There are some interesting murmurings in the world of camera rumors. Photokina is just around the corner, and if the rumors are to be believed, we’ll be seeing some pretty earth-shattering unveilings at the German trade show.
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Nikon has its 55-300mm, Canon has its 70-300mm, and now Sony is joining the club, adding a 55-300mm f/4.5-5.6 SAM telephoto to its Alpha lens repertoire. The lens is designed for APS-C cameras and priced very competitively. In fact, at $300, it’s downright cheap considering it includes Sony’s Smooth Autofocus Motor (analogous to Canon’s USM or Nikon’s AF-S) and an Extra-Low Dispersion element not typically found in cheaper glass.
Of course, if you’re an NEX owner you’ll also be able to use this given you own the NEX/Alpha Adapter, but whoever wants it will have to wait until it’s actually out. The announcement went live today (as did pre-orders) but the lens won’t be shipping until September.
Up until now XQD cards have had a bit of a tough time getting off the ground. With only one compatible camera option in the Nikon D4, one manufacturer in Sony, and prices as large as the speeds they offer are impressive, people may have been starting to wonder if the format is here to stay. The answer, it seems, is yes — due in large part to Lexar’s newly announced interest in producing the cards by later this year. Read more…
My mind is a strange and dangerous place. I shouldn’t go in there alone after dark. But the other night I was thinking, just me and myself, about all the new camera releases this year. Which had made the biggest impact? Was it the Canon 5D III with that world-class autofocus system? The Olympus OM-D bringing mirrorless cameras up a notch in image quality and usability? Should I mention the excellent Samsung NX20, just because no one knows it’s really good? Give the Fuji X-Pro an award for best concept most poorly carried out? Consider the Sony NEX-7 for putting full-frame resolution on an APS-C sensor?
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Nikon D4 owners looking to speed up their transfer rates may take well to the news that Sony has just announced its new S-Series XQD cards — although their wallets probably won’t react in kind. The new cards, which will be available in Japan on July 11th, can hit transfer speeds of up to 168MB/s, and will come in both 32 and 64 gigabyte sizes. Read more…
Where the action cam market is concerned, GoPro is king. For the last few years if you wanted to go sky diving, snowbording, mountain biking, or any other extreme sport and video tape yourself doing it, you’d probably be strapping a GoPro to one of your appendages. Sony and JVC, however, are looking to get in on some of the extreme sports action — and both are doing it in style with new action cam offerings. Read more…
Ritz Camera and Image LLC officially filed for bankruptcy last Friday for the second time in three years. And while bankruptcy and financial trouble in general are, unfortunately, not uncommon in the world of photography these days, Ritz is making headlines because of their major unsecured creditors. Amon the biggest names on the list are Nikon, Sony and Fuji, all of whom stand to lose quite a bit of money as Ritz prepares to restructure. Read more…
Ever since their financial scandal, Olympus has been looking to bring on a big name investor to help get them out of trouble. Earlier this month that investor seemed to be Panasonic, but when that fell through everybody looked to the remaining three possible investors — Sony, Fujifilm and Terumo — to see if anybody was going to make the leap. According to Japanese business daily Nikkei, that investor is Sony. Read more…
It seems like almost every time the subject of 4K video cameras comes up, someone inevitably argues that such high resolution is unnecessary. Well, Sony have taken notice, and this week DoP Philippe Ros — who was hired to shoot a 4K promo video — jumped to 4K’s defense by explaining that it’s not all about the resolution. Read more…
Sony’s new Cybershot — specs and pictures of which were leaked just a couple of days ago — was just made official this morning, accompanied by quite a few nods of approval from tech and photo nerds everywhere. PC World are even calling it the “Best Pocket Camera of All Time,” and they may not be far off. That’s because the new Cybershot DSC-RX100 is a fixed lens point-and-shoot compact that packs a wallop. Read more…
