An anonymous source just sent me this: “I have learned that the production Alpha a77 has a revised set of new Bionz processors but the Firmware updates were for the older processors. Someone messed up and may have forgotten to have the firmware people test with the new processor. There will be a major update to the firmware as soon as full testing is completed. This is going to delay US and Canada Distribution. The current Firmware was never test on the newer processors that is in the production cameras. So there will be major corrections are needed in the firmware before its released again.”

If the “rumor” is correct than this is an embarassing news for Sony but also good news for us because it means that the firmware updgrade will hopefully fix all current issues. Reminder: The rumor hasn’t been confirmed by official sources so as usual take it with a grain of salt!

P.S.: Yesterday I told you that Sony UK stopped the A77 sales. Another reader wrote me: “popped into my local Jessops (Hedge End, UK)and asked when they expected to get A77. they checked on system and said that there were none at “head office” and they were expecting stock on 25th October.”

And those are the links to preorder the new cameras and lenses:
A77 at [shopcountry 8461].
A65 at [shopcountry 8459].
Sony NEX-7 [shopcountry 8454].
Sony NEX-5n [shopcountry 8452].
Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 [shopcountry 8450].
Sony 50mm f/1.8 [shopcountry 8448].
Sony 55-210mm [shopcountry 8444].
NEX-5n viewfinder [shopcountry 9110].

A korean video shows the complete blackout of the A77 (Source: blog.naver.com)

Since a couple of days there “rumors” about A77 issues are floating around the web. Many readers contacted me to confirm that there are quite some issues with the first batch of released A77 cameras. The very latest news i got says: “Sony UK have put a hold on all orders till they investigate a problem that seems to be occurring with the cameras failing to recognise any lens attached.”

As you know the very first cameras have been shipped to Asian countries and there is where you can find many issue reports like here at Dchome and here at Xitek and here at SLRclub. There are also issue reports on Dpreview, here and here. One of our readers had the A77 for three days and had the following issues: “I had 3 times a system hang. I found 1 or 2 death spot when the system hanged and full Black screen was shown. When I pressed the “Fn” key, two column of icon were shown on both L/R sides.  My a77 EVF also disappeared.”

Also other sources or readers contacted me to say they are having problems. In summary it sounds like on some cameras there could be those issues:
1) Top LCD info disappears in some occasions.
2) Crash of the whole camera (you have to remove the battery and reinsert it after to restart).
3) AF points do disappear when using third party lenses (and than it doesn’t work for Sony lenses neither!).
4) There are also a lot of other “minor” issues like that one you can see on youtube.

It definitely sounds like all those problems are SOFTWARE issues and that’s at leats a good news. It means that Sony could fix that via firmware upgrade. Anyway, I really think Sony messed it up. You cannot develop a camera for three years and than release it with such basic faults! This sounds even worse than the [shoplink 8452]Sony NEX-5n[/shoplink] “click” problem. Please Sony try to release an official statement as soon as possible if you don’t want to loose all your A77 orders!

Those are the A77 preorder links: [shopcountry 8461]. But keep in mind that there are some issues. You might want to wait until Sony releases or at least announces the new firmware…

Over 4.000 unique voters decided which features are the most important for the future Sony Fullframe cameras. You can see the voting results here: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/poll-vote-your-future-sony-ff-must-have-features/. First I want to thank you all for participating the voting. I will send the results to Sony and see what they think about it. And now, what did we learn from your voting?

1) Real photography: People wants Sony to stop the Megapixel race and focus on higher dynamic range, low noise, manual controls, and top quality 16bit RAW. I couldn’t agree more with the SAR readers! Well done! Let’s go back to real photographer needs!
2) What are the surprises? Many are waiting for a new Mirrorless Fullframe camera (34% of all voters). And 30% of you want that camera to have in body IS!
3) There is still a big need for optical viewfinders! 26% of you want the “old” DSLR design back in Sony’s roadmap. The question is, will EVF become as good as OVF? If Sony can manage to archive that goal than I am sure that big amount of OVF voters will become less and less in time.

One of our readers made an extremely accurate analysis of the results. He created the graphs you can when clicking on these links:
part one, part two, part three, part four, part five, part six, part seven, part eight.

There are a couple of things to consider here:
1) The poll will have no influence on the products released next year as the development of those products has almost terminated.
2) I want to quote Henry Ford’s famous phrase: “If I’d asked customers what they wanted, they would have said “a faster horse“. Good companies should go beyond the current “believes” of the mass. So Sony, feel free to surprise use! ;)

And now let me know what are your “evaluation” of the poll!!!