In the comment system of SAR someone made a bit of fun and posted a FAKE image of an FAKE Sony document saying that A-mount would be discontinued in July. I want to stress that there is no such document on Wikileaks. This has been made up by that commenter! Dear A-mount followers don’t worry. That was really a bad joke by an anonymous poster 🙂
Some of you said, well, why on the contrary the roadmap should be true. Because it can be found as an attachment on one of the email of Wikileas-Sony. So this is 100% real 🙂
Please spread that info on forums and other sites. I saw that plenty of people picked up the news!
UPDATE: I removed the direct link to the email for privacy reason. Just trust me on this that the roadmap can be found there 🙂
UPDATE_2: A couple of reasons why I know this image is fake:
– the original author said would send me the mail with the file and he didn’t
– the original author posted a link to wikileaks that leads to a blank page
– th original author posted other fake info on SAR comments system
– the original author commented his own leak comment with multiple fake names to increase the attention ont he discussion
– there is no such document that can be found on wikileaks and I spent 7 hours to check all the files 🙂
83 Responses
Use this, just made it from the original and it doesn’t look so hand drawn 😀
Source: https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/fileid/120923/20536
cool!
I don’t think Sony would mind eithersince it is only for Q1, there were already rumors about these.
All I can see in Wikileaks is: New Α6000 series. Nothing more.
Sorry. Fixed the link now. There are many emails and roadmap changes. This is the latest roadmap:
https://wikileaks.org/sony/emails/emailid/49002
I decided to remove the link to the email. Just to not get in trouble with Sony as I don’t know if they are pelased with me trying to debunk the false A-moutn rumor or unpleased towards me for linking to the correct mail where the roadmap can be found. SO it may be save for my ass to stay out of troubles 🙂
I posted a rumour before that proved to be true and you didn’t publish it. So I am not going to go through the correct steps again but there’ll be a 21mm loxia lens by november. I mentioned this in a post a while ago, everyone laughed at me but there’s a recent video confirming a wide angle
Link me to the rumor please so that I can know you are reliable 🙂
P.S.: The video says ther eis a wide angle. But it could be also a 25mm, 24mm, 18mm lens.
I don’t care about the video, the upcoming lens is a 21mm. I also made a post here long before that video ever surfaced, but the site is spammed full of ebay advertisements, camera deals, unrelated things (unrelated to rumours at least) that it’s hard to find my post. Perhaps someone that saw it can link it
Here it is….
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/saradmin/new_sony_fe_roadmap_hints_more_fast_primes_sony_says_fast_portrait_lens_is_coming_among_them/#comment-1905774122
It takes 2mn to find the email that was once linked to…
And A7 series and RX.
This is what I see when I open the link. where is a7 and RX??
I just spend about an hour just scanning through random Sony emails. It’s very intersting to see what happens at Sony (in all departments; especially DI, pictures, tv series and advertising). It’s a company totally exposed to everyone. Scary! Imagine your (private) business emails and everything you ever wrote can be found on the Internet. First I’d do is to search for colleagues writing about me 🙂
Yesterday’s fake a-mount WL really created a heated discussion. That do indicate much about many frustrations around the lack of A-mount news.
What I don’t understand is why Sony still isn’t saying anything about it? If they really are working on an upgrade of the A99 or a making a new A-mount camera.
Just a little indication could prevent A-mount shooters to change to Canikon. Every release now, without any A-mount news, seems to make Sony loose many potential buyers and users. Can’t say I’m impressed of the strategy.
The A-Mount is dead hysteria has to stop. It is not dead apart from in the eyes of the Internet and that will become a self fulfilling prophesy because of this.
Back in the days before E-Mount these release schedules would have been consider normal, the only reason people assume it is dead is because Sony ALSO have E-Mount now.
I agree. But an indication about AM could finish the hysteria and prevent escape to Canikon.
But it doesn’t seem to matter what Sony says or does about A-Mount it is still assumed dead. They say they are committed to it no one believes them. They pre announce updated lenses, doesn’t count. They make the best A-Mount camera ever and people complain that it doesn’t ‘seem’ different enough to the old model. They improve the biggest issues with A-Mount of the past and people complain.
Still, I am definitely enjoying all the bargain basement A-Mount lenses I have been picking up as a result.
I see your point. The bargains exists maybe also because people are running…
Absolutely! Still, makes me happy. Not one bit concerned about A-Mount being dead considering the only A-Mount camera I own is a Dynax 7 film camera.
I’m choosing AM too because of the lenses.
I use A, E and M. E I just want Sony to release a 100mm f2 and don’t need anything else from that lineup. A I use for larger apertures where size is not an issue, I can also use across a variety of different body types.
I will remain in the E also for same the reason (size) and hope for fast 85 and 135.
All empty words no actions.
Yep, see. Anyway, Barry is a clown.
Barry photographs animals because he has no friends. He paints from those photos because he has no job. He posts on here like his opinion is valid because he has no one to talk to.
Poor sad Barry. Enjoy your new pee-wee camera Bazza!
Actually, I believe it does make a difference what Sony says and does. The fake document got wide circulation. Wide enough that Sony themselves certainly saw it. They should probably respond.
But let’s consider what their response could be. If A mount is indeed being wound down, any statement from Sony would have to be narrow in response (e.g. “that document is a fake”). If A mount is about to be resurrected with new products instead of a few updates, Sony would need to say something broader (e.g. “the statement is false, and we will have additional A mount products in the coming year”). They need to be very careful in any response they make, as it will be interpreted more closely than the smoke coming out of the Vatican.
As for the word “committed,” that is a vague word, not a specific word. And as long as you’ve got existing inventory sitting on shelves, you’d never use any other word. I’ve watched far too many companies claim to be committed to something suddenly turn out not to be ;~).
I agree that Sony is making their best A mount cameras and lenses ever. That doesn’t actually change things. Saturn, Pontiac, Oldsmobile all made their best products ever just before disappearing.
The difficulty for Sony is that they have continually said the A mount is not dead and have, to give them some credit, released newer versions of certain lenses. However, many do not believe this and express doubt.
I think much of the hand-wringing is a completely pointless waste of time, though! The only reason I swapped is I’m getting older and wanted lighter, but I was still delighted with the A99.
I suspect that if Sony had been in a better financial position they may have made a bolder attack on the A mount market, but they are subject to more constraints than Canon and Nikon in that regard. It’s probably not through lack of desire if the A mount goes no further, but simply the reality of market forces.
I agree, they do need to make a statement about this but my point was that it will almost certainly fall on deaf ears. People will believe what they want to believe and many will believe A-Mount is dead no matter what Sony say. People were saying it long before this, you were probably saying it and the guy that made this stuff up was probably saying etc.
Sony probably need to say a LOT of things with these leaks and this one is probably right near the bottom in order of importance, especially as no one will believe them anyway.
“Dead” of course, needs a definition for cameras just as it does for humans ;~). And some people still think Elvis is alive.
Common sense and observation tells us this: A mount announcements of even updates to products have dwindled both in number and frequency; new sales of all A mount gear has dwindled; Sony is selling more E than crop sensor A, more FE than full frame A; the video cameras didn’t adopt A, they adopted FE (and there’s a good reason for that, as by definition, an ILC video camera IS a mirrorless camera; it doesn’t need a mirrorbox). From all that we can easily conclude that the “health” of the A mount is no longer what it once was within Sony.
It will be difficult to actually “kill” the A mount, though. We still have people using film cameras, after all. There’s enough A mount gear out there already to keep an A-mounter shooting A mount for as long as they’d care to.
The real issue will eventually be parts and warranty repair. I personally call something dead seven years after production ends. That’s because that’s the parts availability expectation due to warranty laws.
People believe what they want to believe, often in the face of contradictory facts. I believe that Sony has made a conscious decision to have E/FE be their future mount of choice.
I agree that E-Mount is the future focus for Sony and mirrorless is the future period. In this regard all systems are on life support, some just have a bit longer than others. And yes ‘dead’ is hard to quantify, look at rangefinders which should in theory be ‘dead’ by similar definition to A-Mount, but it still kicks around in a niche market. Records/Vinyl was ‘dead’ again similar thing.
I was talking to a friend about MP3 players the other day, not so long ago this market was booming, now it is more or less ‘dead’ because people use convergent device like smartphones. However Sony is one of the few big brands to still make Walkmans because there is still a (much smaller) market and they are catering to that market.
Point is, if there is a market there and they can make money from it they will. But it won’t have the kind of priority that the more popular items will have.
Additionally Sony will no longer have to worry about models and market position as much as before, nor holding out on features for the next model etc, they can just make the best cameras they can for that model.
Considering Sony are still developing ILCE’s the cost of developing a few A-Mount SLTs alongside wouldn’t be huge, with the main difference between them being the mount and SLT / PDAF system of which they recently spent a considerable sum on. Releasing an A7R II as an A99 II would cost them very very little. If they release that camera it extends the life of A-Mount by another three years and so on.
E-Mount is the future, but long live Vinyl / Rangefinders / MP3 players / A-Mount.
I think Sony, in particular, needs to be careful about this. They spread themselves across all variety of CES and even wider, and that’s built an infrastructure cost that’s unsustainable with lots of small market products. Nikon is a little different in this, as they really only have two divisions that are fairly focused that bring in 90% of their dollars.
The new Walkman is an ego thing. I doubt they will make any money on it. It’s too expensive for what it is, and not particularly differentiated to justify the extra cost. There are other “high quality” MP3 players for far less money.
And that’s the thing. In Japan those types of projects get to green light because it’s so difficult to jettison employees and structure once you’ve acquired them. It’s cheaper to just let them iterate a product, even if the product doesn’t make money. Who knows, maybe they’ll hit an unexpected home run ;~).
Yet “right sizing” is exactly what Sony needs to do on the electronics side. It’s easy to see if you just take out the movie, music, insurance, and banking business out of Sony’s financials. Samsung, meanwhile, has managed to become the new Sony, effectively managing to make money in all the electronics businesses Sony has struggled in. And even for the nimbler Samsung, it hasn’t been easy, and they have to constantly readjust.
That’s why I applaud the E/FE over A decisions Sony has been making. If they’re going to succeed in cameras, they need to be at the forefront of what’s happening. DSLRs aren’t the forefront.
Until and unless Sony puts out a state of the art new A mount camera, A mount is indeed dead.
They did 12 months ago, but it wasn’t three layer 8 billion pixel so you didn’t care. Because you are frankly an idiot.
Even then it might be dead.
People need to look at what happened with 4/3 versus m4/3. Officially, 4/3 still isn’t quite dead. From a new user standpoint, it is. The same thing is in the process of happening now with A mount.
I’d be more likely to believe A mount was alive if Sony were using it on their video cameras. The fact that you have virtually all of Sony’s sales of ILC still/video cameras now all centered on the E/FE mount seems to be the writing on the wall. New A mount sales in the US have basically dried up, now less than 5% of the DSLR market (which is shrinking) and now significantly smaller than Sony’s E/FE mount sales in the US.
Will Sony have additional A mount products? Probably. There’s a large enough installed base that upgrading would sell enough product to keep it on life support for the time being. But short of seeing Sony adding to the A mount line instead of just doing a handful of updates, I’d say that it’s headed the same way 4/3 went.
Sorry Thom but have to completely and utterly disagree with you here, A-Mount is simply not the best solution for video, that is why it isn’t the primary mount. There is literally zero reason to use A-Mount on a video camera. You can call it writing on the wall and probably will continue to do so, but it is simply false.
On 4/3’s, yes this is a good example of a mount / system that was essentially abandoned. However the OEMs simply stopped making ANYTHING new for it as soon as m4/3’s launched. They also did not offer anything in the way of usable support for 4/3’s with m43’s until the fourth or so generation of m4/3’s products, Panasonic hasn’t bothered at all.
Sony is not only actively producing new products for A-Mount they have designed a transition that can easily be expanded upon for an eventual transition as well as side by side usage. That is definitely NOT what happened with 4/3’s.
I agree that Sony are spread thin as they compete in more market segments than any manufacturer, but A-Mount is being refreshed in a similar schedule as it has always been, minus a plethora of low end budget models which has been transitioned to E-Mount. In fact if anything they are releasing products more rapidly than ever before for A-Mount, but people ‘seem’ to have difficulty seeing that due to the rapid expansion of FE.
But here’s the fundamental problem in my mind for A-mount: How do you stop the erosion of sales given everything else that’s available? In order for the A-mount to not be on Life Support, you would have to have a way to either expand the user base or at the very very least, keep it constant. But how is that possible? You need new users of A-mount to even keep the user base constant due to people dropping out of photography, death, etc. The logical upgrade path for those that are cell phone photographers, or are already Sony users of compacts NEX cameras, RX cameras, is to an E/FE camera, not to an A-camera due to many things including size/weight, complexity, less intimidating, etc. There is also little to no image quality benefit with A-mount, and one could argue that there may be an IQ penalty due to lower resolution on the top end, 1/3 to 1/2 stop light loss due to the SLT design and so forth. The main bebfit of A-mount to E/FE is in action photography and those tht due that are already with Canon and Nikon and not likely to switch no matter what Sony does. You won’t grow A-mount by switching Canon or Nikon users due to the more limited lens selection and the fact that Nikon, with the same sensors, simply works the RAW data better due to sub-optimal choices that Sony has made. On the other hand, Sony is gaining FE users from the likes of Canon and Nikon due to having a much smaller, and lighter body with high resolution and high dynamic range option that still allows them to use their existing lenses. In the case of Canon, until the 5Ds sensor is available at a competitive cost to Sony’s 36mp and forthcoming higher mp sensors and offers higher dynamic range than the Canon sensor currently does there will still be leakage from Canon to Sony FE, especially among landscape photographers which is where most of the leakage has occurred. So in the end, A-mount remains for those that have already invested in the system with little hope of attracting new users. That by definition means a declining base of customers for A-mount which, again, by definition (IMH) means that A-mount is on life support and the cure hasn’t been invented yet.
General people are using cellphones.
High end cameras need to cater more to special needs.
A mount needs a still picture only high res, no gadjet camera.
Isn’t Q1 over…..
If you’d read the line below you may realize that their FY15 Q1 starts in april.
I see that now that I’m using a computer monitor vs. my phone…
Fiscal Q1. Runs from April to June.
I’m glad A mount is back from near death experience, and heaven is for real (it’s all film there by the way).
Andrea, is a99 successor more likely to be 36MP or 50+? Thanks.
A mount unfortunately is still dead…only the document is fake.
Go play with your nikon gear….
So that means no nothing of a A99ii at least till July?!
No. There are multiple reports from different months and e.g. one is with the new a6000 only and later RX and A7 are added. Last file is from October, so if there is a99ii and it was marked as ready to launch e.g. in November it won’t be on that list.
Come on, we all know that A-mount is dead… If I am the CEO of Sony I would keep making more and more E-mount bodies and lenses.
It might be a fake non of us would be surprised in A mount was on life support.
Trust me on that. 100% FAKE!!!!!!
To be fair, it’s pretty clear they’re putting most of their efforts into e-mount these days. The implication from that piece Andrea posted a while back is that the a99 is more profitable than the a77ii, so I wouldn’t be amazed if a-mount becomes ff only at some point.
The only ‘shift’ in effort from A-Mount is they no longer release a plethora of entry level stuff that nobody on here much cared about anyway. Every time a new A3xx or A3x or even A5x or A5xx was announced there was nothing but yawns and complaints.
What was your first a-mount body though? The a200 is what got me hooked back in the day… I can’t think many people jump straight into the enthusiast/pro end…
A55 which cost me more than my A7 did new.
You shouldn’t let this guy know that you spent 7 hours checking. These people get off on that sort of thing.
They know this site since 7 years. Many leaks and rumors I have posted in these years. Don’t think they are surprised by me looking into their files 🙂
What exactly is a “fake image”. It doesn’t exist? So what am I looking at?
How come you don’t believe in a “fake image of a fake document”, but you’re 100% sure that if something is on wikileaks it has to be true?
If he’s simply getting his information from third party sites, I think the google advertisement should be contacted and this site reported
What the heck are you talking about, Mr. Bob Israel?
Fake in the meaning it’s not an original document from Sony (as stated by the poster) but a document that has been manipulated to create false informations.
The Amount death announced on a Sony document could not be real… The document looked like a childish joke with the tone of a conspiracy against Amount. Could not be true but it has its effect on the stressed A-mounters and I think that was the aim or its original authors, to piss off some people.
Not at all gentleman, I guess it deserves banishment of SAR ( by IP, nickname, email) for a couple of weeks….
I banished him.
What about a society of SAR members with a yearly subscription which could make u be able to participate and visit Photography exhibitions like Photokina? Most of SAR surely pay for online services, news or other entertainment 😉 so why not for SAR news from exhibitions ?
I would not pay for a rumor site! 🙂
I would not pay too.
Following this website since 4 years, if it become PayToSee, I would move to another one.
I too am glad it is a fake. HOWEVER, Sony needs to step up its game and release a decent FF A mount that can handle sports shooting. They cannot dress up a pig in a tutu and call it a ballerina by just adding a few more mps and a new style. A pig in a tutu is still a pig.
It s Babe the pig in tutu;)
Ever think maybe that’s why it is taking a little while to release?
MdB – not for a second but I hope I am wrong. They also have to make it affordable.
Could you say specifically what you are expecting as they already have an ‘affordable’ camera(s) capable of sport shooting. So are you expecting a 1DX competitor for 6D money or something else?
Yes. An entry point around where the a900 entered the market eons ago. I shoot a lot of water polo and because of the way and the speed at which the ball is whipped around from player to player, I realize that no system can AF that fast if the photographer doesn’t know which way the ball is going, even the 1Dx. I have almost no issue with the a77ii other than it isn’t full frame. I may pick one up for the extra reach and the fast AF
I have used the a900 until the electronics failed on it and it was too expensive to fix. I now power it through the battery grip. Other than the extra weight I love the grip and the system. It has served me well.
Why sports? Whats wrong with the a77 series or a58 for following the kids match? Actual pro level sports photography is a very small percentage of paid photo shoots, ..like in the single percentages.
The flagship FF should aspire to more than sporting events when thinking about camera greatness: High Level Portraits and Landscape.
I like sports photography. If I could shoot in with a manual Leica M6 and a 50/1.4 I would, but that isn’t realistic. The a900 was originally intended for fashion photography but then my wife wanted out of the fashion thing. Then the kids started water sports, and I became very good at it. I will expand my photo repertoire, but being a 53 yr old attorney I am a bit late to the game. I have no issue with the a77ii but I like FF. Beyond that, landscape just doesn’t interest me – I would rather watch paint dry.
The a77ii is also good enough for high level portraits as well, no?
I almost jumped to the nearest fotoshop to get my hands on one, maybe two A77II before it’s gone. Now I am releaved (?) that it’s not treu (yet).
I think that’s the strategy – with an a99ii and refreshed lenses they could keep a-mount limping along for another 3 years easily enough.
Stopped caring about all this, waiting for A6000 with IBIS, and la-ea adapters will just be OK to use all my A-mount glass. Besides it will give me room to collect other good glass which will work just fine with other adapters.
Sony needs to bring back a real mirror into its DSLR’s. Live view focusing has leapfrogged SLT benefits with no IQ loss. Canons dual pixel AF clearly demonstrates that.
I love e-mount, but sometimes, I wish I had bought a A77II. There are some marvellous lenses for this system (Zeiss 85 1.4, Zeiss 135 1.8, Zeiss 24-70 2.8)… It is a system I wouldn’t consider as dead.
Let’s remember the happy time with A mount. Whether sony will continue th a mount is no longer important. I have a lot of beautiful photos taken by a mount camera or lens. What about you?
Everything with a beginning will come to the end finally. However, it will become part of our happy memory.
But the spirit of Alpha isn’t dead! Stop acting like it is!
The Alpha cameras were rescued by Sony from Minolta, who completely abandoned the camera business. Sony then gave the Alpha new life with the All electric E-Mount, and provided decent transition devices in the form of LAEA adapters.
I have no doubt this document is ‘real’ in the sense that someone at Sony created it – but of course it may not show today’s reality. It could be just some marketing person’s vision from over a year ago, showing what he wanted to happen – but he may not have gotten what he wanted.
A-mount is not just dead. It’s buried 3 feet under – going on 6.
Now where is the RX20, RX2 and A7S II