NEX-7 announcement in three months time?

[alphaomega]

The wife interrupted. To finish off the new converter LA-EA2 might provide a boost for A mount users looking for AF on NEX. Interesting times.

[Lonnie Utah]

Really, really, REALLY wanting someone, ANYONE to release a 11-17mm or 10-20mm E-mount lens...

[WyldRage]

Really, really, REALLY wanting someone, ANYONE to release a 11-17mm or 10-20mm E-mount lens...

There's an wide-angle zoom on the Sony roadmap for 2012.

[Birma]

Wow - the 55-210 lens on SAR is big! The Nex 7 does look very interesting .

[alphaomega]

Potentially good news on the problem identified by Agorabasta

Almost all the smallish adapted rangefinder lenses wider than about 35mm were having problems with edge/corner colour shifts and/or smearing when used with the old Nex5/3 bodies. I'm pretty sure it was caused by the poor design of the sensor toppings in those bodies.
So any new small wide lens design would have that very problem. And that must be the real reason why we had no such lenses made for the original Nex bodies.

SAR has a new rumour classified as SR3 only addressing this issue here http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr3-a-ne ... f-shutter/

The Nex-7 is also going to be expensive because it has a customized sensor. Sony, I’m told, has struggled a bit with getting good corners because of the short registration distance. Sony originally planned for the NEX to be marketed at consumers and didn’t realize it would be a hit with enthusiast too. To combat the short registration distance, they put in some micro offset lenses. All lenses will benefit from this, including legacy glass so people will see improved performance with their rangefinder lenses.

So maybe we are moving towards a very capabable (but expensive) NEX-7. I must admit that the more I read about this creation the stronger my desire to own one (when Adobe decides to make LR update available). I like what the chap says about the EVF as well. If the LA-EA2 has inbuilt motor as well as providing phase detect for A-mount lenses I may simply sell off all my Alpha cameras and use NEX-7/5 and this adapter for all photography.

[alphaomega]

Wonder where I got this word from

capabable

Should naturally be capable. Sorry about that.

[agorabasta]

Sorry to burst the SAR's 'cup-o-bubble', but...

There's no way to have that particular way 'optimised' microlens array to work for all and every kind of lens attached. For that thing to work, all those lenses should have about the same telecentricity, which is obviously not the case between some SEL 16f28 and any adapted DSLR lens. Optimisation for the SEL would cause horrible vignetting and softness with the more telecentric DSLR lenses, as simple as that; and that's not the case with C3. At the same time, the C3 has virtually no colour shifts and no corner smearing regardless of the lens used; there's a thread at the other forum over the issue - http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/1030741/1.

And I have that C3 in my hands, and I easily have its raw files processed in Lr3.4.1 having changed the SonyModelID to a580 with the exiftool, which means that no C3 specific corrections could possibly be applied in conversion.
It simply means that the individual microlens+sensel effective 'aperture', i.e. FOV, is simply much wider than it used to be with all the earlier designs. It means also that the sensor-related problems so obvious in the Leica M8/9 have been near completely overcome in the measly cheapish C3.

[douglasf13]

Agorabasta, would not the same issues apply to the M9's micro lenses, since a Leica 90mm lens would be more tele centric than a Leica 21mm lens? Is there not a happy medium to be found with the micro lenses on the edges?

[agorabasta]

AFAIK, all the M-mount lenses keep the exit pupil pretty close to the sensor. So an M-mount tele would rather be close to a DSLR UWA in regard of telecentricity. So Leica optimises its microlens arrays for a still very limited range of that parameter.
Then if you try an adapted non-native DSLR lens on an M9, that's when the problem must arise.

[douglasf13]

Yeah, while the exit pupils of long M lenses are certainly closer to the sensor than equivalent SLR lenses, the exit pupils of long M lenses are still quite a bit further away from the sensor than wide M lenses. So, I guess the question is, where is the tipping point?

[alphaomega]

Anyway SAR have seen fit to announce the main specs of A77, A65, NEX-7 and 5N as SR5 rumour, so the chap must be pretty confindent of his sources
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-the- ... -5n-specs/

NEX-7
24,3 Exmor HD sensor
100-16.000 ISO
1200 zone metering
1920×1080 60p/60i/24p AVCHD 2.0 (28Mbit/s) video recording
3 million dot XGA OLED viewfinder
3inch 921k TruBlack LCD display (touchscreen)
10 fps
20ms startup time
Built-in flash
New universal hot shoe
Battery life for over 400 shots
Magnesium alloy body

NEX-5N
16.1 MP Exmor sensor (Same us Sony NEX-C3)
ISO 100-25600
1920×1080 60p/60i/24p AVCHD 2.0 video recording
Shutter 1/4000
10 fps
Can take over 430 shots with one battery
Same AF speed as the GH2

Interestingly enough the 5N has ISO up to 25,600 whereas the 7 is restricted to 16,000. Could be more noise in 24Mp sensor or simply a mistake. 16,000 does not make sense to me. 6,400 then 12,800 and 25,600 or an intermediate of 19,200 if half stops becomes the fashion.
Notice touchscreen on NEX-7 but on a reduced spec LCD display compared with A77. The OLED EVF should be powerful. Look at start-up time compared with my NEX-5. Wow. Hopefully contrast focusing should be as 5N or as fast at Pana GH2". I am puzzled by the new universal hotshoe. I wonder what that is??? One that can take the Alpha and standard in one go? I doubt it. Probably a completely new flash. That would be a shame. All in all I will go for the NEX-7 as adding the optional EVF price to the NEX-5N will surely diminish the overall price difference. October in the shops. I shall have a NEX-7 at some point.

[douglasf13]

After inquiring about micro lenses, I just received an email back from someone that works in the business closely with sensor design, and he essentially told me that, if the microlenses on the NEX-7 (or new Ricoh) are optimized for wide angle RF lenses, the negative effect that it has on longer lenses with longer registration distances from SLR systems would be relatively minor. There wouldn't be any color issues, and maybe just a small percentage EV more vignetting. I'll ask permission to see if he'll let me post his emails in their entirety.

[agorabasta]

There wouldn't be any color issues, and maybe just a small percentage EV more vignetting.

It all greatly depends on the degree of optimisation. Generally speaking, a sensel sitting in the extreme corner of an FF sensor need not to look ahead at all as there's no light possibly coming from that direction since no lens has it's rear element exactly as large as the mount flange. So then, having the microlens-sensel FOV cone looking at about 40 degrees towards the axis and having about 80 degrees total opening would make an absolute fit-all optimisation with no vignetting for both the most and the least telecentric lenses.

But frankly, I think the microlenses design is already quite enough advanced, and it's not the microlenses that is limiting the performance of existing systems like the Nex.
It's more the internal reflections between the sensor-microlenses and IR/AA filters that is really detrimental to the image quality. Exactly there we need some serious design progress to happen. As the LPFs are destined to disappear with pixel count going up, it's exactly the 'hot mirror' IR filters that require some urgent attention.