What I am going to post you now is only a small rumor but it is coming from my very BEST source. He just told me that “Sony didn’t show everything on PMA. Expect something more to be unveiled soon” and “no mockups…REAL stuff!”
I am consciuos of the fact that this is a vague rumor but I was not able to get some concrete infos. Anyway I have choosen to post the rumor because if he says that something is coming then I know that we should expect that this will really happen!

UPDATE: I have no clue how soon… “soon” is. And the speculation below is just my personal speculation. May I am wrong with it.

My bet is we could see one of the following new cameras:
– A new Fullframe Alpha camera
– The real the mirrorless cameras

As you know since months SonyAlphaRumors is telling you that Sony is working on a Half-mirror (Pellix-mirror) camera. Click here to read the original rumor we posted on December 1 2009!
I remember many of you didn’t really believe in what we told you :)

But now we can proove you that our rumor was true!
The very new patent from Sony (United States Patent Application 20100045853) is showing us how it works!!!

Let’s start with the very interesting part:
“There is proposed a digital camera which is capable of simultaneously performing phase difference detecting AF by a phase difference detecting AF sensor and live view in which time-series images for determining a picture composition are electronically displayed on a display”

In fact Sony invented the Holy Grail of photography (and videorecording). You will be able to use the very fast Phase-Detection Autofocus during video recording. And no more mirror blackout during still photography. No noisy mirror movements! It will make less noise than a Leica rangefinder camera!

You can read the entire patent here: http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2010/0045853.html

Or read the part below (copied from the patent text) which summarize everything very well:

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

“However, in such a technology as described above, a half mirror is fixed to a camera body. Therefore, in actual photographing (in capturing a still image for record), light passing through the half mirror is used. That is, typically, an actual photographing image is generated using light passing through the half mirror at a predetermined transmittance to reach an image pickup device. As a result, a sufficient quantity of light may not be obtained in the image pickup device in actual photographing.

It is desirable to provide an image pickup apparatus capable of obtaining a sufficient quantity of light used in actual photographing in a configuration capable of simultaneously performing phase difference detecting AF and live view.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, there is provided an image pickup apparatus including a half mirror, a phase difference detecting AF sensor, an image pickup device, and display means. The half mirror separates light from a photographing optical system into transmitted light and reflected light. The phase difference detecting AF sensor receives the reflected light reflected on the half mirror to detect a focusing state by a phase difference detecting method. The image pickup device receives the transmitted light passing through the half mirror to generate time-series images with respect to subject image light from the photographing optical system. The display means sequentially display the time-series images generated by the image pickup device. In the apparatus, the half mirror is provided so as to be movable between a first position on an optical path of the subject image light from the photographing optical system and a second position to which the half mirror is evacuated from the optical path of the subject image light, and when the half mirror is in the second position, the image pickup device generates an actual photographing image on the basis of the subject image light reaching the image pickup device from the photographing optical system without passing through the half mirror.”

P.S.: Sorry if I still didn’t manage to update the SonyAlphaRumors website design. I have been really busy at work. Will have time tomorrow to make everything :)

According to various sources the Sony Alpha A3xx should be launched in June and the Sony Alpha A7xx at Photokina in September.

If the rumors becomes true that would be a disappointing news! We really hoped to get the A7xx in our hands soon :(