peterottaway wrote:Canon and Nikon are not going away, they too large a share of the current market for that.
Who said they were going away? They will survive, if they can adapt to changes. Although they don't seem to be in the best position if the future is mirrorless, as long as people like the DSLR-shaped bodies, they can drop the mirror and continue as if nothing happened.
With the amount they can spend on magazine advertising and product placement who is going to bite the hand that's feeding it ?
I've seen Sony ads; not sure how they compare with Canikon ads. But when they come out with something as revolutionary as the A7, it's bound to get attention.
Their strategy of it's deja vu all over again has a very comforting ring and provides a suggestion of long term certainty. Companies certainly look to get the most out of a successful idea, nothing wrong with that. It's why I am an advocate of an APS A6 using the internals of the A6000.
I agree, I wondered if maybe they would do something like make an APS-C A6. The A7 could get people's attention, but a lower priced A6 would sell more. Then again, the Nex-6 was a popular design, so making the A6000 fits more with your theme of comfortably doing the same thing.
On another forum, someone commented about Canon making modest changes year after year. And yet, there are those who will upgrade every year. This seems a bit OCD to me, but it must work for Canon!
But Canon is going to stick with on idea for too long, ? just as Henry Ford kept the Model T in production year after year and then the market not only turned but the T was a decade out of date. ....
Sony on the other hand was giving a first class version of management by drunken sailor. Not entirely only their fault, after all they were well and truly bushwhacked by Konica Minolta. They apparently thought that they had more time to develop their concept as to where to go. So they had to run with what they were left with and internally everyone was pushing their own ideas. Their existing customer base was probably of little help here as there so many people pushing their own barrows !
I'm convinced that if a company listed to what everyone on the internet told them to do, they'd go mad with some odd Frankenstein cobbled-together mix of odd parts. It must be small, but large enough to feel "balanced" with huge f2.8 tele lenses. It must have a small sensor to have a small size, but a large FF sensor for maximum IQ. It must have pancake lenses, primes, zooms and f2.8 zooms and consumer zooms, and no one is happy with an f4 zoom because it's neither of those. So what does Sony do? They make f4 zooms that are practical. Go figure.
Earlier in the thread, someone mentioned A3000 as evidence of Sony's lack of planning. Instead, it's a concerted effort to see if a different body style is important. If enough people want a DSLR-style e-mount, Sony will be happy to accommodate. Why not? It's not abandoning the mount, it's giving people the design that they are more comfortable with.
With the maturing of certain technologies and a decade of experience it would appear that Sony are likely to reached a conclusion about where they want to be and what they are going to do. Pity that they are so dreadfully bad about explaining it. Both to the media and buying public.Their lack of logic in relabeling the Nex really is a classic.
Overall, I think they've had a vision, and have been slowly moving towards it for years. It wasn't a random choice that they went with the SLT with the EVF! Perhaps the technology isn't moving fast enough to get them where they want to be fast enough. I do think they underestimated the Nex popularity, even though some try to label it as a failure because it hasn't de-throned DSLRs.
With Nex's relabeling, how much logic and explanation do they need? They dropped the name. Perhaps they don't understand the sensitivity of people relying on a system, wanting to be reassured that they aren't dropping the e-mount or aren't dropping the general design of a smaller camera, but that was not something I worried about... but I can see where some might be concerned. Sure enough, a couple of months later, and we see new cameras that are Nex-like. No need to panic.
I wouldn't be expecting too many future A mount cameras after 2015 although a hybrid mount just like hybrid focusing is likely. A complete transition to a completely E mount is likely to be a long term affair just like the way Nikon gradually stopped making screw drive lenses. Whether this is achieved by an adapter or a hybrid mount or both we will wait and see. I think such a strategy is financially and practically necessary. The mentioning of dual focus motors in lenses seem to bear this out.
If OSPDAF becomes good enough, all they need to do is drop the mirror. Although, I'm not sure how well the screw drive will work with a "hybrid AF" system, as the e-mount cameras still cannot focus with screw-drive without the SLT part, and apparently the new lenses need the dual-motor setup, like you say.
Although many people are angry with what they see as being blind sided by Sonys changing ideas, they did look after those KM customers who did suffer from the black frame problem. So I am more optimistic that Sony will provide a decent set of transition options than I suppose some others are.
Sony does have a habit, though, of making you buy new equipment to get new features. So, hopefully there will be some adapters to still make use of old lenses, like now. I agree, Sony has done a pretty good job of keeping the old a-mount going. However, I know that some have not been happy with the direction they've gone. I can see where some might not like the SLT direction; I'm not sure I'm a fan of it either, but it's a valid direction even if it's not one I want to go in.
There could still be new A mount lenses to be announced, after all if you have spent time and money on getting ready for production why not ? Also if you accept the need to a long transition then why not ? I am like a number of photographers in that I do have a number of screw drive lenses so I certainly hope Sony does provide a transition solution. But the number of people and lenses concerned are not that many in relation to the numbers of SAM and SSM lenses will need an upgrade path.
When I got the A100, I got a number of Minolta and Tamron lenses, some used. I don't think I bought a single Sony lens! So, I don't have any SAM or SSM lenses. It was great for Sony to have such good support for old lenses, but they didn't exactly make a lot of money from me like they could have if they forced me to buy new lenses.
Then again, that's why I didn't buy Nikon, mostly -- only the lower-end camera (D40? I don't recall) was in my budget, and it only supported the non-screw-drive lenses, and there weren't a lot of them. Sony was a better deal.
That's what I think is missing in a lot of these conversations comparing camera brands -- Sony often gives a better deal. Sure, you can often see these crazy low-end DSLR deals these days, but I wonder if they make any profit on that or if it's an attempt to lock people into a system?
Anyway, back to the original topic of the A6000, I saw a video of the focusing, and it seems very impressive. I love the small green boxes that track as you pan around! Very cool.
