In an interview with DC.watch (google translation here) the Sony A7-A7r developers explained that a Sony A7 with NEX-7 alike design would have become considerably larger. And the EVF placement in the middle is an advantage if you sue larger A-mount lenses (you eye is on the optical axis).
There is also a hint about the FE lens roadmap: They confirm that faster Sony FE lenses are in development (faster than the Zeiss FE 55mm f/1.8!). Great news!
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To me, an indication of the Sony’s FF intent would be the number of small/pancake lenses. Because IMO we have already enough of monstrous perfect and expensive lenses in all other systems. And 38MP is a plenty of data for software compensation, if compromises are to be made.
If they keep the system big and expensive, they might be able to undercut CaNikon FF market, but they will not get much of penetration elsewhere.
NEX in that respect doesn’t really inspire.
Get real people… there can not be a whole lot of FF pancakes in a given system. Usually 1 (as in Canon / Nikon… Nikon’s one is discontinued to boot), maybe 2, and you’ll get a very limited set of focal lengths (probably 28 and 40 like Voigtländer does. 35/2.8 is already small… but then people start complaining that it’s slow. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
This is becoming a very interesting system. In one/two years from now it will be developed to its full potential (new bodies with ibis, new faster lenses, new pancake lenses) and my take is that it will succeed.
Definitely Sony is going in right direction.
I plan to switch to Sony. I like their line of lenses:
24 mm f1.8
30 mm macro
Zeiss macro
70-200 f4 zoom with rotating collar and short focusing.
20 mm for wide angle and reversing the lens for macro
I also like that Sony allows to swich off the “no lens attached” message when lens is mounted in reverse. They have HDR and double exposure which is missing on my current system.
I do not like the sony flash sytem but it’s still better than Samsung. I hope they at some point switch back to traditionally mounted flashes.
For sure in this moment sony is much better than samsung, in camera markets.
At least they don’t give free cameras to forum mods in order to send away ppl that put in evidence the defects of their products. 🙂
The six geeks that make every sony camera investment obsolete in six months.
nice. Note how they are all holding the latest model, as if to say. ” look at us, we don’t se any camera that’s 6 months old, threw them away for this, so should you cause money grows on tress.”
Every electronic items will obsolete rather quick these days. They are not like 19th century things that were built to last.
Great, but why didn’t they just get it right from the start like Fujifilm did?
😉 I’m quite sure that Samsung would make much better cameras and lenses if they spend money for R@D instead of paying web sites to publish positive comments about Samsung products.
Samsung seems to be forgetting that in order to make money, they need PRODUCTS, e.g. desirable lenses, flashes, and cameras that have at least as good sensors as competition. Samsung has no product that create excitement.
For some reason they know how to copy Apple but they do not know how to copy Fuji
😉
My post is the answer to tecnoworld’s post.
For some reason it landed in unexpected location.
Guys from Mirrorless Rumors could you please correct my mistake and place my post under tecnoworld?
Thanks in advance
LMAO. This. Ideally it would be cool is a company like Samsung with it’s bags of cash would buy a company like Fuji, and then hand their product development/R&D team a blank cheque to do what’s needed in order to dominate the market.
I believe Fuji got it wrong for the very begining. They have developed expensive and quality lens for the X cameras and now, those mean guys at Sony menace to spread FF to the entire market. Fuji has no option than to follow, developing a new lens line up from scratch, again. The X-Pro 1 was for nostalgics and short funded wannabe Leicaguys. To me, it never made sense, too big, too expensive, the hybrid viewfinder was not all that it could have been. Now it is time for a new system!
Not so fast… A photographer who wants to use the usual stuff, say, a 35, 50, 85, a standard zoom and a tele will have to carry and spend a lot less on a Fuji system than on the Sony FE equipment. For many purposes, APS-C is adequate, and portability is more important.
I will believe it when I see it. Sony always lacks when it comes to lenses. And, why would they design it like a DSLR to make using A mount lenses more comfortable – perhaps because it will take a long time to develop a sufficient set of high-quality lenses to support it.
Where is the lens roadmap?
all of them look kind of retarded.
Please be nice. But they are making cameras. Could’ve been better one to show than this.
They look like fine youngmen, informal and clearly havving fun at what they do.
Are these cameras the game over for APS-C format?
I can’t help thinking that if Sony manages to keep FF prices down, especially the 24 Mpix sensor, this will serious hurt APS-C cameras.
Secondly, if this FF attack works, I am not seeing Sony funding more R&D for APS-C technology unless a fundamental shift for compact cameras occurs like leaving the tinny sensors for phones and adopting the APS-C format, gaining distance from an evaporated market.
If they can make some decent and not too expensive pancake lenses, probably they will.
I doubt Sony will be making many APS-C only E-mount lenses but APS-C could find its way into more fixed lens products. Sony is certainly pushing “bigger is better” with sensors and there’s a big gap between 1″ and full-frame.
Don’t think that FF can outpace the APS-C and smaller stuff, at least in the long run. There is a long-running market trend to make stuff smaller, and moving to FF goes against it. Not to mention the higher manufacturing cost for far larger sensors and associated higher price.
Personally, the largest turn-off for me is that I don’t actually gain noticeably more IQ from FF, as I had to use higher f-number than on APS-C or get unacceptably shallow DoF for most of my shooting case. Thus, paying the additional price in money, size and weight is not worth for. The APS-C cameras currently look as the best compromise.
The smaller m4/3 and 1″ might be theoretically interesting, but they offer practically the same size, often with comparatively higher price, and lesser choice in lenses and features.
“a Sony A7 with NEX-7 alike design would have become considerably larger”
but…the panasonic g6 and gh3 are larger than the panasonic gx7. and who really wants to use A mount lenses on an E-mount camera? probably not many. i still think it was a lousy choice.
Every tab’s names are “Newrumors” now, no favicon, pls fix it.
Somebody needs to tell the designers at Sony that 8 bit raw or lossy compressed raw files just don’t cut it. Unless I can get a firm commitment that a firmware update will be forthcoming to allow saving full uncompressed 14 bit raw files on the A7r, I’m sending mine back. They sure aren’t going to compete with Leica, or even Nikon saving what amounts to 8bit raw files. I had high hopes….