SONY ALPH A A750

[Dr. Harout]

Thanks for the great news, Gustav.

[aster]

Thank you for the info Gustav,

And seeing you at the Sony booth with some enthusiasts and kingfisher lovers is nice...

Yildiz

[adakshi]

I didn't get the rationale behind this twilight football event, Sony neither has a single sports cam or any high ISO champ. Why did they waste that money is beyond me. If they don't use FIFA World Cup opportunity to launch a sports lens, cam I'd assume they are not serious about DSLRs.

Ayan

It's much more than that. It's not just having DSLR to be a sponsor of something and vice versa. In this case, video is more important for Sony, even TVs. Much much more. For us, alpha shooters, we wish/dream to have new things with the events of football/soccer, but I'm afraid it's not so.

i agree Doc. 2009 was kinda boring for Sony .. no real improvement, no great feature. Fifa cup could have been a major event to showcase their products.

Ayan

[Dr. Harout]

I was in Beirut (Lebanon) a month ago and naturally payed a visit to Sony.
They knew everything except for DSLRs.
I think Sony is still in the phase of making/preparing (or even worse: planning) special training courses for their staff on DSLRs.
But on the front line we have some wonderful cameras (A700, A850 & A900) along with top-of-the-line lenses.

[Winedarksea]

Thank you so much for your response, Gustav. The news is heartening.

Reading between the lines of what I am hearing and not hearing from Gustav, Carl Garrard, and others:

The A7xx camera or cameras will make their appearance quite early in the new year, perhaps as early as CES, but will not include video. But video will make its appearance on Alpha cameras by the end of next year. Gustav has repeated this several times.

They will however apparently be ground-breaking, so that "all the camera world will be talking about" them. What will they be talking about? I suspect at least a new sensor good enough that Nikon is waiting for it too, for the D400. Maybe more.

Carl believes that there will be an A800. Will that be the camera that introduces video on an Alpha? When will it appear?

Dulaney

[David Kilpatrick]

Sony will almost certainly rebrand the video-capable range entirely. I would not be surprised if it was not called Alpha, and had its own line of lenses in addition to an adaptor allowing the use of SAM and SSM lenses (but not older Alpha screw-drive lenses). If they don't take this direction for APS-C, they will fall behind Samsung which is already showing public prototypes.

David

[alphaomega]

The A7xx camera or cameras will make their appearance quite early in the new year, perhaps as early as CES, but will not include video. But video will make its appearance on Alpha cameras by the end of next year. Gustav has repeated this several times.

by windarksea settles it for me then if this is real. In view of DK's view on A550's low ISO performance on the other thread I will probably wait for the A700 successor and hope that it will have most of Barry's goodies as well as low ISO performance to beat allcomers. I will just have to dig deeper into my pockets as I don't see such a camera coming in below £1,000 here in the UK. I really don't worry about video. Give me a DSLR with min. basic A700 functionality but a higher APS-C Mp sensor with class leading ISO performance from 100 to 12.800 and a decent OVF as well as the 3" moveable LV screen on the A550 and I will be happy. Not a lot to ask for really or is it?

[david antony]

I will also wait, especially with the a700 successor maybe 3/4 months away. I wanted better high ISO but not at the expense of low ISO capability.

[alexramos7]

Sony will almost certainly rebrand the video-capable range entirely. I would not be surprised if it was not called Alpha, and had its own line of lenses in addition to an adaptor allowing the use of SAM and SSM lenses (but not older Alpha screw-drive lenses). If they don't take this direction for APS-C, they will fall behind Samsung which is already showing public prototypes.

David

Do you say the NX system or someone else?

[bfitzgerald]

Samsung's NX is due for release around the 10th December, if I read the info correctly.

This is all the info I could find, obviously some of it might be incorrect

Mount: Samsung NX
Sensor: 23.4 x 15.6mm APS-C CMOS 14.6 mega pixels (1.5x)
Body: polycarbonate sealed against dust and moisture
Image stabilization: Optical Image Stabilization system (OIS)
Processor: DRIM image processor
Format image: JPEG, DNG, JPEG-DNG
Video: FullHD 1080p/30fps
Recording format: H.264 HD
Recording quality: SF, F, N
Audio: Built-in real stereo
Audio format: AAC
Focus system: Contrast Autofocus with 16 AF areas, face detection and tracking mode, manual focus (focus by wire)
Shutter: mechanical shutter, bulb, 30s-1/6000, 4.5fps
Sensitivity: ISO 100-3200 (50-6400)
Viewfinder: Electronic Viewfinder 1080p/260Hz, 100% coverage, 1X magnification
Main screen: AMOLED 3″, 921.000 dots, 120Hz
Flash: Pop-up, GN12
Connectivity: HDMI, USB 2.0, Video/Audio out, BlueTooth, WiFi
Storage media: SD/SDHC


Price unknown at this time.

Not sure how these types of camera will pan out, might be niche appeal..might sell better. DSLR makers will continue to outprice them, and you won't see any non mirror camera sell for budget prices for some time, well I don't think so anyway!

[David Kilpatrick]

I've seen pix of the NX system in Italian magazines but nothing so far the UK. They see it as Samsung's response to Panasonic.

I honestly wonder, using the A550, whether the CMOS inside this and the Pentax K7 and the Samsung might not all be related and really be Samsung

But then, Sony would never buy in from Samsung or get Samsung to fab a sensor for them. We assume.

David

[bfitzgerald]

I couldn't see Sony buying from Samsung either, not sensors, other electronic components, ram chips etc..it would be hard to avoid in many cases.

Despite a fairly hmmm ish history in digital cameras (far too many models, some questionable choices and IQ etc) I would take them fairly seriously, Samsung have gone from a nobody manufacturer, to a very strong maker for Tv's, monitors, mobile phones, even washing machines etc. This is also the company that took on Intel in Nand memory, and completely wiped them out. You don't do that, to a company as big as intel, unless you are packing some serious firepower.

We'll see what they can come up with on this one, I think maybe something went on with Pentax, I detect some kind of disagreement etc, pure speculation of course, but I think they want to do their own thing now.

I'll bet this NX will come in at around £700 odd..

The biggest problem for Micro 4/3 and soon to be other makers of non mirror change lens cameras, is they are not able to take the fight down to entry SLR prices, I see life left in the old DSLR yet..not even sure they are meant to compete with DSLR's, but are more niche video/photo interested orientated.

[Greg Beetham]

Sony style here now has the A700 listed as 'currently out of stock' http://www.sony.com.au/product/dslr-a700, a solid sign that it's days are numbered, it won't be long before it's listed as out of production. It's difficult to guage if that means that it's the last APS-C 7 class camera ever, or if a replacement is in the works.
It's hard to believe that Sony would abandon that niche altogether and propose that anyone looking for a full featured camera should think A850 instead...at double the current price of the A700, although if there is such a thing as an A750 it will most likely be quite a lot more expensive...
Greg

[Birma]

It is the same her in the UK Greg; the A700 seems is getting increasingly hard to find "in stock". The traditional approach would be for at least one APS-C body between the 550 and 850, possibly two (e.g. a D90 competitor and a D300 competitor). IMHO Sony will do something completely un-traditional. I don't know what, but it will be something unexpected like a totally new form factor, and possibly even a new mount to run alongside alpha as DK hypothesised. This time last year who would have bet on the current line up?

[Winedarksea]

I'm thinking now that the fact that those "really HIGH- SONY-people," who normally talk a lot about the future with Gustav, were silent last month when he asked them to talk about the new A7xx cameras, except to say that it would be a really great camera that all the camera world would be talking about, means that this/these cameras are just over the horizon, probably January/February. Carl Garrard and I believe there will be two APSc cameras to fill the gap, an A650 or A730 at something like $1200 (USD), and an A750 or A780 at $1400-1500 (USD). Carl has also predicted that we will see an A800, but has not suggested a date. Both of us believe that the A230/330/380 range will be updated in 2010. And I rather think we'll see some action in the early fall in Sony FF cameras. A800? A950?

The Sony Alpha team will be moving from their present quarters 300 miles to Sony's main headquarters complex in Tokyo in March, a huge undertaking that would surely not be attempted in the midst of designing / perfecting / introducing products as important as the new A700 cameras. In fact, I expect that Sony will have squared away all of the cameras planned for introduction in 2010 before the move.

Whatever happens, 2010 looks to be a red-letter year for Sony Alpha.