(SR5) Sony A7s price to be announced within May. Official shipment June. Real is July :)

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UPDATE: Sony announce the stuff today (May 16):
Sony A7s preorder in USA at Amazon US (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), SonyStore (Click here).
RX100M3 preorders in USA at Amazon (Click here), BHphoto (Click here), SonyStore (Click here).
RX100M3 preorders in Eu at Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, BE, AT, CH, SE, NO, FI, PT.
RX100M3 in Asia at Amazon Japan.
Sony A7s EU pages (no preorder yet): Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, SE, FI, PL.

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I have been told the A7s pricing will be announced soon and also that Sony will say the A7s will ship in June. But like I told you before expect real shipment in early July as best. I am yet not sure but the pricing could be announced on Thursday already because by then Sony will have an official press release for the RX100M3 launch.

I really do hope Sony doesn’t go crazy high with the price. The current only competitor is the Panasonic GH4 (priced at $1699 at Amazon). While the A7s has a larger sensor and superb High ISO performance the Panasonic can do internal 4K, has much faster AF and 10 bit 4:2:2 output. In my opinion the price should be just below $2,000 for the A7s too!

A7s tests:
Still ISO test (Click here). Full size images and video test (Click here). Low light video test (Click here).

A7s Preorder or pure notification store links:
USA: Sony USAmazon and BHphoto.
Europe:  Sony DE, UK, ES, FR, IT, NL, SE, FI, PL.
Asia: Digitalrev

Reminder: You will need the Atomos Shogun at BHphoto (Click here) to grab 8bit 4:2:2 4K video.

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Sony TidBits…

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PlayMemories Camera Apps “Smooth Reflection”

Best primes for the A5000 (DxOmark).
IBELUX 40mm f0.85 lens first seen in flesh at Newsshooter.
Making compact technical camera for A7/A7r at Chiek.co.kr. youtube http://youtu.be/YdYB3BWE08c
Quick test of A6000 with Zeiss lenses (in Swedish) at Fotosidan.
A7r RAW is not all that raw. The full discussion is at Dpreview forum.
Zeiss is having a Touit photo contest, 1st prize is a free touit (including the new 50mm)… “One year of Touit – show us your best image!” http://blogs.zeiss.com/photo/en/?p=4948

Alex:Now I did something new. Again with the A7R + 50 Summilux 1.4 ASPH FLE I had an event at a bar where people had the chance to get a professional portrait. The best pictures I posted on my new Facebook page: Faces. All of them where shot at 1.4 or 1.8 and the difficulty was to get the people motivated while try to stay on focus because only a slight movement of few millimeters was enough to get the whole picture blurry. The challenge was also to not get one guy shot right but 12 on the same evening. I was very happy that I could hold my promise and every one got one really nice and professional portrait :)
So even though I wished I had autofocus it’s also possible to shoot manual if you try hard enough.

James: Sony HK has brought their pro camera support program online. I hope we get this in the US soon.”

Andres:Not a rumour, but some findings about A6000:s PDAF system. It does not work with all lenses, and I guess it depends on what kind of focus motor is used. Here are the findings with the lenses I’ve tested:
Sigma 19mm f/2.8 – does not work
Sony 18-55/3.5-5.6 (old kit zoom) – does not work
Zeiss 24mm f/2.8 – works
Zeiss 16-70 mm f/4 – works
Sony 35mm f/1.8 – works
Sony 50mm f/1.8 – does not work
Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8 – works
Kinda dissapointing since the 50/1.8 is one of my favourites, and I was looking forward to fast AF performance with that lens :(SAR answer: Tried to perform the firmware upgrade??? :)

Michael:Know you´re busy with the a77 stuff. But found this in a forum, and thought it was funny and a nice little feature (had in my powerzoom Canon years ago) that nobody talks about. I mentioned it to you some weeks ago: in a video it seemed as if the a6000 in fact allows you to take a still-picture while video-recording. Apparantly it does :)

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Support call: Help this amazing photo project to survive to die in glory!

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This is the 2x2x2 meter Camera!

Now, where should I start to explain this project… First of all, I know the guys behind the Cubestories project (www.cubestories.com). I know how they work and how hard it has been and still is to realize their vision. It all started years ago when they heard Ilford would stop to produce the famous Ilfochrome (Cibachrome) paper. They decided to buy the last 16 rolls and built this special cube camera obscura to be able to shoot 1×1 meter pictures in direct positive. So every picture you take is a one of a kind! But don’t think that it is a sort of giant Polaroid camera. Unlike the Polaroid pictures the results on the Ilfochrome are of astonishing high quality and astonishing durability (more about it on Wikipedia). Plus, they are the first guys shooting reportage outdoor (with such a huge camera)! The presentation can be read on Cubestories.com (Click here). And some press about the Cubestories project can be read on ThePhoBlographer, DamnMagazine, Photoscala, Repubblica.

Help them to survive…
Now what happened is that they discovered that most of these Ilford rolls are expired or will expire soon. Therefore they have to shoot all the 16 rolls (about 300 pictures) this year to avoid major color shifting. And there is no way to complain with Ilford Switzerland because well, they went bankrupt (Source: Wikipedia). There is also no time for finding sponsors to cover just the travel and development costs. So they asked me to help them. So here we are!

Help them to die in glory…
It’s important to know this is a unique and one time project. Also every penny that they will earn will cover the pure high material costs which are as high as $26,000 (paper and development). Something that will be impossible to repeat in the future because there is simply no more of that special paper to buy anymore. If you like the project just donate or buy one of the pictures you find below. You will support the project to survive until its natural death in dignity :)

How to support the project:

1) With a one time donation of $10 you can (if you want) get your name on the official Cubestories Supporter page:





2) You can buy one of these five limited edition prints for $150. These are the pictures of the cube (not taken by the cube). Only 25 prints per picture are available and are numbered and signed by the Photographers (Martinelli,Pizzini,Salvà) who built the camera. These are 30×30 centimeter (unframed) high quality ink prints that will be shipped in rolls within 3-4 weeks of the purchase. Click on the image to enlarge. Every picture has a history you can read here: http://www.cubestories.com/cube/.

Buy option is at the end of the picture list:

Picture Nr.1
Picture Nr.2
Picture Nr.3
Picture Nr.4
Picture Nr.5

Select the picture



Note: You can buy more pictures but only one at a time because PayPal doesn’t offer the possibility to select more than one picture for every purchase.

3) On special request you can visit the Photographers in Merano (Italy) to get photographed (or take a photo of your wish) with the camera. Contact them here: cubephotographers@gmail.com.

Disclosure by SAR and Amonsul VOF:
The money will be collected by Amonsul VOF from (Belgium). They will use all the donations to cover the pure material expenses necessary to realize the 300 pictures (paper and development). SonyAlphaRumors supports the project for pure passion reasons only. I saw them at work, I know how hard it is to get a picture with that thing. Those guys deserve to finish the project!

Andrea (sonyalpharumors),
Supported by Ale (43rumors), Patrick (fujirumors) and Stefan (canonwatch).

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(SR3) Two more A-mount Full Frame cameras to come in 2014?

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Lately a couple of “anonymous” sources got the info that Sony will launch more A-mount cameras the second half of this year. Two of these sources said they will be called “A88” and “A99II“. One is a new low-end FF and one is a high-end FF.

I have yet not received any confirmation via trusted sources so don’t get too excited for now. One of the sources also said that unlike the A77II that have been announced now the new A88 and A99II are rumored to represent a major technological advancement. As usual I hope trusted sources will read this and hopefully confirm the rumors is correct! Would be an amazing news!

The current only Sony FF A-mount camera is the Sony A99 which will become exactly two years old at the Photokina in September. Right in time to get a successor don’t you think? Well, comment this post with your features wish list and I will do a poll out of it to see what SAR readers want from Sony!

And do not forget: RX100MIII will be announced this week on May 15. And I hope Sony will announce the final A7s pricing too! Stay tuned on SAR!

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Message to sources: You can send me more info anonymously by using the contact form you see on the very right of your browser. You can also contact me directly at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com.
For readers: Subscribe the RSS feed (Click here) and Twitter (Click here) stream and the Facebook fan page (Click here) in order to not miss any news!
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Reminder (SR = Sonyrumor):
SR1=probably fake rumor
SR2=rumor from unknown sources
SR3=50% chance it is correct
SR4=rumor from known sources
SR5=almost certainly correct!

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Oh gosh! Hasselblad in trouble?

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Ex-Ceo Hannsen with Buzz Aldrin at the Lunar launch event (Source: Hasselblad).

I really don’t know if the rumors are true but Photorumors claims to have “heard” that “Ventizz will pull the plug on Hasselblad very soon“. Ventizz Capital owns Hasselblad since 2011. A couple of months ago I reported that Hasselblad CEO Dr. Larry Hansen had been removed (article here). So probably something strange is going on…

If rumors are true than I guess the strategy to sell “Sony luxurified Hasselblads” didn’t work out. Althaugh big stares like Medvedev, BeckhamBlondie and David Lynch have been spotted owning the [shoplink 22672 ebay]Hasselblad Lunar[/shoplink].

It would be a terrible news for a such a great medium format camera maker. I guess recent Full Frame cameras with Sony sensor like the Nikon D800 and Sony A7r are eating up large part of the already small medium format market. Don’t know what Hasselblad should do to get out from their (rumored) troubles. Maybe they should have focused on launching a sub $10,000 mirrorless medium format system using Sony’s partnerhsip to drop costs. But that may be just a weird idea of mine…

Note: You can currently buy the three “Sony luxurified Hasselblads” on eBay: [shoplink 22672 ebay]Hasselblad Lunar (on eBay here)[/shoplink], [shoplink 22673 ebay]Hasselblad Stellar (on eBay here)[/shoplink] and the first [shoplink 26481 ebay]Hasselblad HV superkit (on eBay here)[/shoplink].

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Mirror-less is More… Guest post by Patrick Murphy-Racey

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SAR note: This is a guest post by Patrick Murphy-Racey. If you wnat to write an article for SAR contact me (Andrea) at sonyalpharumors@gmail.com. Thanks!

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Mirror-less is More…  Guest post by Patrick Murphy-Racey

I’m a convert to Sony, having shot Nikon & Canon my entire career as a photojournalist.  I’m a recovering Sports Illustrated photographer that got into Sony through the A99V and Samyang glass strictly for shooting video.  Sony afforded me many options not even thought about yet like EVF in a full-frame body, articulated LCD, focus peaking, balanced audio option, and the small & compact size that allows me to fly with very little and still keep my production value high.  I recently acquired the A7 for its 60P capability with full manual control.  On a whim, I also picked up the RX-10 because it just looked cool and seemed perfect for a budget super-wide to stick on jib-arms, sliders, and to attach to things for POV shots.  Put simply, if the RX10 only shot video and cost twice as much as it does, it would still have almost no rival and be a great value.  That it also makes fantastic stills is a huge bonus.

This image came from an assignment I shot up in Chicago in the first week I had the RX10.  I was shooting all day at this law school and in the afternoon after I was all packed up and ready to head home, I got a call about shooting a quick portrait of four people.  One of them had to catch a plane and I was told I had about ten minutes to pull something together.  I remembered seeing the frosted lettering in the lobby area commons and how you could see right into “the loop” from that place.  I also knew there was plenty of window light there so off I went in a big hurry.  I had my A7 and a bunch of Nikon glass that I could have used with the metabones adapter, but then I realized every lens I had was duplicated in the RX10 and I thought, “let’s just travel light and go!”  And go we did with this as the result:

I have been talking about the RX10 on my Facebook over the last few months and I have had a lot of photographer friends call me to ask me about more details when they see the images I’m producing with it.  I got so many of these calls that I finally made up this joke to offer them:


So, three photographers are sitting in a bar.  One says, “let’s use our imaginations and dream up the greatest camera ever!  OK, it should be small, and lightweight,” the first says.  “It should have a fast lens, at least f/2.8,” says another.  “It should do great video and have built in image stabilization.”  Another chimes in, “it should be able to shoot 60P, allow complete manual control of exposure and have a de-clicked aperture ring right on the lens.”  It should be able take real microphones and have on-board phantom power from the camera.” “Yeah, and have a headphone jack so you can hear if there is a problem with audio before it’s too late,” says the first one. “I want it to shoot ten frames per second and make NO noise (laughter from around the table).”  “The battery should last a long time and allow copious chimping throughout the day (chuckles).”  “It should have a built-in ND filter so you could shoot wide open in bright sunlight for both video as well as stills.  And it should sync flash at 1/1000th so you don’t have to take real lights and you could just use a small flash for portraits.”  “OK, if we’re going crazy, it should have a Carl Zeiss lens on it and zoom from 24-200mm and keep the same aperture (more laughter).”  “If you are going that far, you should be able to click one button and be able to send the image to your phone and onto the bride’s Facebook right from an assignment.”  “One last thing, I want to be able to shoot squares like the old Hasselblads, 2:3, 4:3 for 8×10’s, and 16:9 for landscape and do in camera tilt-shift effects I can control.”  Everyone is laughing now.  When things quiet down a bit, the one who started the whole thing says, giggling, “All this for just $1298.”  Everyone screams laughing and one falls out of the chair…

At this point, RX10 goes wherever I go, even when I take the heavier Nikons.  Between the OSS on the RX10 and Adobe Premiere’s “warp stabilizer,” my Steady-Cam doesn’t get much use these days, but it’s OK as the vest always made me sweat anyways.    Sony is way out ahead in almost everything regarding shooting stills and video.  I’m very excited to see the new A7s with a hopefully a more quiet shutter in the future…
A friend of mine called me a couple weeks ago in a jam.  He had hired a second photographer to shoot a wedding with him and just a few days before, he backed out.  His contract with the bride specified two shooters.  He called me and asked if I could help him out.

This is a good guy and so I agreed and the next day I headed towards Chattanooga on my motorcycle.  It was a gorgeous day, and riding on the twisties to get to this barn in the countryside was pure joy.  Because I elected to take the bike rather than my car, here is what I brought with me:

1-Sony RX10
2-extra batteries (only used one)
1-8′ light stand
1-small Chimera light bank
1-Yongnuo 560II flash
1-set of Yongnuo radio remotes
1-good attitude, open mind, & rain gear just in case

Weddings are usually fairly stressful affairs with lots of cooks in the soup each with their own needs, emergencies that need plans, fires to put out, personalities to learn, and the pressure is always there to produce excellent work, capture the right moments, and do a good job for nice people.

When you are the second shooter covering a wedding, it’s a nearly stress-free situation.  I could just concentrate on making nice images knowing that my buddy Mike was pulling the weight and dragging the gear.  I had virtually no weight, and carried the RX10 all day.  I had a “big time” as they say down here in East Tennessee.  I made a few nice images and have no regrets about leaving the D4S that I bought the week prior at home.  If I brought that to shoot, I would have had to have brought the two zooms and the weight of all that would have equaled OVER 4- RX10’s.  Put another way, the total weight of the Nikon and two zooms would be 8.1 lb..  The RX-10 weighs just 1.8 lb..  Another comparison is really out there:  Retail price on the Nikon stuff that would go from 24-200mm at f/2.8 is $10,300 vs. $1298 for a new RX10.  Think about that! Here is a short video that I made which includes both stills and video that I captured with my RX10 and all hand-held:  http://vimeo.com/90119636

In another recent shoot my subject was a bank president outside and show their corporate building in the background.  The time for the shoot was not ideal: 1pm when the light is pretty much at its worst.  I found a nice spot across the street in the shade, and was in a Hasselblad mood so I selected 1:1 on the RX10, and shot square.  I was able to sync flash way up high and engaged the internal ND filter so I could shoot wide open.  The combination of 80 ISO, NF filter, and the high sync speed allowed me to underexpose the blue sky and really make the woman stand out.  Elapsed time for the whole shoot, you ask?  About 3 minutes.  It would have taken less time but the RX10 was set for 10 fps and it took me a while to find the right menu to get back to single frame the rest of the assignment.  When you shoot with strobes outside, it can be really hard to see the LCD on the back of the camera.  Not so with the RX10 as it was showing me what I was shooting as I was shooting each frame immediately after each pop of my little flash.  I never had to even take my eye from the viewfinder.

OK, so the RX10 isn’t perfect as it only has a 1″ sensor, which is slightly smaller than APS-C, but the ability to shoot in bright sunlight with a low ISO and the ND filter means you can shoot at f/2.8 on the side of a glacier at noon.  But it gives me excited pause for what its replacement might be.  A 4K version of the Rx10 would be an amazing asset to many videographers, especially if it was capable of 60P at 4K!!!  With the smaller sensor size, I wonder if Sony could pull that off.  My Sony A6000 ha been pre-ordered and I’m excited to test with that new camera with it’s new sensor as well.  The A6000 at $650 just might just be faster than your 1Dx or D4s.  The videos that amateurs and camera store employees have posted are downright scary.  My point is that as the Cold War rages one, white vs. black, Sony, Panasonic, Olympus, and Fuji are all working hard on the technology that we will all use in the immediate future.  EVF’s are here to say and while I never thought I’d say it, they are better.  The fact that Sony has elected to put over 2M pixels into the new A7s’s viewfinder is staggering.  It should increase by double the ability to find sharp focus with fast lenses of any make.

Last week I used the RX1o on a cool assignment to shoot four Marines who will become JAG Corps. lawyers upon graduation from school. I started out lighting the flag which was pretty involved.  The stars required a separate light as the blue was so dark next to the stripes; this required an additional head with a grid-spot to concentrate the light into just the blue area.  Each Marine got their own 5 degree grid-spot to create the dramatic light, and each from a slightly different direction.  It was a huge room that is actually a volleyball court most days, and we needed every square foot of it to make this image happen.  Finally, the guys were patient and let us do our thing.  I ended up shooting this on the Sony RX10 as it afforded me the depth of field with it’s 1″ sensor to carry focus through all four guys and still shoot wide open at f/2.8 with the internal ND filter on.

It’s tougher and tougher to find clients that are willing to pay for photographs like this one.  I had a pick-up truck full of lighting equipment on hand.  In the course of the 45 min. shoot, I used around $14,000 worth of Elinchrom strobes, light modifiers, and grip equipment.  There was a total of 7 heads used to shoot the photograph here and an additional head for head-shots and portraits we also did at the same time.  I started to shoot this image with the A7 and 55mm f/1.8 which is razor sharp but I could not carry the depth I needed for how I placed the Marines so the RX10 was an easy answer, once again.  $14K in lighting to shoot an image with a $1200 camera; I like that ratio.  It was a fun day and I’m happy with the picture.  I know the guys are:


Things are really getting interesting right now and Sony seems to be able to respond at breakneck speed in developing new products that are all logarithmically better than the last generation from just a few months ago.  All in all, I hope the “big two” wake up and smell this EVF coffee.  Sony’s Java is tasting mighty fine to me while the “big two’s” cups are virtually empty.  Sony’s lineup is really looking good right now with all kinds of possibility.  They need to put out a whole lot more glass if the E mount cameras are going to really have a chance to take off.  And they need to make Sony lenses for the A7 series and not just the pricey Zeiss versions—real photographers are having a hard time making a living these days.  We need more glass that is reasonably priced as well as the high end faster versions of EVERYTHING.  My wish list for E mount is pretty simple: I want a 135mm f/2 or 1.8, 90mm f/2, 35 f/2, a true 100-150mm macro at f/2.8 or 3.5, & a 14-24mm f/4 zoom to rival Nikon’s.
There are a lot of ways to spell Mirror-less but for my money, S-O-N-Y is how I choose to do so.  The Panny stuff is awesome for video but is that crazy 4/3rds that I just can’t get my mind around when all I shoot is 16:9.  The Fuji stuff right now is really hot for stills especially among my recovering newspaper peeps but the video is lack luster.  Sony is also HUGE and has been a leader in the video biz forever.  I feel like I’m right where I need to be, at least for now.  I need some more work to start saving cash for the A7s so if any of you have work you could send my way, I’m al ears.

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