NEX FF camera rumours on SAR

[bfitzgerald]

A 70-200mm f4 sounds interesting but impractical for such a small body. It's one of the most obvious lenses that's missing from A mount, so to release it for a FF NEX is a very curious move.

We'll have to wait and see what these are like, but even some fairly heavy NEX fans seem less than impressed with the design sketch on SAR. Maybe the final model won't look as pig ugly, but Sony have a tough one here. A FF NEX that's too big will turn folks off (NEX fans that is)

It all looks a bit messed up from what I'm seeing, and ultimately Sony are going to need to sell quite a lot of them with a lens system that simply isn't there. Maybe Trey Ratcliff will buy a few of the 36mp models. I think folks will be disappointed with what Sony will show.

[OneGuyKs]

So now we know exact prices:

A7 BODY $1,698.00
A7 28-70MM KIT $1,998.00
A7R BODY $2,198.00
DSC-RX10 : $1,298.00

A7 body only price is curiously low. I think this will sell with people who love manual focus lenses. It's basically first affordable digital FF camera with flexible / adaptable mount for manual focus lenses.

RX10 will have 24-200 constant F2.8 lens. This camera, despite the price, would be popular.

[bfitzgerald]

Nothing special about those prices, not really. Might be a FF with a mount you can slap old lenses on, but really let's be blunt that's £1500 odd for the cheaper one, and that's not really affordable in any way for most.

RX10, what are they smoking on that one? Nothing wrong with a decent 1" sensor and a nice range lens, but not at that kind of price.

Sorry to be a sceptic but the word affordable and full frame has been used a lot, but to date nothing has arrived that is genuinely affordable.

[Birma]

MD 50mm 1.4 on A7?

I wonder how long a Fotodiox or similar adapter will take?

[alphaomega]

As we get nearer to that magic 16 October date the drips of information continues. Here is supposedly a low resolution image of the A7 FF body (upper part only)
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-firs ... ull-frame/
Looks like a piece of solid engineering to me if nothing else.

[Greg Beetham]

Hmm it looks like some Sony boffin tripped over the plans for the next Oly on the way to work and it sort of took hold, with a little tweak here, a little nudge there and the rest is history, or it will be history after it becomes reality...reality first…history after.
Greg

[bfitzgerald]

Hmm it looks like some Sony boffin tripped over the plans for the next Oly on the way to work and it sort of took hold, with a little tweak here, a little nudge there and the rest is history, or it will be history after it becomes reality...reality first…history after.
Greg

The design looks awkward as if it's an RX body with a grip and OM-D type hump "tacked on" kinda Volvo ish in their boxy design days.
Can't say it appeals but hey there you go.

Another downer, no built in flash...again a silly omission esp for those who trigger off camera flashes.

I had a play with a GX-7 yesterday and it has a not bad design at all really, passes a nod to the "retro" but it's surprisingly comfy really and mostly well laid out ergonomics wise. We've yet to see the other parts of the camera. But I think Sony really do need to hire some experienced camera designers at this stage, who knows what goes on in their "development lab" but it mostly seems to be occupied with people who have absolutely no idea about good camera design.

Maybe they shoved a DSLR prism hump on their like Olympus to appeal to DSLR users more. I think it's a bit tacky myself, you can do retro with modern if you want to go down that road. Right now I bet they made the mock up with LEGO

[OneGuyKs]

Barry made the same claims about RX100 and RX100 II and they turned out to be best selling cameras. He is wrong again. RX10 will do just fine with that kind of zoom and F2.8 lens, especially if it includes EVF. Even RX1 has been selling very well.

And A7 would turn out to be Sony best selling FF cameras. It will sell especially better than their A-mount FF DSLRs.

[bfitzgerald]

Barry made the same claims about RX100 and RX100 II and they turned out to be best selling cameras. He is wrong again. RX10 will do just fine with that kind of zoom and F2.8 lens, especially if it includes EVF. Even RX1 has been selling very well.

And A7 would turn out to be Sony best selling FF cameras. It will sell especially better than their A-mount FF DSLRs.

So you have the RX100 I/II sales figures to hand do you? I'm just curious now as you are making a claim about being a best selling camera.
And it has to be pointed out, £1500 cameras are not mass market entry DSLR sellers quantity wise, purely on price alone. You can't compare a compact premium end or not to a FF ILC camera.

So if you are predicting huge sales on FF NEX models it's a little premature isn't it? I mean they're not even out yet, and you'll be able to buy oh all of 3 FF Lenses for them?
You really think average FF Canikon users are going to dump their entire system for a ILC that's made up from a rummage around a spare camera parts bin? Even if Sony give them a free adaptor for their mount..I'm sceptical

Whilst we're on the R series if you want to spend £600 on a compact with a 1" sensor and no grip or viewfinder that's your call, but nice IQ and sensor aside I don't see the appeal. I see even less appeal for a £1000+ 1" sensor bridge model with a 24-200mm zoom lens. Even if it had an APS-C sensor it would still fail, if that price is accurate it's a joke and few will fall for it. Just banging out loads of models without a lot of consideration is risky. And as superficial as some might think it is, the look of a product can make or break it. With what we have to go on it's getting a mixed reaction.

Sub £1000 NEX FF might do damage or do well, if it's over FF DSLR prices I can't see it being a huge success. Sony are all over the place lately they don't know where they are going, or what they are trying to do. If the CEO was directly involved in this I'm putting cash down he's no idea what photographers are looking for.

[Greg Beetham]

The design looks awkward as if it's an RX body with a grip and OM-D type hump "tacked on" kinda Volvo ish in their boxy design days.
Can't say it appeals but hey there you go.

Another downer, no built in flash...again a silly omission esp for those who trigger off camera flashes.

I had a play with a GX-7 yesterday and it has a not bad design at all really, passes a nod to the "retro" but it's surprisingly comfy really and mostly well laid out ergonomics wise. We've yet to see the other parts of the camera. But I think Sony really do need to hire some experienced camera designers at this stage, who knows what goes on in their "development lab" but it mostly seems to be occupied with people who have absolutely no idea about good camera design.

Maybe they shoved a DSLR prism hump on their like Olympus to appeal to DSLR users more. I think it's a bit tacky myself, you can do retro with modern if you want to go down that road. Right now I bet they made the mock up with LEGO

It’s like the 70-200/4 mystery I guess Barry, they heard the requests finally to modernize the old beercan but got the mount wrong. But that fits in with Sony’s plan of directionless system fragmentation, which is almost identical too having no plan.
Why no on-board flash from Sony whenever it concerns a FF camera? Apparently it doesn’t matter which mount it happens to be, if it’s a FF camera you don’t get a flash.
People still use off camera flash, some more than others perhaps but everyone doesn’t suddenly stop using WL flash just because they are using a FF camera. Even without taking WL flash into consideration, a popup flash is handy anytime you need a little bit of extra light and you don’t happen to have a large system flash with you.
Greg

[OneGuyKs]

So if you are predicting huge sales on FF NEX models it's a little premature isn't it? I

Funny you are calling my prediction "premature" when you have been blowing hot air all week in this thread. I remember a couple of years ago when you were doing the same thing about the entire Nex line and claiming Canon will kill them immediately once they release their mirrorless camera. Remember your that bravado prediction? I do. How has EOS M been doing? With track record as yours, I would calm down, sit back, and enjoy the show.

[bfitzgerald]

OneGuyKs, you seem to miss my point. I said ILC cameras met the needs of some users, but were not a replacement for DSLR's (for most). Looking at the recent sales slump in ILC models that seems to have played out.Mirror less models dropped hugely even more than DSLR's did.

Anyway the entire camera industry is on the downward slope, so nope I don't expect Canikon to suddenly lose most of their users to mirrorless cameras. I just expect less models and maybe a few players to leave the market eventually as we get back to "35mm era" much slower model turn around. Market is over saturated and folks don't have the cash in recent times to keep buying this stuff.

Point being, Sony are taking a bit of a risk here and probably over playing the potential growth of a FF ILC market. Unless they went wow price wise (and it doesn't appear they will) quite unlikely to do any damage at all to anyone else.

Agree with Greg, Sony eventually come up with a 70-200mm f4 and bring it to a camera mount that is really very unsuited to longer focal length tele lenses. So far nothing I see really convinces, sure it's FF and people will talk about it. But as a system to buy into what's to get excited about?

I don't actually mind Sony making products I'm not interested in as more stuff means more competition. But this isn't the future of cameras from where I'm standing. What's the point of wandering around with big heavy Zeiss glass on a small unbalanced body? And if Sony think they can build up E mount it's going to take a long long time to get a full range out there, and so far they've only APS-C lenses! Really they have not thought this through very well at all. Even if people are willing to mount their legacy lenses with adaptors, there isn't sustainability in body only sales. A lesson Kodak learnt the hard way with their DSLR experiment. You put the bodies out there at appealing points and then make the money on the lenses this is really basic stuff indeed.

Canon are not that interested in EOS-M as they are too busy selling tons of DSLR's and lenses. Sony are digging around a camera parts bin throwing things together in a desperate attempt to find some way to get some traction. Yet they had a wonderful chance to do that with A Mount but blew it big time with their blunders over the years and not building the system up properly. There just isn't the growth potential there at this late stage of the game, even for FF E mount.

[alphaomega]

SAR har now posted high def. images of the A7 and A7R. If you care to look
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-hot- ... th-lenses/
you will notice that Barry probably has a point about big lenses on small cameras. The 28-70 on the A7 looks enormous and it is only f/3.5-5.6.
Without knowing its focal spread I would have thought this is an 18-300 or bigger or F2.8.
Not sure how this is going to play out for Sony. I for sure am confused by the array of different cameras and lens mounts coming out at ever increasing speed. Who can confidently buy into a system here. I suppose that that FF E system is here to stay also because of E video cameras and there will be a flood of converters I am sure. I for one would like an upgraded NEX-6 with that new fixed OLED EVF with 2.4 million dot resolution and 20Mp sensor.

[Greg Beetham]

What might transpire is that people with non-compliant legacy Minolta and Sony A-mount lenses will be ‘forced’ to migrate to E-mount and an adaptor at some point if they want/need a new camera, thus Sony will sell some NEX’s (A5000, A7000 possibly as well eventually…maybe) and adaptors to those people, while those who have embraced the new direction by having only the lenses that work well (70-200/2.8Mk II, 70-400 Mk II etc.) with the new on sensor focus system like the one in the A99 (the focus system might be subject to change/modification with the new model/s) will be fine with the new mirrorless A-mount.
Sony will continue selling cameras after all, and you were worried about Sony dropping 35% in camera sales, and listed as 7% market share in DSLR’s (which isn’t bad considering that Sony doesn’t even sell DSLR’s).
Greg

[bakubo]

They look a lot like the Olympus E-M1.