Looks like the heading on the Sony Alpha 100-900 forum might have to have the NEX added on the end, as it appears that they have the 'a' stamped on the bodies...not sure why they would qualify as an alpha tho, the mount has 10 pins for example, I suppose the bayonet is still the same apart from that, so the standard AF lenses still mount on it, obviously no AF either with standard screw drive lenses.
Greg
http://www.quesabesde.com/noticias/sony-nex-5-nex-3-precios-presentacion,1_6329

ps. I have a couple of questions: Do they come with SSS? and can the rear screen display the focus point? also what is the minimum aperture you can do movies with and still have AF with a SAM lens?

Hi Greg - perhaps we need a whole new sub-forum (and then there is video ... )?

I can't answer with any authority, just someone who had a lucky day off that coincided with the launch and so I have wasted too much time chasing the evolving story .

The Nex do not have SSS as we know it, in-body. Instead they have stabilised lenses - apparently this is to do with keeping the body smaller (?). You have to use an additional adaptor to use alpha mount lenses and then you lose AF, even with SAM/SSM - a real bummer. Don't know about focus points - haven't seen them on the video footage I've watched (Sony Japan) so far.

Not all lenses are stabilized, some have the Optical Steady Shot (that's how they are named now).

Good point Doc - the 16mm 'pancake' is not stabilised.

Sixteen millimeters hardly needs stabilization, but it would have been another bullet-point for comparisons.

Well, it seems so far any connection to Alpha is very nebulous, I would have thought that to claim an Alpha label a camera would have to support the A-mount to some reasonable photographic extent, it seems that all it can do is mount an A-mount lens via an adapter to it's E-mount, with almost zero normal functionality after that...therefore a NEX camera doesn't really qualify to be called an Alpha in my view.
So I, for one, wouldn't want the NEX cameras associated with the 'Sony Alpha 100-900' forum whatsoever, they should have their own sub forum somewhere, I think....what say you?
Greg

The intention was for the A-mount SSS/SAM lenses to autofocus - they can not, as yet.

David

I'm beginning to think it's another half finished or half built rush job, I still don't think that's a very good strategy for an aspiring market leader....how are the intial owners going too feel when in few months a new improved version is released that can not only start up like a DSLR but focus with SAM SSM lenses, and/or w/-Manual focus show the active focus point and focus confirmation maybe..(or maybe not), I don't think there will ever be f-stop control with A-mount lenses though.
Greg

Well, the E-to-A mount adapter should support aperture control.

I don't think the adapter will be that smart, it has to duplicate the sector quadrant mechanical linkage that's on our DSLR's and there is none on the NEX's, and that control is variable (and worse it's no longer set 'on the lens' like in the old MD lenes), now it's set on the DSLR and controlled by the DSLR on a 'lens by lens basis' as per the onboard KM/Sony lens database, ie the quadrant position is not the same for f5.6 on a variable focal length zoom (per vari focal length), as it is on an 85mm f1.4 etc. it is almost infinitely complex, that is the ONLY way the f-stop can be set on an A-mount lens, totally controlled by the DSLR, as needs be by the exposure controll system, the onboard lens database/dynamic data table, mode selected, and mechanical linkages.
Kevin my friend there is no way that those NEX's will ever have the ability to control the f-stop on an A-mount lens....IMHO.
Greg

Maybe a software update would fix that?

Mind you, I'd say most of the modern vari-focal zooms would make life much easier for the camera, the iris would probably be connected to the zoom collar so it compensates by opening up slightly, there being less light at full zoom than at the wide end, it would have to maintain the T-stop tranmitted from one end of the zoom to the other for apertures smaller than the darkest wide open postition, ie. say f7.1 or f8 on a f4.5-5.6 zoom...
But those NEX's don't have any mechanical links that the A-mount lenses need to have the pre-determined aperture set during the exposure, so I don't see how any adapter is going to overcome that limitation. The adapter would need at least some kind of mechanical fixed pin to engage the iris lever pin on the lens so it would not be at minimum aperture while it was being used.
Greg