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].
79 Responses
What are the problems?
Yeah… Anything IQ related or is it really that crappy at higher than 1600 ISO?
My god!! Some of you will never miss a chance to drone on and on about high ISO noise. Boring!!
It’s just Nikon fan-boys praying to the ISO Gods as usual.
That’s because unlike you, I actually shoot indoors at night very often without flash. So yes, high ISO performance can make or break a purchase for me. But I’m sure you obviously know what’s best for everyone. You can probably explain the horrific results too instead of just whining about us whiners right?
I already have my NEX-7 preordered though, unlike many Sony fanboys who just like to pray to their gods.
All these people claiming to shoot indoors and at night. It makes you wonder how they managed with 800 ISO not so long ago. 😀
Maybe you should just go and buy a Nikon D7000. Great ISO 3200 performance, crap IQ at ISO100 with sensor shake, poor dynamic range, noisy shadows and poor colour reproduction. I had my mate’s for a week and it was shocking. I guess if you shoot (or value your IQ) more at ISO 3200 than ISO 100 then you are in the wrong forum anyway. Go google Canon or Nikon FF.
LOL!!! indoors at night = all the lights are on. maybe you are doing infrared photog on total darkness?
Ever try taking photos at a restaurant/bar/club/whatever? Sure, there are lights, but not enough to get a decent shutter speed at ISO 800. Went to a birthday party the other day and came home with a lot of throwaways due to subject movement (even at ISO 1600…).
@Dave Cox: I will probably go FF sooner or later, but I’d still like to have a camera small enough to put in my pocket (talking about the NEX-7, not A77).
Or maybe I should just do what normal people do. Shut up and pretend there’s no problem. I mean, it’s only $1500-2000 right? Not like I’d want to the best value for my money or anything. At least with the NEX-5N and clicking, it’s only $600 😉
Basically the camera becomes unusable and has to be returned. If you haven’t bought one yet, then DON’T.
What do you shoot indoors? Are you being paid for your work?
If so, why not get a Canon or Nikon FF with amazing high ISO and call it a day.
Are you a photographer or a fanboy?
Get the camera that you need to capture an acceptable image and forget the Sony marketing hype.
@Linh. You had problems with people moving in a photo? Really? At ISO 1600? At what aperture?
I will let you into a secret now. You can buy these things called light bulbs that plug into the ceiling. They’re awesome!!
Seriously though, how big do you want to print? If you can’t get images at ISO1600 on a fast aperture then the room must be either pitch black or you have a ND8 filter on by mistake. I just tried taking pictures of my cat playing with just the light from the TV and ISO800, f/4.5 was fine (on my weather beaten A33).
Camera freezes, AF points disappear (forever), camera cant be shutdown even when it looks like its been shutdown. Slow operation (much slower than pre-release samples).
And some various other bugs, simply that CPU is apparently very different from version before..
Hmh…maybe is the new version of the processor better than the old ?! 🙂
+1
new processor + old firmware ?
How can this happen? lol… are engineers in sony sleeping? or Over-loaded with works ? my god.. someone will be scapegoat for this if this is real..
No, just quality testing did.. as usually.
SONY should fix iso1600 noise i this new firmware
Troll.
Yet Sony’s Canadian site has just updated shipping in Canada to be the 30th of September. Odd! Did they mean October? If it ships on the 30th, I might just have to buy it up and wait to turn it on until there’s a stable firmware update 😛
Maybe a few earlier batches have these problems and Canadian version is fine?
Could be, if it’s true. It’s possible that they were manufactured elsewhere, too, and could have undergone more thorough testing. I will be stunned if I have an a65 in hand in the next week either way (which so far hasn’t gotten the same bad publicity as the a77) =]
I can confirm that. I checked the Sony.ca site yesterday and it was late Oct, today Sept 30. No chance that they have a new firmware update if it’s just coming to light recently. Sony USA is still showing Oct 19 as deleivery.
Well they’re toying with us Canadians. Now our ship-date is Oct 3rd.
Woh… this sounds like a major mistake. Lucky enough – they put newer processor into cameras with older firmware instead of other way around 😛
🙂 Now that would be a disaster! (unless they put the processor on a socket, like CPUs 🙂
When you buy a camera:
1) Check firmware version
2) Check hardware version
3) Check EVF firmware version
4) Check vertical grip version
5) Check battery version.
…
mmcv) Check RAW version for ACR.
mmvi) Check if a new model is out, if yes, buy the new camera, go-to (1)
end) Now you can take photos
You forgot to add: make sure that battery firmware isn’t hackable and doesn’t have any viruses! (yes, I make fun of Apple)
if this is true (and its not the first time I’ve heard of this happening) actually it sounds like intended new firmware was only tested on older generation BIONZ chipps, not the latest spin. Just another test and bugfix cycle, might take a week or two then hopefully we’ll get a software update.
Played with all aforementioned Sony cams at a recent launch in Australia. Am a bit of a Minolta/Sony fanboy, but have more Canon equipment. Sony DSC- R1 is best cam ever; taken to Sahara, etc. and survived + excelled. Sony SLR owned= a900. Played with A65 during launch and was very impressed; had 18-55 lens on it. No problems at all, took many pictures in most modes – no software glitches. NEX-7 is a dream to hold in the hand, very nice grip, love the rubber eyecup over the EVF, will be a killer camera. A77, only one there with 24mm Zeiss on it. Pictures looked nice on screen, but did not have the same “3D” quality, or feeling of depth, of those taken on a900, but the same can be said of any pictures compared between APS-C and FF. Don’t really like the grip on the A77, a little too small for me. Love the articulated screen on a77. Memory card doors seem pretty crappy on both A65 and A77. All assembled/manufactured in Thailand – to keep down costs – so better quality in future please, Sony! My DSC-R1 is a tank!!! 🙂
If that is true… Shouldnt Sony quickly come out to explain this to the mass ?
my guess is they will as soon as they finshed back tracking the origin of the problem and making sure it’s the only problem out there. [ don’t want to be suprised twice i guess]
It can also mean that with the new firmware the IQ will be better (hopefully).
yes you are right, the A77 will become the high iso king, thats the firmware we all waited for. This firmware will create that nice pics, that even the most modern processors can’t handle it, yeah!
… oh well, it was a dream :-/ seems like even Sony cant push the physical limits 🙁 and seems like the A77 will only be one cam of many cams.
But maybe Sony has changed the definitions with its new generation. Probably “high iso” starts for Sony in the A77 with ISO 400 …
To prevent confusion change your name please, thanks!
The Product Manager must be banging is head against the walls right now if this is true.
How come Sony decide to install a new processor into the product before the launch without testing first with the old or new firmware.
New Bionz processor? The NEX-7 will be even better.
it’s a joke…. 4 years for this. No one even noticed the Sony launch and now Nikon has new mirrorless to slay NEX and Canon will have new cameras to slay these sad excuse for release. It’s a joke. Stupid Sony. Run by clowns.
The Sony A77 announcement was all over the camera magazines and Internet, so I think it was noticed. Have you been living under a rock?
Nikon will not “slay” NEX with a tiny sensor in a hideously expensive NEX sized body with equally big lenses. It is the Nikon mirror-less team that is the “joke” and run by “clowns”.
I don’t get this 4 years talk.
How do you know they have been working on ‘this’ camera for 4 years. There is simultaneous research and development on multiple new technologies:
* SLT stuff. Completely new. Pellicle mirror, lots of R&D
* Development of new viewfinders. Completely new and astonishing.
* ‘Back-illuminated’ CMOS sensors, new. Multiple iterations
* NEX!: Nex is not coming from cybershot team, it is coming from the alpha team.
…
They haven’t been working on A77 for 4 years. They have been working on this completely new SLT tech which they wanted to try with a 5 series camera first. After its success, they moved on to 7 series.
A77 has so many new features, including a brand new sensor, which is probably very very new, fresh from the oven. They had to rush b/c A700 has been missing for so long, and they didn’t want to miss the holiday season.
ps: I am just projecting what I think has happened 🙂
Noone noticed the Sony launch. I think everyone on DPreview did, it caused a meltdown on their forum servers for 2 days. It was all over the web, in pretty much every photography magazine going…where were you, in a cave?????
Troll much?
I have several Nikon shooting buddies and all of them that I have spoken to since the V1 announcement are kind of laugh and say they are not interested. Unless it pulls out miraculous IQ it seems destined for paper weight status.
What a mistake for such a big company. The PSN problem, and now the A77. Be careful please!
yeh its only Sony. Nikon would not do this would they ?
This time last year Nikon release D7000. Dec 22 finally version 1.01 firmware partial repair of hot pixel problem. April 24 (7 months after camera release) firmware 1.02 fixes 8 different problems.
Don’t forget having to send the D7000 back so that it can focus properly too!
We’re not talking about a minor glitch here. Sony better do its homework right!
You think 9 firmware errors and hardware focus problem on Nikon D7000 was a minor glitch ?
It the matter of Sony not Nikon. Sony has done well in the DSLR department. Since A100 there was not a single firmware update for bugs fix only. So I am quite disappointed this time…
I’m not going to defend them (if this is true), but given the track record which has been pretty good, this will all be forgotten if this fixes the issues and improves the noise issues. Still not ready to cut them slack, but I wonder how much they might still be in disarray from the earthquake.
also late April Canon released version 1.2.5 to make 6 fixes for aging 7D.
Did’nt Canons EOS 1D (Top of the line) also have a recall and issues not too long ago?
I think it’s fair to said every company has it’s issues, after all its technology and the more electronics that get installed the more chance of issue and time is needed to ‘mature’ the new tech… New features are great and we all love them but unfortunately it’s a fact of life there will always be issues from time to time and they are unavoidable, I don’t think you will be able to find a single technology company that has not released products without having issues (it’s not possible!)
I do agree this issue does seem to be a major one but for now lets give them the benefit of the doubts there is a HUGE range of new technologies put into this camera so it’s expected that a number of them will need updates, fixes and tweaks over time.
I remember when I was a kid and these things rarely happened. There was no way of plugging in your Super Nintendo to the internet to get a firmware update because IT JUST WORKED!! Of course that’s only one of many examples. But in the last couple of years, it seems companies are just trying to get crap out quickly to appease the greedy investor gods. People on SAR seem to think that the complaining is coming from Canikon fanboys. I think everyone is just fed up with bullshit problems like we’ve seen in the last couple of weeks with the a77 and NEX-5n.
+1
It makes sense to me. As I said on a previous post, I found really weird that no (critical, at least) bugs where found during testing period and now, after oficially releasing the camera, the bugs started showing up.
And they seemed to severe to be only a firmware thing. Now that, apparently, Sony has made changes to the hardware itself, it seems more plausible (to me) why those things are happening.
But we should give Sony a credit. It’s only the first time (and hopefully last) they release a camera with so many bugs.
Unlike other brands where it’s a common issue….
Time will tell…
Maybe the Sony fanboys are correct and there is nothing to worry about and the camera is one of, if not the best camera currently on the market. I hope so!
And maybe the same fanboys that are continually correcting us, and informing us, that better ISO performance is not needed for the type of photography we personally do are also correct.
If the a77 or any camera doesn’t fit you photographic or artistic needs don’t buy it.
If you think this camera is too expensive or you can’t afford it don’t buy it.
I think everyone can agree this all of this; the ISO noise, the various firmware issues and if true basic incompetency of management not to have tested the product hardware using the proper firmware is very disconcerting to say the least.
I shoot using the a850 and I was never planning to purchase the a77, but I hope that it would be the best APS-C camera ever made and that next year Sony would continue that greatness with its full frame replacement that I would then purchase. Time will tell and maybe the fan boys are right that Canon and Nikon can’t do better. But if you think they do, then stop the whining and buy a camera from them.
vaya vaya…mientras no se publiquen datos de forma mas seria, esto solo es un informe de una unidad defectuosa, por ahora estamos alardeando mucho y sembrando dudas, seguro los de nikon y canon están mas dispuestos a defender la marca que usan y nosotros muy dispuetos a desprestigiarla.
The two new cameras (Nex 5n and A77) both with problems, been the A77 problem the worst of both… Hope they do it right next time with the Nex 7.
Oops, wrong rumor.
Besides Sony Canada, Henry’s Canada has changed their ship date from Mid/late October to early October.
Canon 5D had a mysterious noise issue when first released… Remember the red pixel phenomenon? 5DMKII rolling shutter… I don’t recall the model, but didn’t one of the old Nikons or Fuji’s have a battery draining issue upon release? My Fuji S1 was sent away for back focus too many times to count.
Not uncommon for cams to have issues upon first release.
This is just odd for Sony users because their cams have typically been rock solid out of the gate.
Haha, is this supposed to be the death of Nikon and Canon that the Sony fanboys and soccer mom shooters cheered for.
Not going to kill the top 2 when your camera doesn’t turn on.
Canon had a few small problems when they released the 5d’s but nothing that caused them to completely break and loose focus points forever.
Haha.
Sony fanboys = meatheads
I sure felt like a meathead explaining to my clients about the red pixel phenomenon from my new Canon 5D… and then upon its replacement, two burned out pixels brand new out of box. My third one was pretty good for a while until one of my nostril hairs somehow worked its way into the pentaprism. I’m sure the new owner is having fun staring at it with every shot taken.
The day Canon told me they couldn’t fix my two favorite L lenses… “What? You can’t fix an EF-L series because it’s not supported?… Goodbye Canon”
Not one problem ever in 20 years with Maxxum glass. Not one problem with any past Sony digital camera either from a200/700/900.
Wish I could say the same for both my Nikon F4’s, which would only shoot if they wanted to. Good bye Nikon.
Maybe IQ quality will improve with the new firmware written to take advantage of the new processors. This is not uncommon for a company to have issues upon release of a new product either.
24 MuddaPixels? Really? Pictures look like childs finger paintings.
24 MuddaPixels? Really? No lenses even can work with this. Too many pixels. Too tiny photosites.
24 MuddaPixels? At 12 FPS? BUT CAN ONLY TAKE PICS FOR ONE SECOND? Silly. Huge files.
Camera un-useable while files write. Meanwhile more lost opportunities for pictures….
EVF takes a second or two to even show you image? More lost opportunities for pictures.
A77 = Sony Marketing genius surely.
A77 = Sony R&D and Production fail surely.
Weather sealing. More marketing genius. But silly. Have no lenses that are sealed. And no plans to change or fix existing line up. Oh wait, more new NEX lenses? Yes. Now need NEX to Alpha adapter since no lenses coming for Alpha but lenses being made for NEX. All Sony will be NEX in future – it’s clear.
Wrong software in/for the hardware? Pure silliness.
4 years for this? Is surely huge joke/mistake, no?
Buy if you like. Many will not be so silly. Caveat emptor.
Nikon mirrorles wins vs. NEX as body says “Nikon”. Period. Nothing else matters to lemmings.
Canon FF/APS wins vs. Alpha as body says “Canon”. Period. Nothing else matters to lemmings.
This guy… hahhahhaha
Are you saying that lenses made for 35mm film can not resolve on a 24mpix APS-C sensor? Hmmm….
What is the difference in processing speed of the old and new Bionz processors, and might it improve anything that isn’t broken?
Shit does happen. Look at the Hubble space telescope. The more revolutionary the technology, the more you will have unexpected consequences. The Boeing aircraft company just launched the 787 yesterday three years late. It had many delays because of revolutionary carbon fiber technology, how parts were manufactured, etc. But that comes with thinking out of the box which Canon and Nikon have not done.
So Sony haters, don’t get too smug and cocky.
To be fair, the Hubble and a 787 have a few more moving bits and number of lines of software code. 😀
hmm next ff camera with carbon fiber body .. and
carbon fiber 500mm lens housing..
The rumor doesn’t make any sense. They certainly don’t roll out a new version of their Bionz thingy making the release candidate of the firmware incompatible at such a late point. BS! The chips are probably just faulty.
Played with all aforementioned Sony cams at a recent launch in Australia.
Am a bit of a Minolta/Sony fanboy, but have mostly Canon equipment. Sony DSC- R1 is best cam ever; taken to Sahara, etc. and survived + excelled.
Sony SLR owned= a900.
Played with A65 during launch and was very impressed; had 18-55 lens on it. No problems at all, took many pictures in most modes – no software glitches.
NEX-7 is a dream to hold in the hand, very nice grip, love the rubber eyecup over the EVF, will be a killer camera.
A77, only one there with 24mm Zeiss on it. Pictures looked nice on screen, but did not have the same “3D” quality, or feeling of depth, of those taken on a900, but the same can be said of any pictures compared between APS-C and FF.
Don’t really like the grip on the A77, a little too small for me. Love the articulated screen on a77. Memory card doors seem pretty crappy on both A65 and A77. All assembled/manufactured in Thailand – to keep down costs – so better quality in future please, Sony!
My DSC-R1 is a tank!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂
But want if they installed the old software on the production cameras?
If I may be overly optimistic for a while…
Sony reacted on all initial complaint regarding the small buffer that fills up after just one second of 12 fps. So they quickly updated the Bionz processor to make it possible for a firmware update to allow a larger buffer that can handle more frames. But there was not time for checking for firmware compatibility problems. But it decided that it was worth the risk.
So. Now I have been optimistic. Who’s pessimistic?
Somewhere a fanboy’s head just exploded
Sorry about that.
Did anyone use a fast camera and got stunning photos of the explosion?
Left hand, meet right hand. Right hand, meet left hand.
I just saw this posting from Carl Garrard on Alphamountworld.com about Sony coming out with a firmware update.
http://www.alphamountworld.com/forums/sony-digital-slr-talk/confirmed-sony-are-doing-new-firmware-up/2011-9/7769
hi, admin:
this source is so conservative.
he should say someone messed up and release the a77 with the a99’s firmware…
😀 😀
btw… for those of you using Lightroom 3, there’s an update supporting a65/a77. I just got the notice