click here)
– Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon UK (Click here)
– Mirrorless camera ranking at Amazon France (Click here)

And what about the new Sony A33 and A55 cameras? How well are sales going at Amazon?
The Sony A55 is currently climbing the rankings and made it into the top 20 in US and France. Where the camera is selling extremely well is in Germany. Here you can find the translucent camera on the very top. In UK old Sony cameras are selling much better than the new ones.

– DSLR camera ranking at Amazon US (Click here)
– Amazon Deutschland (Click here)
– Amazon UK (Click here)
– Amazon France (Click here)

Note: Amazon Japan and Amazon Canada are mixing all type of cameras in their rankings. And you can’t find any Sony camera on top of their rankings.

Now Sony, after doing well with the NEX and SLT cameras please hurry up with the new semipro and pro camera release! Thanks :)

MegaPixel.co.il: Interview with Bertram Hoilnger, Costumer Support at CARL ZEISS

NEX FDA-SV1 and 3rd Party Viewfinders (SonyAlphaNex).

Sony E 18-200mm review at Motimotion and Ascii.jp.

Sony A55 preview at Camera.itmedia.co.jp.

Sony commercializes world’s first*1 16.41 Megapixel “Exmor R™” back-illuminated CMOS image sensors for mobile phones (Dpreview).

Sony A33 Brief Hands-on Impressions (RiceHigh).

Sont A390 ISO and image samples at Neutralday.

Sony NEX-VG10 Hands-on at Ascii.jp and Pronews.

Sony A580 review at SonyAlpha.es.

UPDATE: The hacker needs some help: “Do you have any info on where the Alpha Cameras are made? Which plant? Who supplies specific components?” Please contact me if you have the answer. Thanks!
—

As you might know the [shoplink 4390]Panasonic GH1[/shoplink] camera got a lot of attention after beeing hacked (click here to read the DVXuser hacking thread). The hack allows a higher bitrate, third-party battery support, 30min recording removal and many other improvements. Now we have a good news for you. A hacker just sent me an email: “I have had the [shoplink 3617]Sony A55v[/shoplink] for about a week. I’m already into the firmware and from years of hacking motherboard/video-card BIOS and Pentax cameras I can tell you the APS-C sensor can shoot MJPEG at 3k resolution at 24p for at least 45 seconds. I’m more interested in 1080p at 48/60 FPS. I’ll tell right now the memory buffer systems in this camera is huge….probably 3-4 times that of the [shoplink 4390]GH1[/shoplink]. All I’ve done is break into the code. A proper hack would take months. Thousands of possible settings to adjust. Testing. But you need thousands of people and a big community to support a project like that.”

The hacker wants to know if you would support this project with technical help and financial support. That’s why I added a poll. Please contact me at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com if you can help the hacker. Thanks!

 Loading ...

[shoplink 4384][/shoplink]

I guess few of you have used Holga cameras for a long time. Now we have good news for you. With the new Skink Pinhole Pancake Starter Kit ([shoplink 4384]available on eBay[/shoplink]) you can transform your Sony NEX camera in a digital Hogal :)
Another positive side effect is that this is probably the most compact way to take photos (you don’t need any lens). [shoplink 4384]Check out the current auctions and image samples on eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].