On top you can see the upcoming Sigma 500mm f/5.6 lens mounted on the Sony A1. It’s kind of an odd style…almost looks like it has some telconverter built-in or not? Anyway, I got some additional specs:

Sigma 500mm f/5.6 specs:

• Lightweight lens…less than 1,5kg and so the lightest telephoto prime lens you can buy.
• Very fast AF on Sony A1 (lens has linear motor)
• The lens sharper than the Sony 200-600 G
• very low chromatic aberration
• Coming for Sony E and Leica L mount cameras
• Announcement on February 21.

My guess it’s that will cost $1,500-$2000 less than the current Sigma 500mm f/4.0 for Canon/Nikon.

I can now confirm that Sony will have a product announcement event on February 21! So far I only got info about a new 24-50mm f/2.8 G lens coming on that day.

I don’t know if the Sony A1 firmware update will be released before that date or on the very same day. It also appears that we are getting ANOTHER Sony announcement in March! So we might get the ZV-E10II there.

And yes, on February 21 we will also get the Sigma 500mm f/5.6 lens!

The image on top show the new 500mm f/5.6 Full Frame E-mount lens that will be announced on February 21. The additional info I got says:

• lightweight lens
• very fast AF on Sony A1
• very low chromatic aberration
• Coming for Sony E and Leica L mount cameras

I am working to get info about the price that surely will be MUCH lower of that of the expensive Sony 400mm GM (Click here) and Sony 600mm GM (Click here). And my guess it’s that will cost $1,500-$2000 less than the current Sigma 500mm f/4.0 for Canon/Nikon.

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Back in Sep 27, 2018 Zeiss announced their last E-mount lens, the Batis 40mm F2 CF. Six years after we might get another one. According to this German teaser Zeiss will have an announcement tomorrow (Feb6) at 11am Berlin time. We know for sure this is going to be a CINE lens because Zeiss posted this image:

The question here is more if this will be a native E-mount cine lens or a PL lens you can adapt on Sony cine cameras like the Burano.

It’s now the third time I get this sort of “A7cS” rumors. Today I will post this new Super wild rumor and at the end give my honest opinion on this. So let’s first read the rumors:

SONY is expanding their Compact Line by splitting their full-frame non-flagship line into the traditional α7 series and the portable α7C series.
To that end, they are launching the α7CS this summer and into the autumn, a mixed-use camera that will interest video users as much as the α7SIII.
It has highly similar video specs to the α9 III, with a 24-megapixel BSI CMOS sensor delivering full-frame oversampling at 4K/60p or pixel-binning sampling at 4K/120p.
It also offers 4K/120p video recording with full pixel sampling in APS-C/Super 35mm mode.
The α7CS offers a mechanical shutter, which together with the dual native ISO80/800 (ISO640/6400 at S-log3) 24-megapixel sensors provide excellent still photography images, both in brightly lit, high dynamic range scenes and in poorly lit, high sensitivity scenes.
Because the resolution isn’t as high as the α7CR, it will still be priced slightly cheaper than the α7CR, in the $2,500 to $2,700 range.

Here is my take:
I cannot see a reason why we need the A7cS. We already have the compact FX3 and we are likely going to get an A7sIV soon. So this A7cS simply doesn’t make sense in my opinion. What’s your take?

Finally I have some exciting rumors about the Sony A1 firmware update!

According to one source this is what we can expect:

1. The firmware should be released in February. The previous official announcement said it would be available “from March or later”.
2. The firmware will bring many new exciting features…much more than expected!
3. One of the new features will be “XAVC H-I SQ 8k/30p” recording just like the $25,000 Burano CineAlta E-mount camera!
4. Similar support to the monitor and control app.
5. 8k ProresRAw via hdmi to latest Atomos devices

Other features that have been officially announced by Sony are:

• Breathing Compensation
• relay Playback
• IPTC Workflow Enhancement
• FTP Workflow Enhancement
• C2PA format support

I am particularly happy to see the A1 will get then new XAVC H-I codec. If you care about high quality video this is big news. Me as a photographer I am very intrigued by the C2PA support which I hope will be coming for my Sony A7rV too.