I just got this super long and 99,999% Fake rumor from an anonymous source. I usually don’t publishe these kind of rumors I am certain to be wrong. But “The Source” put so much effort to spread wrong info that I found it funny and interesting enough to post it on SAR. I thank “The Source” for the entertainment he gave us all :)
Here is his message:
Since my source is gone, i will vanish too… so i give u everything i got, long read, hope u had the time, and i ask for a favor…
first, when i said E its dead, i dont meant sony will came out and give an statement saying they are discounting E, sony will never do that, just like nikon never said they discountinued nikon 1, they will keep releasing E bodies, but with big time laps between them, every 2 or 3 years, just like A, there will be nothing new or revolutionary, let me xplain, when sony release the first a99 it had a lot of new tech, many specially developed for that camera, the a99ii had not new tech, pretty much all borrowed for a7 line, and the a99iii scheduled for 4 years after a99ii will also had not tech developed for it (read money invested on it) just borrowed tech from FE line, sony keep supporting A mount, meant that, keep releasing bodies for those who had invested lens in that mount, but no new lens or new revolutionary bodies, same goes for E, the a6000 had a lot of new tech developed for it, the a7 dont had the fps or the ospdaf the a6000 had, but newer models a6300/a6500 dont had new tech developed for them, just borrow/scaled down tech from new FE models, no more development/money invested in E, FE had all the money sony can afford to invest in new tech (wich is not a lot, sony as others manufacters cut development invests as market is shrinking)
second, the roadmap, as fas as i know, it goes like that (keep in mind that when sony suddenly hit an unexpected homerun, they shuffle things, make new ones and shut down others, pretty much throw the current plan out of the window, so it may change after the a7iii unexpected homerun, mainly the a7siii got delayed until a7iii demand is meet, and if overlaps with a9r relsease timeframe, well i doubt sony will release both models close to each other, sony new police its only one camera release to give their time to shine, so no more 2 cameras releases even if are targeted at diferent tiers)
the a7 line is scheduled to renew every 2 1/2 years, spaced to get enough shine time and not overlap between them and keep their release splash hype as much as it can, around 1 year, after the 3 models are released, they listen to market to put in the next mark the weakness or improvements they found, so far the full articulated screen is the sure thing for a7 mark iv line, more integrated touchscreen and new software development that will replace the camerapps are also in the pipeline, oh, before i forget, the a7siii should be released before year end, pretty much all electronics/body as a7iii/a7riii, exmor r bsi, subsampling 4k60p and 240fhd, etc… pretty much all that is expected will be delivered.
the a9 is the basic model of the a9 line, let me said how the a7 came to live, or as i told by my source… my source was routing for an A1, remember that big body protoype that got lost in time, it should be a camera big as the biggest canikons cameras, with 3 sensors built in, that can shift inside the body, so u had 1 camera that excells at iso, speed and resolution, the 1 camera to rule them all, of course it never came out of prototype, some other guy said, the biggest cost is the sensor, so making that camera would take as much money and cost as to make 3 cameras, why dont make 3 cameras each with one of thoses sensors, my source told me back in that day she was angry they killed the A1 and came out with the A7 line, but now in restrospective my source think was for the better, that history will be important latter, so the a9r is the next in the a9 line, the a9 line is meant to be renewed every 4 years, each a9 model released around 1 1/2 year, so a9r in about 6 months, same body/electronics as a9 but with a new developed sensor, 96mp sensor, nope, not a typo, 96mp sensor, the a7 line its a specialized sensor, each for iso, speed, resolution, but u can sort of use them for photo and video, and all are close enough in sensor performance, the a9, its the top line, pro specialized cameras, many said why buy an a9 when u can get almost the same performance with an a7iii, but pros, or the ones the a9 is made for, knows that the double fps, zero blackout and almost zero rolling shutter makes a huge worthy diference, the a9 has a speed sensor with no compromise in other things to xcell at just that, speed, so the a9r has a sensor with resolution as priority, sure that sensor will not had the speed of the a9, it only fires 5 fps, but the pros who this a9r are made for, those who seek resolution will be more than happy, afterall now u will max that primes (like those sigma arts now available), video will not be outstanding and will be there just to said it can do it, mainly because line skipping, 96mp sounds like a lot, but remember that a9r must last 4 years and its just 4 times the old 24mp or a little more than 2 times the 42mp, also remember than when sony released the a900 a decade ago it had more mp than any canikon camera, in fact it was developed to had double the mp count of the cameras of their time, so 96 its not that crazy as it sounds, and just like the a9 with 20fps (leaving canikon fps in dust) zero blackout and silent shutter (canikon cant and will never will be able to do it) the a9r is meant to make a sounded splash, outdoing canikon models by a long margin, why not 100mp, cause its scaled from the a9 24mp, the a9r will use the same a9 electronics, it cant do 20fps with a 96mp sensor, just 4 times less fps because it had 4 times more resolution, every pro said now they dont need/want that resolution, but once they test it, will be like the zero blackout/silent shutting and 20fps of the a9, everyone will love it and want it, the a9 was for sports/events/etc this one its for studios/landscapes/product/macro, and after the a9r it will came the a9s, this one its tricky, cause is far away from shipping, still developing, and theres 2 variants, the first one its to use the a9 sensor, this one its the less expensive to make and easier (thats why most are on board) it will use subsampling that its like the new everybody love term in video now, it kind of overlap with the a9 but now u understand why they cut-off some video features from the a9, and the a9ii will had a 42mp sensor so at the end its not that bad, but the variant my source was pushing, its better, at least i agreed, its a new developed 8mp sensor, its a new 16:9 not the usual 3:2, the a9s its meant to be for video, this specilized 8mp sensor will be the first consumer global shutter ff sensor, global shutter shine in video, u can use mechanical or flash in a normal sensor for the lack of global, but with video global had no way around, this global 8mp with the 16:9 ratio, will had a better iso, reaching the million iso, will allow to record 4k120p the other variant because the subsampling and more pixels sensor cant do 4k120p, is full read-out sensor, no cropping, 1on1, 1 sensor read 1 pixel recorded, it will do fullhd480p, it will use a new codec with 800mb/s, it will only use XQD cards, sd cards no more, to much latency and slow sustain date rate, the 4k120p will turn heads, but the global shutter and higher mb/s will make the videos miles ahead of any footage in the market, but like my source said its the variant that more likely will be axed, thats the favor im asking, can u make a poll
i really agree with my source that the second one would be the one that will make a big splash, but like the history i told u before, maybe my source its betting on the wrong horse again, maybe she and i not know what the market will really want, or sells for that matter, maybe the market want more mp and more all-around camera that could be used for photos instead of one fully specilized for video, im curious for the outcome of that poll
and finally the a5, sony almost released the a5, it was an a7 without evf and with a plastic body, it will be along the sony lens, the cheap ones without the G, thats tier 1, the a7 line with G lenses and sony-zeiss is tier 2, the a9 with GMaster lenses its tier 3, thats sony 3 levels for complete market, but then nikon aproached sony asking for a mirrorless sensor, and canon rumors of entering the ff mirrorless market, sony think neither canon nor nikon will release a top mirrorless camera that can match their a9 line, even the a7 line is too good, if they release good cameras they will cannibalize their dslrs and more importantly will make the statement that mirrorles are better than dslrs, canikon would be crazy to do that, the hell will frozen before canikon send that signal to the market, sony think both will aproach with a basic model, one that their users can try but feel their dslrs are still much better, cheaper than any sony model, so thats why sony now its holding the a5, its their as under the slave, sony expect canikon to enter the market with a cheaper than $1999 model, as soon as they fire, sony will release the a5 at $999, rigth now its the a7iii without evf, plastic body, no sensor stabilization, maybe not even mechanical shutter, but everything else in there, this model wont cannibalize sony tier 2 models, cause the lack of evf and IBIS, but none canikon body had either so… sony its also targeting new comers with the a5 low price, new generation or smartphones camera users dont care about evf, they dont use it or understand it, why u look at that tiny screen in a hole when u had a bigger one below, also dont need/care about the magnesium alloy body or wheather sealling, it will be only one a5 model, no a5s/a5r, it will had variable iterations acording to demand, thats the 3 tiers sony its aming to had by 2021.
a9ii 42mp 20fps
a9r 96mp 5fps
a9s 8mp 120fps or a9s 24mp 30fps
a7riv 42mp 10fps
a7siv 12mp 10fps
a7iv 24mp 10fps
a5 24mp 10fps
my source its more involved in sensor and processor technology, my source guess in software, bodies, lenses, sales, actual final release dates, etc are as good as yours, the dates or frame times givem to my source are for the schedule of development times, and nothing its written in stone, many factors mess with time frames, such as earthquakes, competitors releases, unexpected high or low sales of a product could change a lot of not only time but may cancel or shift products, for example a9 sales were never expected to be too many, a9 was a statement, but they are below expectations, too below even with last price discounts that may kill a9r and a9s, especially because both of them had a price target around $6,000, mainly because the specially designed sensors, if they both are axed the sensor/electronic tech developed will find their way in the a7 line but in a more distant future, the a9 was supossed to be the cutting edge tech, that tech will eventually go to a7 when new a9 tech was developed.
1″ sensor tech is still developing in fact faster than aps-c, theres rumors of a new compact rx with a new 24-200 zoom, my source dont know if its the old rx10 constant f2.8 zoom with the new 1″ sensor tech, seems unlikely since that body was axed, maybe it will be resurrected, i dont think sony will go like the canon g3x (or whats the model with compact body with not retractable long zoom) and for a retractable zoom will be slower like the panasonic 2.8-5.6, my source told me the next rx100 will be the same body/lens but with new 1″ sensor tech (the one in rx10iv) so this may be a totally new rx model, the 24-200 range is supposed to cover 2 focal lentgh from the trifecta lenses, if thats truth they made a mistake, why make a new model if the rx10 already cover the 24-70 and 70-200 range, they should had cover the 16-35 and 24-70 range, now that would be a much more desirable model and one that complement the overall rx line, anyway not 16-70 we get 24-200, what this new model would be named? 0,1,10,100 already taken, maybe 101…lol but who knows maybe im wrong and this new rx model sells better than the rx100
eitherway i bet 1″ are developed to sell it, to other companies, cause pretty much the rx line is resumed in, 1 discountinued, 0 with zero sales, 100 thousands decreasing sales with each mark, 10 perfect expensive camera, i actually like and own an rx10 iv (maybe thas why i prefer a 16-70 instead of the rumored new rx 24-200, the 16-70 would complement my rx10 better, yeah i would buy an rx100 like body with a 16-70 in a heartbit, never buyed an rx100 by the way) but i can afford the rx10, rx10 should cost half price cause an all around camera like that its targeted to amateur customers, trippers, etc but with that high price im sure all who buy an rx10, actually any rx, are photographers who own more expensive gear and buy an rx by impulse (thats my case) its sad cause compact cameras should target new comers, and seems like all new photographers in the world are just smartphones owners, what will happend when old generation photographers die, cameras will die with them?
of course smartphones sensors and tiny sensors are developed even faster, and pretty much serve as a test bed for new tech than may make their way to bigger sensors, and the trend of 2-3 cameras in each smartphone is good for sony, it compensate the slow down of smartphones sales and keep demand of smartphone camera sensors, but sensors sales for cameras are decreasing so expect prices to continue to rise as sales falls.
compact cameras and smartphones sales, are not really good for sony rigth now, but are a front top scaparate, they sell the sensors to other companies and making a good money doing it, so in a way they will never go bankrupcy while other companies are buying components from them, and they can keep making xperias and rx, no matter how poor they sold, in a way they overprice them at the cost of less sales and the gain of being able to sell components at higher prices, the problem is what will happend if all those companies stop making cameras, stop buying sony components, but… is really a problem? would you belive me if i told you thats the real PLAN, make better tech, make them depend of your better tech, charge whatever make them go bankruptcy for using ur tech, those who dont buy tech from u will be left without customers because the tech gap, u end up with complete market domination. ten years ago sony enter the market dominated by canon and nikon, now, nikon is selling less than sony and from that sales sony gets a cut, canon tech is 5 years behind sony, that makes them go with sony for new tech their customers demand, just like nikon did in the past, canon already buy sensor for their compact cameras, canon will follow nikon, we are half way to a photo market world where sony will be outselling and dominating canon and nikon. its all about tech, fan and customer loyal means nothing againts new tech, canon and nikon dominated the market with a glacial slow tech development, in the last decade photography had evolved far more than decades under canon and nikon, to catch and match new tech they had to buy the tech cause they never invested in newer tech, more money if u sell the same old tech over and over again, and u can do that when u dominate the market but thats not the case anymore, this shifts in markets are unstopable once they begin.
ok last lines are not rumors but how i think the next decade in photography market will unfold, and for the record my source its really missing, where are u? love the chats and miss them, i guess theres no point anymore to me keep doing this, its not the same without u, i guess this is my goodbye too.
pd
some techs my source hear from other parts of the companie and never got real
– new flashes used Z battery instead of AA
– use built in wifi signals in bodies to control and fire new flashes
– use blootooth in bodies to get audio for video
– unlimited customized brackets burst (timelapses and much more)
– in camera video effects
– expanded 10 iso
– open camerapps to third party development
– in camera file encryption
– gimbal with sony control remote built in
u may be surprised how stupid are the people who actually make the calls, i mean, in a companie like sony, not understanding even the more basics of enginering is unveliable common, also theres a zero risk policy that dates since the end of last century, as in, if others companies are not doing it then dont do it and wait for other companies trying risky new things, sony react to new tech/trends in mp3, computers, memory cards, tvs, cellphones, action cameras, etc this century instead of being the one trying this new risk things was painfull to watch, in fact the only market where it succed was where the ones un the other side were even worst than sony at trying new tech, canikon.
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