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Sigma’s “Digital Neo” series – small, fast primes for Micro Four Thirds and NEX

Looking for a fast prime for your Micro Four Thirds or NEX camera? Sigma’s got two in the works, designed specifically for the smaller formats.

Coming are the 30mm f/2.8 EX DN and 19mm f/2.8 EX DN. One to two stops faster than the kit zooms that typically come with either system, it’ll be exciting to see them in action. And we’re pretty sure that Sigma can make a prime -just recently our Website Manager, Derek, picked up an older Sigma AF 28mm f/2.8 for Nikon and has been pretty much besotted with it.

As for the alphabet soup, the new DN designation stands for “Digital Neo.”

You can read the offical press release here, and the post from Sigma’s blog here.



Tamron Announces 18-200 For Sony E-Mount / NEX System

And thus adoption for the second mirrorless system to market–Sony’s NEX system and it’s new E mount–has begun. Tamron has announced the upcoming availability of a new 18-200mm superzoom by them for Sony’s NEX system. The full name of the lens tells you most of the story: 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 Di III VC. New here is the Di-III, presumably being their designation for mirrorless systems (Di stands for Digitally integrated, and means that the lens is full-frame but optimized for digital sensors. Di-II means the lens is designed for crop sensors). The VC indicates it’s got in-lens stabilization, which puts it on par with the Sony option. Also, Tamron has stepped up the appearance over their usual fare to match the metal build of the NEX system.

Pricing and availability aren’t known yet, but we’ll go ahead and get this up for preorder for all you NEX users looking for what we can only hope will be a cost-effective alternative to Sony’s own superzoom offering. Press release after the jump.

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Sony Handycam NEX-VG20 Completes Sony Announcements

That handsome piece of tech is the final bit of today’s Sony media blitz, the Handycam NEX-VG20. The successor to the NEX-VG10, this camcorder likewise mounts any NEX lens up front to power the whole optical train. It’s got a 16 megapixel APS sensor in there, presumably a tuned version of the one power the NEX-5N EVIL. It can use that sensor for either HD video or grabbing stills. it records 24p or 60p in the AVCHD format. The rest of the stuff inside is such a blitz of Sony marketing mumbo jumbo that I can’t help but recreate the key terms below for your enjoyment:

  • Cinema Tone Gamma™
  • Cinema Tone Color™
  • Quad Capsule Spatial Array Microphone
  • Xtra Fine LCD™ 
  • TruBlack™ technology 
  • built-in Optical SteadyShot™
Trademark-fest aside, Sony has also tweaked the ergonomic and usability of the camcorder, moving the fucntion dial so it can be used with the LCD closed, “hard” touch buttons for better haptic feeback, a redesigned carrying handle, etc…
It’ll come packaged with the SEL 18-200 for around 2200, or body only for closer to 1600. Press release after, you guessed it, the jump.


Sony Adds 3 E Mount Lenses, a New A-to-E Adpater, and New EVF

In addition to the two nex NEX bodies, Sony is further expanding its NEX system with a few news lenses, a new Alpha mount adapter using the same pellicle technology as their SLT Alphas, and a new FDA-EV1S external viewfinder with the vastly improved 2 million dot (anyone tired of reading that yet? I’m certainly tired of typing it, anyway) OLED 0.5″ display buried inside.

The most exciting of the three lenses is probably the one bearing the name of Mr Carl Zeiss instead of the Sony brand, and this one is the CZ Sonnar T* E 24mm f1.8. See pros, I told you there’d be some nice stuff to perk up that NEX-7 here.

The other two lenses are both Sony branded, and are both “OSS,” indicating they add in-lens stabilization to the mix. The first is the E 50mm F1.8 OSS, which works out to a 75mm 1.8 portrait prime. The other s the more pedestrian E 55-210mm F4.5-6.3 OSS, which exists as the consumer-level telephoto compliment to the 18-55mm kit lens.


If you’ve got a bunch of Alpha or Minolta A glass around, but don’t like the crippled AF functionality offered by the current mount adapter, Sony’s new mount adapter has the solution to your woes. It has Sony’s SLT semi-translucent mirror built in, which can direct a portion of the light to an autofocus sensor, which is also built in. It is named, in a rare moment of lucidity for the camera industry, the LA-EA2, or “Lens Adapater, E to Alpha, revision 2.” Craziness.



Sony Announces Pro-Geared NEX-7 EVIL


Sony is expanding its NEX line upwards with the new NEX-7. Notable (and welcome) additions to this pro-geared NEX model are a fatter, chunkier grip and a built-in 2 million dot 0.5″ OLED electronic viewfinder. The kind you actually put your eye up to when you want a more stable shooting position and to block sunlight so you can check framing and exposure better. Right there on the back, next to the usual 3″ LCD.

The NEX-7 appears to share similar 24 megapixel sensor as the A77, but tops out at a piddling 10 frames per second (it fixes both AF and AE at the beginning on continuous shooting, unlike the Alpha models). The simple controls of the other NEX models expand for the better on the NEX-7, with the addition of two command dials on the top shoulder in addition to the jog wheel around back, forming what Sony is branding (because Sony, like Apple, brands everything) its “TRINAVI” user interface.

The LCD around back is the same 3″ 921,000 dot found on this entire generation of Sonys, and it’s of the tilt flavor. The “Photo Creativity Touch” mode is gone here, Sony assuming if you’re after a camera of this spec you’re probably not looking to have your hand held along the way. The body will be made of well-finished metal, like the other models below it. The NEX-5 felt like it could be used to beat up muggers in a pinch, and then document the incident for the cops after, and I expect no less from this NEX-7. All the usual Sony features are shoved in there as well (3D, Sweep panorama, 1080 video, smile detection, yadda yadda yadda.) There’s no in-body IS on the NEX seires, you’ll have to look to the new lenses if you need to fix those caffeine jitters (like yours truly).

The NEX-7 seems like a really cool camera, and later this year you’ll be able to find out if it lives up to the specs for $1200, or $1350 if you need an E mount 18-55 to get started. Hard core pros, though, might skip the 18-55mm until they’ve read about some of the new lenses announced for the E system in my next post.

Pictures and press release after the jump, as always.

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Sony Updates NEX-5 with NEX-5N

Next up in our day of announcements is the Sony NEX-5N, which suggests that this is more a tweak to the NEX-5 than an actual replacement model. Which means I’ve got to dig up a comparison table here for you all.

But, before we get into that, some information about the NEX series. The NEX cameras are Sony’s interchangeable lens compacts, sometimes called EVILs (Electronic Viewfinder, Interchangeable Lens). These cameras lack the reflex mirrors of DSLRs, but have DSLR sensors. As a result, they have DSLR quality in smaller, compact bodies, but lack an optical viewfinder. The lack of viewfinder is handled with full-time Live View via the rear display, or with electronic viewfinders that use smaller displays to mimic the traditional optical viewfinder.

So, now then, the NEX-5N:

/tr>

Spec NEX-5 NEX-5N
Megapixels 14 16.1
 Sensor Size  APS-C (1.5x crop)  APS-C (1.5x crop)
 Mount Sony E  Sony E
 LCD  Tilting 3″ 920,000 dot  Tilting 3″ 921,600 dot
 HD Video  1080  1080
 3D/2d Sweep Panorama  Yes  Yes
 Continuous Shooting  7fps  10fps
 ISO  100-12,800  100-25,600
“Photo Creativity Touch” No Yes

So, that’s the bulk of the notable stuff. That “photo creativity touch” is a simplified display menu to help people unfamiliar with the technical aspects of photography to get better photos by controlling things like depth-of-field and not things like “aperture.” Sony’s also claiming the AF performance is improved over the non-N model. The NEX-5 uses all NEX accessories, including the older Alpha lens adapter and hotshoe mounted electronic viewfinder. Although, you’d probably rather use the newly announced ones, which add a translucent mirror and AF to the mount adapter and switch the EVF over to a stupidly sharp 2 million dot OLED one.

The NEX-5N will cost either $600 or $700, depending on whether you need an E-mount 18-55mm or not. More pics and press release after the jump.

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Sigma to mount up Micro Four Thirds and E-Mount

Following on the news that Sony’s released the specifications for their 18mm flange back E Mount (which we so failed to blog about yesterday), Sigma announces that they’ve taken up the mantle (mountle?) and will support the format. They’ll also be generating lenses for the growing Micro Four Thirds market.

I’m not terribly surprised, they’re one of the few manufacturers that produced lenses for my own dear Olympus Four Thirds mount (I’m still working up the gumption to pick up their 35mm f/1.4), and with big O’s abandonment of consumer-level D-SLRs, it’s no wonder they’re willing to produce for this newer, and growing, piece of the market.



Engadget gets a hands-on with the NEX-VG10 interchangeable lens camcorder

In pretty much no time after the information came out, Engadget had the chance to fondle up Sony’s next NEX entry -the NEX-VG10 camcorder. While I think they whine a bit about having to rack the lens manually to zoom -it’s an 18-200mm objective lens, boys. I suppose it’d be nice to have a motor do it, but keeping it quiet for AF during video recording seems like it’d be a lot harder. Anyway, check ‘em out on the source link and clear your inter-tubes so you can watch their HD footage on youtube.




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