SAR: Plenty of Sony and Sigma rumors coming soon

[Cameratose]

…with announcements in 3-4 weeks!

Quote

Dear SAR reader, I had a short break this week because I am hiking in the Alps with my family and friends. But this will be my last short break, because I have received several confirmations that Sony will make an announcement in the second half of August and Sigma in early September.
There is also something completely different that I will talk about soon: The possibility of a big shake-up in the mirrorless world. This is “news” from the usual companies, and I will post a youtube video about it on my channel next week (subscribe!). Feel free to guess in the comments what you think might happen

Some interesting guesses over at SAR. I posit that Sony will buy OM, who seems to be struggling in the R&D department. One person suggests Canon will abandon their sensor division and go with Sony, which would make sense after the R1 announcement.

What do you think? What will the big shakeup be?

Had a small break this week: But plenty of Sony and Sigma rumors coming soon…with announcements in 3-4 weeks! – sonyalpharumors

Edited August 2 by Cameratose

[FunWithCameras]

Difficult to guess. Sometimes posts like this are just an attempt to drive more traffic to the rumour site 🙂

Bear in mind how long this rumour site was telling us about the upcoming 85mm f/1.2 which appears not to be coming at all. 

Things that are really big seem to escape the rumour mill - Sony managed to keep the A1 under wraps until just before the announcement, and even then, it came as a surprise. And remember all the rumours about eh A9 III, predicting it would have 33Mp. no. 36Mp. no, 30Mp...

So I'm not expecting a real "big shake-up". But speculation is more fun 😉

So what might happen?

I'm not sure what might qualify as a big shakeup. What about Canon and Nikon and Sony teaming up to release a set of cameras and lenses for a new sensor size?

Let's see, I'd want Sony to be in charge of:

• sensor (duh!) - maybe a triple stacked design to eliminate the current disadvantage of global sensor

Nikon could be in change of:

• body design
• firmware upgrades?

Maybe Canon could be in charge of:

• dual pixel AF?

And all three make lenses for it.

[Cameratose]

3 hours ago, FunWithCameras said:

So I'm not expecting a real "big shake-up". But speculation is more fun 😉

 

Right! Which is pretty much the whole reason for SAR. 

Didn't Nikon just have a problem with strap lugs falling off on the Z8? Not sure I want them in charge of body design! 🤣

I'd love to see Canon and Sony collaborate on AF, the results would likely be amazing. 

 

[Pieter]

4 hours ago, FunWithCameras said:

Things that are really big seem to escape the rumour mill - Sony managed to keep the A1 under wraps until just before the announcement

Hats off to Sony for how they managed to prevent leaks on the A1: there were litterally 0 solid rumors until the announcement. What helped there was that the reviewing press only received its testing samples after the official announcement rather than before under an NDA (which usually don't prove leakproof).

On topic: I don't see Sony buying OM. Sony has zero interest in investing in a separate mount system. Besides, Micro 4/3 hasn't been doing well for years and it's competing for a large party with Sony's E-mount APS-C. Sony is better served by letting OM struggle itself into bankrupcy, after which a large part of its clients might shift to E-mount.

There's been some rumors on curved sensors for the last couple of years, but I think that only makes sense for very niche high-end fixed lens cameras such as an RX1R2 successor, as the ideal sensor curvature is closely related to the lens design.

I think the A9iii's global shutter was the biggest shake-up we can expect for years to come. As I see it, this is the future and for the coming years its development might bring its dynamic range on par with rolling shutter sensors. Incremental improvements after a big leap.

Edited August 3 by Pieter

[Cameratose]

In fairness, M-4/3 has always been a bit more niche. It did well upon release like anything new, but has fallen back to what was probably the expected market share. 

OM's cameras are Olympus designs. Olympus was starting the get into computational photography in an effort to improve IQ. Some of their stuff is supposedly patented, people like to cite 'pro-capture', but Sony was able to implement pre-capture in the A9III so not sure how much that actually affects a new design. Olympus also implement in-camera stacking, something Sony hasn't done so far other than a poor attempt that still requires software for the actual stacking. I could see Sony acquiring OM to pick up some of this tech if indeed patents and licensing prevent Sony's use. 

 

Edited August 3 by Cameratose

[Pieter]

Yes Sony is slow to catch up with integrated software tools and usually first only implements half-baked attempts which require editing in post, such as merging high-res pixelshift images, gyro stabilization of video footage, focus stacking, etc. If anything, Sony could indeed use a helping hand in that department.

[FunWithCameras]

I'd dispute "half-baked".

The serious focus stackers need the ability to stack a hundred or more frames.

What Sony did for focus stacking was support the serious example - capturing brackets of hundreds of images (up to 299). That is not a practical thing to stack in-camera - I believe the in-camera versions implement just a handful.

The serious stackers use specialised software to stack the images, and that software can be used with focus brackets captured using Sony.

 

Edited August 6 by FunWithCameras
grammatical fix

[Cameratose]

1 hour ago, FunWithCameras said:

I'd dispute "half-baked".

The serious focus stackers need the ability to stack a hundred or more frames.

What Sony did for focus stacking was support the serious example - capturing brackets of hundreds of images (up to 299). That is not a practical thing to stack in-camera - I believe the in-camera versions implement just a handful.

The serious stackers use specialised software to stack the images, and that software can be used with focus brackets captured using Sony.

 

True, and it'd likely be impossible for them to provide enough processing power in-camera to stack that many files. However, there's no reason they couldn't have implemented a system similar to OM's that allows someone to stack a dozen or so images along with this one.

It's the macro shooters that really need so many files, a landscape image can be satisfied by far fewer, as in the OM example. There are tons of choices in your camera to decide between, having a handful in-camera and the system they chose to provide to choose between would've satisfied the vocal objections. 

[FunWithCameras]

On 8/6/2024 at 9:26 PM, Cameratose said:

True, and it'd likely be impossible for them to provide enough processing power in-camera to stack that many files. However, there's no reason they couldn't have implemented a system similar to OM's that allows someone to stack a dozen or so images along with this one.

It's the macro shooters that really need so many files, a landscape image can be satisfied by far fewer, as in the OM example. There are tons of choices in your camera to decide between, having a handful in-camera and the system they chose to provide to choose between would've satisfied the vocal objections. 

 

If you need a focus bracket of 100 frames, you really need the camera to implement the capture of the bracket. OK, sure, you can stand by the camera advancing the focus by a teeny bit, then click, and repeat, but that will not as precise as a version implemented in the camera - altering the focus manually by the same amount each time is difficult.

If you need a focus bracket of 4 or 6 frames, it's a lot easier to do it manually, but having the camera capture the bracket for you does simplify that part. Stacking the images in the computer is not particularly onerous.

If you are Sony, and you want to implement a focus bracket feature because a small number of users are clamouring loudly for it, do you implement a version which will be immediately dismissed as a "toy" by the people who need the heavy-duty version, or do you implement a version which handles the painful part, and depends on processing in the computer?

I think Sony chose appropriately. Maybe they will implement an "in-camera" version later (I suspect not, but they could). They have had a variety of in-camera bracket merges on their compact cameras (like the "Twilight" mode). I get the feeling that they avoid putting features like that into their ILCs.