Big news guys! The Chinese company Zhongyi Optical officially announced the “Lens Turbo” adapter. It’s the cheap alternative of the famous Speed Booster. The Zhongyi Optical company isn’t an unknown company for NEX owners. The company is the maker of the [shoplink 14656 ebay]Mitakon 35mm f/0.95 E-mount lens (they are here on eBay)[/shoplink]. On the picture on top you can see the Pentax to NEX adapter.

How did they avoid to get into a legal dispute with Metabones? The optical design differs and the Lens Turbo has a reduction ration of 0.726 (Speed Booster is 0.71). It’s a manual adapter only while some Speed Booster adapters also support full electronic AF and Aperture control. The Lens Turbo price is set at US$239.

Click on the image to see a large size version of their first Pentax-NEX adapter:

Source:
http://forum.xitek.com/thread-1151810-1-1-2.html
http://forum.xitek.com/thread-1133291-1-1-1.html

MTF chart

Sigma announced that surprising f/1.8 constant aperture zoom. Now you can read a hands-on preview at ePhotozine. And what’s even more interesting are the first image samples posted by Lcap.

We still don’t know if that lens will also be made for A-mount. In the meantime you can analyze the lens performance through those graphs:

Vignetting chart

Distortion chart

JBCameraDesigns announced the new RX1 Wood Grip. You can already buy it at Amazon US (Click here).

Reminder: The RX1 metal quick release plate is sold by a Hong Kong company on [shoplink 17977 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

Next week Sony will announce the new HX50 and no new E-mount or A-mount camera or lens will be announced yet. The A78 is off the roadmap while the NEX-7 successor is coming within the next few months.

But we will have new E-mount stuff soon from two other comapnies. Hasselblad will announce the new Lunar and Zeiss the two lenses:

Hasselblad:
Leo Edwards (Click here) wrote a harsh critique against the Lunar: “Will Hasselblad become to Sony what AMG is to Mercedes or Alpina to BMW? lets compare. A top of the line AMG conversion essentially doubles the price of a stock mercedes – what do you get for your 100% premium? A completely re-mapped, engineered and tuned engine, a massive brake, wheel and suspension overhaul, custom interior leather, wood and carbon fibre, exclusive paint – oh and a body kit. What do you get with the Hasselblad / Sony combo at a 600% premium, errrmm, a body kit…….! Suddenly an AMG Mercedes seems like the best value on the planet with considerably more wood, leather and carbon fibre thrown in for good measure!”

Zeiss:
I have been told by a source that the Zeiss Planar 32mm f/1.8 and the Distagon 12mm f/2.8 will ship from June. If you want to learn more about the tech and philosphy behind the “Pana” and “Distagon” deifnition you may read the two pdf files found by our read BIll (Thanks!):
Planar: http://blogs.zeiss.com/photo/en/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/en_CLB_40_Nasse_Lens_Names_Planar.pdf
Distagon: http://blogs.zeiss.com/photo/en/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/en_CLB41_Nasse_LensNames_Distagon.pdf

DxOmark (Click here) tested both, the Sony E 35mm f/1.8 and Sony E 10-18mm f/4.0 lens. Both lenses perform very well compared to the compatition!

ePhotozine (Click here) tested the Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 lens and they do write: “This lens delivers performance worthy of the Carl Zeiss name, especially in the centre of the frame, where sharpness is excellent, or even outstanding when stopped down. It is a premium piece of glass, and so it carries a premium price tag. Those willing to stump up the £760 for this lens will not be disappointed.”

ePhotozine (Click here) also tested the 10-18mm lens: “So long as the limitations of this lens are known, and understood, then this lens is certainly capable of producing high quality images. However, it is a shame that the performance at maximum aperture between 14mm and 18mm isn’t up to the same high standard as when the lens is stopped down a little.”

Price check links to the tested E-mount lenses:
Zeiss 24mm at [shopcountry 8450].
10-18mm at [shopcountry 14170].
35mm prime at [shopcountry 14169].

No guys, this isn’t a joke! Starting from April 26 Sony will sell the AKA-DM1 cameras for dogs! You can already preorder it at Sony Japans website. The AKA-DM1’s harness is adjustable, but is only designed for dogs over 15 kilograms (33 pounds) with a belly circumference of between 50 to 80 centimeters (Source: The Verge).

I am very curious to see if there is realyl a market for this!

As posted last week on SAR there will be a Sony announcement within the next few days. But we can be 99% sure that the only camera we will see is the new DSC-HX50V Cybershot. No new Alpha and no new NEX camera yet. There may be a second announcement in may bringing some NEX news. But that is ranked as “SR2” only for now. The Sony Vietnam website already leaked the HX50 image at http://zoom.sony.com.vn/

These are the Cybershots specs I already posted last week:

20 Megapixel cmos
30 X Optical Zoom
FullHD Movie-50p
MI Shoe & EV Dial
WIFI
Optical Steady Shot (New)
GPS
Lens with ED Glass & ER Glass
Shutter and Iris Diaphragm
New Algorithm Optimised Stabilisation 2X bigger effect for the Steady
Shot
Estimated Retail Price 420€

I may ask the source to tell me if there is some A and E-mount camera or lens coming too? Thanks!

—-

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!

——–

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!