High End Sony A9 to be announced in February.

A rendering of an imaginary Sony A9r posted at SonyAlphaForum.

The Sony A9 will be announced in February and be the first real Full Frame DSLR competitor. The mirrorless E-mount A9 will have all the things needed to be “PRO”:

– Worlds fastest autofocus in normal light conditions
– Close to 50MP FF sensor
– weather sealed body

The last bastion of DSLR market is now getting competition form the mirrorless world!

January and February announcements coming from Sony, Olympus, Fuji, Samsung and Panasonic!

As far as I know there will be certainly new product announcements from those companies right before the CP+ show start in Mid February:

Sony: New PRO E-mount FF (100% sure it’s coming), maybe a new APS-C E.mount (50%). And certainly the lenses that have been already presented at Photokina.

Olympus: New E-M6 (100%). Maybe also the 7-14mm PRO lens.

Panasonic: No news on cameras but the 30mm f/2.8 macro is coming.

Samsung: NX400 with NX1 sensor (100%)

Fuji: Not sure yet what’s coming but we have been told “something” is coming for sure.

I have no news about mirrorless stuff from Nikon Canon Sigma and Ricoh-Pentax.

 

 

Samsung to drop NX1 prices in January (preorders lower than expected).

SamsungCameraRumors (Click here) got their hands on some interesting NX1 sales details:

– Worldwide Sales (or preorders) of the NX1 are lower than expected
– Sales are high in some countries like Korea and Germany

More important there will be a price drop on the NX1 in January.

Some more NX1 info:
Full Lab test at Cameras.Reviewed.
Readers test at Dpreview forum.
NX1 autofocus imrpession at SCR.
Image samples by ePhotozine.

This is how the future Sony (and Olympus camera?) sensor will work!

This is the detailed description of the new Sony APCS (Active Pixel Color Sampling) sensor. The first of these new generation sensor will be launched in early 2015 on compact smartphones. Larger sensors for Alpha cameras (and Olympus MFT cameras?) are supposed to be launched after.

The new sensor has an electrified color filter that moves horizontally. It takes three exposure pictures (Red-Green-Blue) and merges them into one. The advantages are:

– One single pixel has 100% full color info (Bayer sensors need more pixels)
– Pixels can be larger compared to current Bayer sensors. This means less noise (or more resolution) possible
– Sensor has also Global shutter with very fast frame rates (16,000 at 2K) and no jello effect
– Very high native sensitivity of around 5,000 ISO!

On paper the only drawback is the triple exposure needed to get the full color information. We don’t know how this will effect long exposure shots or shots on moving subjects!

Sony to launch world’s first per pixel color sampling sensor in 2015.

SonyAlphaRumors posted that image of a new sensor that will be launched in early 2015. It does get rid of the common Bayer RGB pattern because each single pixel is capable of capture the full color spectrum. It does it by using an electrified moving filter.

SAR writes that design will be used for a 1.5 inch Z4 smartphone first and than used on larger photocamera sensors too. We can expect following advantages:
– Bigger pixels compared to same resolution Bayer sensor. This means more electrons captured and therefore higher dynamic range and lower noise (crazy ISO possible…even crazier than those of the Sony A7s).
– No moire issues anymore. No Anti Aliasing filter needed (increases per pixel sharpness).
– That tech also allows to make crazy high megapixel sensor. For example if you keep an Sony’s APCS pixel size same as the current Sony A7r 36MP RGB pixel size sensor you could in theory make a much higher resolution sensor with same noise level.
– Less pixels to read means also faster processing and readout.
– You actually can have a “full-monochrome” sensor

As usual with those kind of new stuff, we have to see them for real to see how good it works! ….But it looks good on paper :)

Double big rumors: New PRO Sony FE and new OMD Camera to be announced in January/February!

We are finally getting some clue about the next big new Mirrorless Camera Announcements:

Olympus:
Olympus will unveil a new E-M5 successor with new body design the first week of February!

Sony:
Sony will be the first camera maker to launch a new Sony FE A9 camera aimed for the professional market. The worlds first attempt to kick Canon and Nikon’s ass :)

Can’t wait to see new Sony!