There has been mention " in another place" that Sony is a corporate sponsor to FIFA ( $305 million over 7 years ) which includes the 2010 ( South Africa ) and 2014 ( Brazil ) World Cups. This is I think going lead to more and more speculation that Sony is going to produce some special models for photojournalists and sports shooters plus a whole raft of exotic long tele lenses.
I will point out that the sponsorship period is from 2007 to 2014 and so commenced before Sony's growth as a DSLR manufacturer and they released the A900. This is purely a corporate name branding exercise which as nothing to do with specific camera lines. The average tourist attending these matches or the home viewers aspiring to a DSLR are going to be looking for an A230 twin lens kit not the 400/4.0 and 600/4.0 plus a new 70-200/2.8 zoom.
Having said that, given that there looks like a 500/4.5 will be formally announced later this year, then Sony may have decided that 2010 will be the year of the 400/4.0 and 600/4.0 purely as a marketing exercise. This does not mean they are going to ape the Canon or Nikon ranges. Lenses such as a 200/4.0 macro, 100-300/4.0 or the much speculated 24-105 have more market appeal and more profit potential.
No, they are just obsessed with football. They have been using football as a theme for all kinds of stuff, including the 2009 Sony Awards event. I guess they looked at Canon's involvement, or have a football fan somewhere high up.
To me, football is anti-photography and anti-imaging. It is an interest which glues people to TV screens, at home or elsewhere, or puts them into stadiums or at the pitch side as spectators - or at the very best, spending their spare time training and playing for local teams. All these things rule out photography, you can not be involved in the game and use a camera - and most high-rolling leagues now ban all use of DSLRs in their stadiums and even restrict access for professionals based on media group fees paid to allow coverage. In Britain, they have attempted to grab full copyright of all press images taken at games.
In fact, football and the football milieu is probably the most hostile to photography of any sport and least concerned with art, creativity, society or anything else. Its values range from aspirational (in third world countries) to hedonistic but inevitably materialistic. I think it is entirely the wrong sport for any camera maker to sponsor or get involved with, quite suitable for Canon (fits their laddish image) but disappointing if Sony go for it.
I will point out Doc that Australian Football which is the oldest of the formalized and regularized forms of football ( 1858/1859 ) is played on an oval shaped ground with 18 players per side with a spheroid shaped ball similar to that used in the Rugby codes and American Football. Only Soccer and Gaelic football use a round ball.
You may use both your hands and feet but unlike Soccer the killing of opposition players and supporters by members of your team, supporters or the local police is widely frowned on as being outside the spirit of the game.
So 22 balls on the ground would leave not only leave the officals but a number of players without balls.
Go to any major Australian city and you will get a game of whatever football code that you fancy. Australia is very multicultural in that way and you are exposed to so many different varieties of sport.
By the way Australia needs only one point from it's last three games to qualify in the Asian Federation to go to South Africa 2010.
David Kilpatrick wrote:
To me, football is anti-photography and anti-imaging.
You kidding: now that Cristiano Ronaldo moved to Real Madrid and he's dating Paris Hilton, "Futbol" is more photogenic than ever!
Humberto Eco said once that Football is the maximum expression of voyeurism in the world, while he was leaving that press conference because Italy was playin the semi-finals (1990's world cup) and of curse, he wanted to watch that game!
I won't comment about the rest of your statements, David. It will be like a discussion about religion...
There's nothing wrong with football itself, but the big money involved has become very anti-photography. In Britain there have been real problems with exclusion of press photographers and attempts to buy out (or rather, sell out) all rights so that pretty much every freelance photographer was excluded. It is completely anti-amateur photography and you will never see anything from the commercial leagues shot by amateurs, as cameras are not allowed. Also, like some track racing, any chance of getting truly great photos has been wrecked by the presence of advertising banners round the entire field.
So, while I understand Sony's sponsorship of some accessible and very photogenic sports (like the motorcycle circuit they supported for a couple of years), pouring huge sums into a sport which is not even photographed (at that level) by many professionals now seems misplaced to me. It is purely, totally, entirely about some concept of gaining publicity. They could put the same money into supporting a whole range of sports worldwide at all levels from community and schools to professional, but that means hard work and real involvement. For the World Cup all they have to do is sign on the line and get their ad agency to do the rest, including booking the hospitality suites.
Sony UK got into this three years ago. After doing some interesting press launches with positive activities for journalists, they chose to do one launch at a football stadium - with no players! They got a very bad turn-out, and hardly any publicity.
Read the British photo press, and you would see that football does not even get on to the radar. Wildlife observation, outdoor walking and climbing, extreme travel, dramatic photogenic sports, public events, fashion, exotic or vintage cars, even food probably get more interest as photo subjects.
David Kilpatrick wrote:
So, while I understand Sony's sponsorship of some accessible and very photogenic sports (like the motorcycle circuit they supported for a couple of years), pouring huge sums into a sport which is not even photographed (at that level) by many professionals now seems misplaced to me.
But David: Alas, Sony doesn't want to sell Alphas or camcorders with this campaign.
They want to sell even more Bravias! I don't have the numbers with me and the USA isn't (yet) a market for this since "soccer" isn't that popular yet, but every 2 years you have pics on TV sales because the Olympics and the Football World Cup. I'm ready to bet that they sell much more TVs right before the Football World Cup -and that the best time to buy them less expensive than ever is just after the world cup...
In other hand, I understand what you say about the local federations, UEFA and FIFA controlling all about their "image rights" and how that bother anybody else, specially amateurs. Sames goes when you want to see a rock star concert with a dSRL -wasn't you, David, who get into a Pink Floyd concert or similar with your Dimage A2 while other assistant had to take their "big" cameras back to their cars because Security didn't want to let them get in?
OK, I was thinking of the way that football dominated the Cannes photography wards - all themed round football, with table football outside (Bossel can confirm, he sent me the report). It just seemed a strange thing, a whole photo show concerned with the real world - very much photojournalistic - and then this football theme.
True, TVs and home cinema projectors and all that stuff will sell well before a world cup.
Polaroid, they used to say, built its entire fortunes on D-I-Y porn - and so, it was claimed, did the early home video market. But they never sponsored it I think it was only a rumour anyway, not backed by market research.
At least the mighty Whitstable FC still lets you take shots of them.
I take your point though david I was asked, very politely, to stop taking pics at a Chelsea home game because I had a professional camera (an a200!) which struck me as bizarre with the number of people using P&S camera's nearby (and good ones at that) also presumably getting good shots of the players.....
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Whatever the sins of omission or commission perpetrated by the world of soccer or by Sony - I will forgive them if by the time that South Africa 2010 comes around that some serious glass has been released. Even if it is in silver and comes with special commemorative labeling on it.
I think it was only a rumour anyway, not backed by market research.