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The taiwanese company Ownuser just published the first NEX-7 battery grip pictures on Facebook (Click here). As you can see form the pictures there is  even a remote trigger. To read the specs and features of the grip just click on the images below. The battery grip cannont be preordered yet and will be avaialble in a couple of months. Ownuser is already known for making remote controllers and battery grips for Sony DSLR/SLT and NEX cameras. You can buy them on [shoplink 11424 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink].

P.S. NEX-7 in Stock status check:
[shoplist 8454]

This is the new Sony lens roadmap. Click on the image to see the large version! According to the roadmap there will be four new lenses this year and four new lenses in 2013. My guess based on rpevious rumors is that some of the 2013 lenses will be actually announced within 2012. If you read from top the lenses are:

Sony Europe (Click here) and Sony Japan (Click here) announced the new rugged 500mm f/4.0 lens. And that beast is yours for no less than 13.000 Euro!!! It will be in Stock by April. Those are the key features of the lens:

HOT: The last few hours rumors are coming in like raindrops. Soon Sony will announce new SLT stuff. Stay tuned!

Meanwhile I got more than twenty emails from USA readers saying that their NEX-7 body preorder from August/October/November/December and January(!) have been shipped by Amazon or Bhphoto! The screenshot on top shows a shipped January BHphoto order.

Teh Sony NEX-7 body is already in Stock in european stores like Amazon Germany (Click here), Sony Germany (Click here), Sony France (Click here), Sony Italy (Click here), Sony Netherland (Click here), Sony Sweden (Click here), Sony Switzerland (Click here).

Nikon finally announced the Nikon D800 which uses the new Sony 36 megapixel sensor. Interesting, there is even a Nikon D800″E” version that has not Anti Aliasing filter! There is no official info about who made the sensor. But I already knew since almost a year that Nikon would use a Sony produced 36 megapixel sensor this and I wrote it on SAR many times :) Sony will very likely use the same sensor inside the full-frame camera that will be launched in early 2013. The Nikon D800 costs $3000 at Amazon (Click here). The D800E costs around $3.300 at Amazon (Click here) and Bhphoto (Click here).

So let’s take a short look on the part of the press release were Nikon talks about the sensor:

“The new Nikon developed 36.3-megapixel FX-format (35.9 x 24mm) CMOS sensor realizes Nikon’s highest resolution yet, and is ideal for demanding applications such as weddings, studio portraiture and landscape, where there is no compromise to exceptional high fidelity and dynamic range.

The D800 features a wide native ISO range of 100-6400, expandable to 50 (Lo-1)-25,600 (Hi-2). Nikon engineers have created innovative ways to manipulate light transmission to the sensor’s photodiodes, giving users the ability to shoot with confidence in challenging lighting conditions.  Internal sensor design, an enhanced optical low pass filter (OLPF) and 14 bit A/D conversion with a high signal to noise ratio all contribute to a sensor capable of excellent low light ability despite the extreme resolution.  Every aspect of this new FX-format sensor is engineered to deliver amazing low noise images through the ISO range and help create astounding tonal gradation and true colors, whether shooting JPEG or RAW.

The optimized CMOS sensor reads image data at astoundingly fast rates, which results in less instances of rolling shutter distortion.”

So, do you like it? 14bit, no anti aliasing filter, fast readout for less rolling sutter. That’s all stuff Sony has to offer on their cameras too!