New Models - Path to Profitability?

[pakodominguez]

All you guys have strokes of genuis. Just to make it short. A new beefed up super weatherized A950 with Wifi and a 24-105 F4.0 G lens buys pros if its priced less than the top two competitors! Then need to bring in ppl for the lens'. Good lens create LONG term buyers that stay with a camera system. Not a camera model! New bodies are cool but I know a guy that still swears by his Fuji S2 Pro!!! Sony needs this kinda loyalty! The guy has 4 lens' from the strength of one body in the system! He's just bought 3 nikon SB-900's!!! This dude is valuable to Nikon! Sony needs to get on the ball and start moving lenses! Hell, with full frame... YOU NEED GOOD GLASS ANYWAY!

I do swear by the A700 (and 7D btw) but I wanted an afordable FF A-moun t camera and, if the A850 is a FF under 2000 $, everybody will forget about video on it and Sony will have finally the chance to make a dent into the US/Europe market.

Regards

[destrianlives]

Kinda true cause ppl are megapixel crazy. Sony is stirring it. However whats wrong with a 16mp full frame alpha with wifi and a built in 8 gig SSD harddrive? nothing. i'm just saying dont abandon A700 users. The aps-c lens' should be supported with a top end sony dslr to mount them too.

[PhotoTraveler]

I'd wager there are more "we need low resolution high ISO" screamers out there than there is high rez screamers. Few demand more pixels, they just happen.

Well, there is the problem that such a body ain't happening. Only if Sony is plotting a Pro Sport Shooter body to be their version of a 1D or D# will they develop a FF sensor with less pixels than the A900. I will grant the empty "A800" slot may be a hint, but it could stay empty. Far as a build in drive, that won't happen, as there is no reason to when you can have a non built in card that hold far more. Until you have so much storage built into the camera you don't need to swap cards, there is no purpose to built in memory except to cause heart break when you mess up something along the way of getting the images off (like forget you have 8 gig of shots in the camera, not just the ones on your cards).

I don't think Sony is abandoning anyone with the A850. And heck there are the A500/A550 coming. It's just them hitting both markets. I fully expect Sony to support APS for a long time. But also remember, a FF body is also an APS body.

But still, if Sony gives us a FF body for APS body prices, that haven't abandon APS users at all, just given them a new body with more ability. Plus made FF shooters happy.

Kinda true cause ppl are megapixel crazy. Sony is stirring it. However whats wrong with a 16mp full frame alpha with wifi and a built in 8 gig SSD harddrive? nothing. i'm just saying dont abandon A700 users. The aps-c lens' should be supported with a top end sony dslr to mount them too.

[David Kilpatrick]

One problem Sony faces is that the entire lens range, from SAM to CZ, is not weatherproof. There is very little point in waterproof or weatherproof bodies (beyond the stage of the A900 with its detailed sealing and gaskets on all controls) if you don't have any lenses like the Nikon G 14-24, new 70-200mm VR or Olympus Top Pro range. Even Canon has this problem, the top bodies are very well proofed but only the latest lenses match it.

A second problem which has not yet been addressed is the maximum aperture actuation speed of the M-AF lens system. 6.5, 7 or 8 fps might be possible but we don't know for sure. No Alpha body has ever 'driven' a lens at more than 5 frames per second in the history of the system.

David

[bfitzgerald]

I thought the film 9 was 5.5fps (MF)??

[David Kilpatrick]

You may be right Barry, I don't have the specs to hand. However in manual focus mode, the lens has no effect - the aperture does not have to return to fully open for focusing, it remains stopped down. I think that's how the film 9 worked, it is also how the Nikon and Canon current models achieve very fast speeds like 11 fps. AF and AE are disabled and the aperture never opens.

Sony could do this, of course. At present all Sony Alpha DSLRs quote fps rates based on using single-shot (AF-S) focusing which is of course equivalent to manual focus. Even the 3fps speed of the Alpha 850 is achieved only without AF.

I know that Canon/Nik owners think the Alpha AF is crippled for sequence shooting, but I've put both Canon and Nikon systems through the same lousy-subject, impossible AF tasks I pick for Sony and they fail just the same. It only takes a dog or a toddler running towards the camera and you are stuffed, no matter what system. Then people say, but my camera tracks cars going at 200mph on a circuit and follows sports players on the field! Sure. Both are dead easy compared to a dog running towards you at 10 feet...

David

[David Kilpatrick]

Both Canon and Nikon systems have shown the ability to fail on subjects moving diagonally, and not at an extreme angle. No 'fanboy' argument here. I don't think any of the existing AF systems work particularly well for continuous sequence tracking, Sony or Nikon, Canon, Olympus - the lot.

http://www.pbase.com/davidkilpatrick/image/88642695

SSM/HSM lenses make a world of difference to the Sony system - mainly to the Alpha 900. The issue with the 900 is that the entire focus array occupies a very small area and there is a good chance of the subject moving off the wide area focus zone. Nearly every opinion of the Minolta or Alpha system has been based on earlier models and on the relatively slow focusing Minolta-derived 70-200mm SSM.

I know that regardless of the camera make or lens type, professional sports shooters take hundreds or even thousands of shots, fully aware that some will not be sharp. They know the limits of the systems, what kind of subject and what kind of action is likely to be pin-sharp for every frame, and what is more hit-and-miss.

The subjects set up by Minolta many years ago to demonstrate predictive focus included a train set which drove the train almost straight at the camera (or away from it) and round a bend. They claimed that the predictive focus could track a potential parabolic curve. It seems to work with a track and a constant speed, but not with real life! Several magazines used a similar rail track to send the target directly at the camera to test AF, and it certainly was a far more exacting situation than normal live action.

David