A group of friends launched a stratospheric balloon with five cameras from the Presidio in San Francisco, capturing sweeping views of the Bay Area. The balloon traveled south along the Pacific coast, bursts at an altitude of 91,470 ft, and lands near Salinas, over 100 miles away. The camera they used to shot these images were a Sony A7s.

And if something doesn’t work don’t get angry and make a viral video out of it: Dave Jones (EEVblog) “opened” his faulty 16-50mm OSS E-mount lens and shows us what’s inside:

Beware Fuji folks! You will have to suffer extra 30 days more before your new X-PRO2 will ship! According to BHphoto the first stock of cameras will ship out of their store on March 25. Fuji said the delay is caused by an unexpected high demand. But “sources” from Fujirumors said there is also firmware fix to be made that could be the real reason why Fuji delayed the shipment start.

Phase One and Alpa once again joinced forced and launched the A-series IQ3 100MP System. This is the world’s first 100+ megapixel mirrorless camera. Prepare to spend $50,000 to get both, the Alpa camera and the Phase One back!

Full details at phaseone.com/en/Products/A-Series/Introduction.aspx

Sony guys! You got your new toys and prepare to spend quite some money for those! On February 10 you can start to preorder the following new Sony stuff:
A6300 at BHphoto.
24-70mm f/2.8 GM FE at BHphoto.
70-200mm f/2.8 GM FE at BHphoto.
85mm f/1.4 GM FE at BHphoto.
FE 1.4x Teleconverter at BHphoto.
FE 2.0x Teleconverter BHphoto.

Sony responded to the huge request of new f/2.8 zoom and a fast portrait prime. But as usual this doesn’t come cheap. In the meantime check out the full press text here:

The Japanese group CIPA published the full 2015 camera shipment report. The data are based on the world-wide shipment units collected from all Japanese manufacturers. So here are the findings:

Overall camera unit shipment (Graph above):
It shows the overall camera shipments measured in units. This includes fixed lens and system cameras (both DSLR and Mirroless). There were 35% less cameras shipped compared to 2014.

Overall system camera (DSLR+Mirrorless) unit shipment (Graph below):
Compared to 2014 companies shipped -12% cameras.

So as you see it’s the fixed lens camera marked suffering the bigger loss. Moreover the 12% decrease is also caused by the new companies strategic which focuses on premium cameras with higher profit margin.

The interesting note is that Mirrorless system cameras sold as good as in 2014. It’s basically the only camera segment not having lost terrain in 2015!