During the last two weeks I had quite a few small talks with important digital camera dealers. We can expect price increases on most digital cameras from all manufactures. He said major retailers like Mediamarkt or Amazon will start to “feel” the supply problems by end of April. The supply problem with Sony-Canon-Nikon is estimated to persist for at least 4-6 months. It might be to early to draw final conclusions but there are some price increases like on the A55 in Germany (+60 Euro -> Source: Idealo) and the Sony NEX-3 in US (+ $50 -> Source: Bhphoto).

My overall impression after those “talks” is that Japanese companies are in a much worse situation than they want us to believe.

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P.S.: As you know you can support SonyAlphaRumors by using my affiliate links to purchase any product you want. Click here: [shopcountry 3617] and for every product you buy we will earn a small commission that helps us to cover all costs. And you don’t pay any penny more ;) Thanks!

Let’s make a short break from Alpha related news. Some of you might be interested to read the specs of the new “terrible” brother of the Sony F3, the new F65. It’s the first industrial camera that reocrds…8k!!! I would be glad of some of this features could find the way in the A77 (ok just kidding!). Those are the amazing specs:

• Industry’s first 8K 20M-Pixel CMOS imager for digital motion picture production
• From this imager, the F65 will derive brilliant HD, 2K, True 4K resolution, and higher 16bit Linear RAW output
• F65 adheres to 1.9:1 aspect ratio, DCI Projection standard (4096 x 2160 or 2048 x 1080) Choice of picture composition as needed: 1.85:1, 1.78:1, 1.66:1, 1.33:1, 2.35 spherical, 1.3x anamorphic, or 2x anamorphic cropped
• Wide dynamic range, low S/N ratio, and high sensitivity
• Optional SR-R4 on board SRMemory recorder
• HD-SDI Monitoring outputs with viewing LUT’s
• The camera can shoot 1 to 120 fps
• 16 bit-RAW recording in SRMemory™ card (sold sep.)

More info at Pro.Sony (Click here). I am particularly impressed by the 16Bit linear RAW recording. If Sony would manage to add RAW video recording to high.end Alpha SLT cameras that would kill the current [shoplink 6340]Canon 5D mark II[/shoplink] sales! Ok, stop me! I am dreaming :)

Sony also unveiled a compact Professional grade 3D Camcorder at NAB (Source: Akihabaranews). The HVR-NX3D1J (in Japan) or HXRNX3D1U (in North America):

• 3D Worldcam 50i/60i compatible
• 3D Recording Mode: 50i/60i/24P (28Mbps)
• 2D Recording Mode: 1920×1080/60p, 50p, 60i, 50i, 24p, 25p
• SD Recording Mode: 720×480 60i, 720×576 50i
• Double HD lenses, 10x optical zoom in 3D
• Automatic or manual parallax correction
• Active SteadyShot™ in 3D
• Glassless 3.5-inch LCD
• Removable Audio Pod with XLR connectors
• Time Code recording
• 28Mbps AVCHD with AC3/LPCM 3D recording
• Side by Side or Frame Packing output via HDMI
• One card slot accepts SD or Memory Stick
• Built-in 96GB flash memory

Macro Tube for Sony Alpha ([shoplink 6380]Click here to see the macro tube price on eBay[/shoplink])

NEX-5 with Pentax DA 21mm Limited Lens (SonyAlphaNex).
GPS-Equipped Compact Ultra Zoom Cameras at Dcresource.
Sony Bloggie 3D and Cyber-shot WX10 Hands On at Dcresource.
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W510 tested at Cnet Australia.
Sony HX9V test at DC.watch.
Something else: Sony warns NGP launch may be limited in 2011 due to quake (Source: Electronista)
Anonymous Targets Sony, Warns Of Penises Stuck In Hornets Nests (Gizmodo).

Doh! I missed to post the new Lensbaby Composer Pro announcement! “The new lens refines and enhances the classic Lensbaby Composer by upgrading the swivel ball and focus mechanism to provide professional performance. It now delivers an ultra-smooth focus and tilt control and you have a fluid and accurate dampened focus ring comparable to the focus mechanisms of the highest quality professional manual focus lenses.”

The lens is already in Stock at Amazon (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).

There is also a version with Pre-installed Sweet 35 Optic at Amazon (Click here) and BHphoto (Click here).

You might have noticed that something has changed on SonyAlphaRumors. I am working closely with the other rumor website members to add some new stuff. Here is the list of the things we made:

1) Design has been fixed for the new IE9 browsers. If you are still experiencing some problems (like on Chrome for example) please reload the website or clear the cache.

2) SonlyAlphaRumors members can now write camera and lens reviews. Rate the product you own and link to your personal website or image collections! This will help other SonyAlphaRumors readers to learn more about a specific camera/lens.

3) You can now edit your own comment if you need to do so.

4) There is also a new forum. We are still working on it but comments you write below a post will be automatically posted inside the forum too. As you know I do post 2-3 news per day and at a certain point it gets difficult to read new comments on an older post. Inside the forum the topic with the latest comment will be always on top! Here is the link: http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/forums/

5) I also created a new shop-plugin which should work for those countries (country codes): AT, AU, CA, CH, CN, DE, DK, ES, FI, FR, HK, IE, IT, JP, NO, PL, SE, SG, UK, US. I will show you an examples how it works. If you are physically located in France than you should see shop links to Amazon/Pixmania and ebay France. If you are currently living in one of the listed countries please check if the system works. Example: Sony A55 links to [shopcountry 3617]. Is it correct?

Feel free to make suggestions for new features if you have some. Keep in mind that we are running on buddypress and there are many plugins we could use! Thanks!