A few weeks ago, we reported that Sony may be in the process of dropping its unique pellicle mirror SLT technology. The rumor claimed that the company would be saying goodbye to the translucent mirror in favor a fully mirrorless A-Mount line. Well, if patents are to be trusted, that rumor has been confirmed just as another exciting Sony rumor hits the mill. Read more…
At Photokina 2012 last September, Zeiss announced that it was working on a new family of lenses for mirrorless cameras. This past March, we got a closer look at the lenses, which were outed as a 12mm f/2.8, 32mm f/1.8, and 50mm f/2.8 for Fuji’s X mount and Sony’s E mount.
Today, the company revealed even more details about the lenses, which are branded “Touit,” publishing specs, product pages, and sample photographs.
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Sigma is making camera lovers happy today with the announcement of four new lenses. Well, actually it’s one new lens and three new versions of old lenses, but it’s good news all the same. All of the new lenses are part of Sigma’s sleek ART product line, and were announced today at the CP+ Camera and Photo Imaging Show 2013 in Japan. Read more…
There’s some new activity in the world of Sony NEX mirrorless cameras and E-mount lenses — both new product launches and rumors of soon-to-arrive gear.
Earlier this week, the company announced two new E-mount lenses: a 20mm f/2.8 pancake lens and a 18-200mm f/3.5-f/6.3 “Power Zoom” lens that has features designed for video recording.
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A day after Carl Zeiss announced they would be joining the Micro Four Thirds format, Sony is striking back by announcing that they will be releasing specifications for its E-mount, allowing lens makers to develop third-party lenses for the NEX line of mirrorless cameras and camcorders. What’s more, Carl Zeiss, Cosina, Sigma and Tamron have already committed to manufacturing lenses for the format.
It’ll be interesting to see how this growing war between mirrorless camera formats plays out.
Image credit: SONY NEX-5 by DORONKO
Canon and Nikon broke ground when they launched DSLRs that have HD video capabilities. Now Sony’s taking a different approach by offering a comparatively affordable HD video camera with all the attractiveness of interchangeable lenses, plus the ability to take high resolution stills.
Sony revealed its plans to release a camcorder with the same interchangeable lens system as their NEX series cameras this past May, but announced today that the NEX-VG10 will be available in September for around $2000.
Not only will the camcorder share the same Sony E-mount as the NEX series (it comes standard with a kit 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 lens), Sony DSLR owners will be pleased to know that with a separate adapter, the camcorder can be mounted with any A-mount lenses — including Sony G and Carl Zeiss lenses.
The camcorder also has the same Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor as the NEX-3 and NEX-5. The DSLR sized sensor alone gives the camera a lot of extra real estate to work with; Sony boasts the sensor to be approximately 19.5 times larger than the standard sensor of conventional camcorders.
The NEX-VG10 can shoot 1920×1080 high def video at 60 fps, which Sony says is ideal for Blu-Ray recording. And for stills shooting, it can capture 14 megapixel images with a continuous burst of up to 7 fps.
Some benefits of using the NEX-VG10 over a video DSLR is that the camcorder has the right ergonomics and image stabilization for shooting video, and doesn’t have the same limited clip time that plagues DSLR video shooters — it can shoot up to 315 continuous minutes. Also, Sony says the NEX-VG10 has a silent auto-focus system that could cut down on noise typical on video DSLRs.
Stills shooters may appreciate the camera’s Auto HDR mode, but the fact that it doesn’t shoot RAW images could be a dealbreaker.
You can pre-order the NEX-VG10 from Sony Style.
