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Sony Announces Two New Bloggies, Encourages You To Get Your Splash On

Sony’s Bloggie line of camcorders may have had a rough start back as the Webbie HD series, a duo of compact cameras aimed squarely at the social generation… and the now-defunct but then-popular Flip pocket camcorders. Since then, the line has evolved into the Bloggie series, moving away from Sony’s… less than popular memory stick cards to integrated memory, and adding increasingly elegant design with touchscreens and metal bodies. And now we have not only your annual refresh, but the addition of a ruggedized waterproof sports Bloggie, too.

Up first is the Bloggie Live HD (also known by it’s technical name of MHS-TS55/S, for those of you who are more fluent in cyborg than I am). Starting with the hardware, you’re looking at a metal body, in which is housed a fixed 37mm equiv lens, a backlit Exmor sensor that does 1080p video or 12.3 megapixels for still, a 3″ touchscreen, 8GB of internal memory, a flip-out USB dongle, built-in interfacing software for Mac and PC, and a wi-fi card.

Using that wi-fi, you can do more things, like upload direct to social sites (YouTube, Facebook, etc). And going even further, it can now do live streaming (something a lot of the press could probably use out at CES this week). Honestly, this is probably the best spiritual successor to the Flip I’ve seen announced, and anyone who’s been looking to fill that hole in their life should gaze long and hard at this beauty. It might just be the way to go. Especially for the relatively painless retail of @249.97.

 

But, if you need something a bit more… durable, don’t worry, the Bloggie line now has you covered there, too, via the Bloggie Sport HD (MHS-TS22/L in the cyborgese). If you’re willing to trade down to a 2.7″ screen, a 5 megapixel still function, and the wi-fi, you can add on waterproofing down to 16 feet, and drop protection up to 5 feet. Which ought to make this a gem for adventuring types. For some reason I’m still thinking kayaks. I think I have a fixation, here.

And, because there’s apparently a law that waterproof things need to look sporty, the Bloggie Sport HD does indeed sport it up, though not without a certain sleekness. And it’ll do so for you in your choice of blue, red, or black (all adorned with black rubber trim). You also get to shave some scratch off the price, dipping down to $179.97 for this one.

It’s worth noting before we leave that both models also feature Sony’s sensor-shift IS, LED lights, and auto-focus with face detection. Which pretty much rounds out what you’d expect from a pocket cam.

 

 



Sony’s Cybershot W610, W620, W650 Update Line-Up, Skip Numbers.

Not wanting to miss out on the CES lovage, Sony has thrown 3 new models into its Cybershot line-up.

The W610 starts us off with some pretty typical entry specs: 14megapixel sensor, 4x optical zoom (28-114mm equiv), 2.7″ LCD, face detection, smile detection, blink detection, sweep panorama, dynamic range optimizer, and a rather curious “Natural Flash.” And five colors: green, black, blue, red, silver. No HD video, though. VGA only. Price will be $109.99 for this one.

The W620 is up next, and features the return of pretty much all of the above, except the lens moves up to a 5x zoom (28-140mm equiv), and the video mode goes up to 720p. You do lose some color choices here, though, with only black, red, and silver being offered. Still, if that’s fine by you, you can pick up that better lens and movie mode for a mere $10 over the W 610, or $119.99.

Lastly, we skip a few numbers ahead to the W650. And, as you might assume from such a jump, the features leap forward a bit as well. You get to keep the 5x 28-140mm zoom, but you upgrade to 16.1 megapixels. The movie mode remains stuck at 720p, but optical image stabilization makes an appearance finally. You also get a 3″ LCD. Firmware-wise, all the usual and previously mentioned Sony technologies stick around, so you can detect blinks and sweep panoramas to your heart’s content.  at least, you can if you don’t mind black, silver, or red and a $139.99 price tag, that is.



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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One New Alpha Lens: DT 16-50mm f2.8

This is a quickie before we move on to the NEX/E-system announcements from today, but in addition to two Alpha cameras (the SLT-A65 and SLT-A77), Sony has added one lens to its Alpha line-up, in the form of the DT 2.8/16-50mm SSM. As always, the name says it all, if you know the code. Slipping on my Super-Special-Secret-Sony Decoder Ring here, I can tell you that DT means this is for APS-C bodies only, no full frame. As such, it’ll always be subject to a 15x crop and winds up looking the same as a 24-75mm. The f2.8 constant aperture is self-explanatory and shows that this is a serious lens despite being crop-only. The last part, SSM, just lets you know it uses super-sonic motor focusing, for fast and quiet AF.



Sony Finally Replaces A700 with SLT-A77 Translucent-Mirrored Camera

We’re going to continue our announcement party today with the SLT-A77, but first we need to have story time. So, fluff those pillows, grab a juice box, and gather ’round.

The year was 2007, and I’d just begun my tenure as Roberts’ resident web guru. It was an exciting year for the digital world. Canon had announced their EOS-1D Mark III, Nikon had announced the D40, their first true consumer DSLR, Olympus announced the E-410 and E-510 twins and with them the return of live view and the introduction of the interactive rear menu, and Sony finally released its first DSLRs after having acquired the failing Minolta brand: the quirky entry-level A100 and the prosumer A700.

Since then, Sony has announced 20 Alpha models. They have added full-frame cameras, and invented the pellicle-mirrored SLT series. But it took them until today, 4 years, for one of those Alphas to finally replace that A700.

So, was it worth that kind of wait? A lot has changed since the A700 hit the market. Live view is no longer seen as a rare gimmick, but now a de facto gimmick. Full-frame has become a prevalent consumer product. Nikon wowed the world with its 51-point AF 3D matrix that acted more like magic than what we knew of AF at the time. Olympus and Panasonic shook things up by announcing a new breed of camera that had the DSLR sensor–but not its mirror–in a point-and-shoot sized body. The megapixel race died off in favor of the high ISO race. HD video in DSLRs became a thing, and then became the norm.

So, after all that, what’s the A77 bringing to the table?

Well, right off the bat it’s using Sony’s new-fangled fixed mirror technology, which allows for traditional fast phase-detection AF, but since the mirror isn’t flapping around it can keep focusing while shooting and can shoot notably faster. It also means there’s no optical viewfinder, and instead there’s an electronic one piping out the sensor’s full-time live view.

In this case, that electronic viewfinder is a 0.5″ OLED one (not LCD) with 2 million friggin’ dots of resolution. And that continuous shooting rate is a very commendable 14 frames per second (which was unheard of when the EOS-1D Mark III claimed to reach it back in 2007, and hasn’t been seen since). It’s got 24 megapixels, 19 AF points, a 3″ 921,000 dot tilt/swivel LCD, ISO 50-25,600 expanded (100-16,000 native), 1080 video with a built-in mic over the pop-up flash, a shutter life of 150,000 actuations, and a maximum shutter speed of 1/8000 second. There’s a weather-sealed magnesium body wrapped around it all, with a top-deck LCD and available grip for a second battery. It also includes Sony’s now-typical sweep panorama and 3D shooting modes, as well as all the face-detection bells-and-whistles you could want. And, there’s GPS built in to geotag your photos, no accessory or dongle required.

Interested parties should look into stashing away $1400 for the body only, or $2000 if they’d like to buy it with the newly announced 16-50mm f2.8 DT standard zoom (DT means it’s crop sensor only, and with Sony’s 1.5x crop that’s give it the same field-of-view as a 24-75mm). But, since you’ve had four years to save up, that shouldn’t be so hard, right?

More images and a press release after the jump.

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Sony Announces SLT-A65 Translucent Mirror Non-DSLR Camera

We’ve got a lot of announcements to swim through this morning, with six point-and-shoots from Nikon and four cameras, a camcorder, 4 lenses, and a lens adapter from Sony. That’s a lot to field, so bare with us as we look it all over ehre and let you know whats what.

I’m going to kick things off with the Sony SLT-A65. The “SLT” designation denotes that this is the new generation of Alpha cameras, and it seems at this point that the old generation is now over with. These new breed of Alpha cameras aren’t technically DSLRs anymore. The “SLR” stood for “Single Lens Reflex,” and referenced the fact that a mirror sitting in from of the imager directed light up through a viewfinder, andthen had to flip out of the way forthe exposure. The new SLT cameras use a semi-translucent fixed mirror (technically a pellicle mirror) over the sensor to direct a tiny amount of light to the phase-detect autofocus sensor, and the rest straight through to the sensor. This allows full time live view a la compacts and EVILs, but keeps the phase detect AF of DSLRs. Your viewfinder is powered by the live view pumped through a smaller display.

So, the A65 is the newest body in the line up to use this technology, slotting in above the A35 and A55, but below the A77 (which we’ll get to next). There are two immediate things of note:

  1. The resolution has jumped up to a ludicrous 24 megapixels (the A55 stops at a merely insane 16 of them)
  2. The electronic viewfinder is no longer LCD, it’s now OLED, and it’s now got over 2 million dots of resolution. Yes, 2 million. The very well-regarded LCDs on most high end cameras have a meager 921,000 dots in comparison. And are 3″ diagonal instead of 0.5″ diagonal. Try to imagine 2 million dots of resolution in a mere .5″ diagonal. That thing is going to be sexy.

So, those are the big points. There are other ones to make, though. The AF points are down to 15 from 19 on the A55, but three of them are cross type. It has a continuous shooting rate of 10 frames per second, and since the mirror doesn’t flap around it can keep on focusing while shooting those. It’s got a tilting 3″ 921,000 dot LCD on the back. It also has GPS built in, no dongles and accessories needed here. The ISO can go from 50-25,600 when expanded, and tops out at a paltry ISO 16,000 native. There are three zeroes there, by the way. In my sleep-deprived, bleary-eyed spec reading I thought it said “1,600″ and was quite unimpressed until Nick smacked me for being a dolt.

Also, Sony’s using a new electronic first curtain for all their always-exposed sensors, which solves the problems of needing to cover the sensor before they could make an exposure and dropping the shutter lag from 100ms to a rather competitive 20ms.
Pricing for the A65 will be around $900 body only, or a cool grand with an 18-55mm lens.

More pictures and press release after the jump.

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