Sony US just announced the new 12 Megapixel Full Frame E-mount A7s camera. In short these are the bad and good news:

Bad:

– Unlike the Gh4 it doesn’t record 4K on SD cards. You have to buy and sue an external recorder to record 4K 4:2:2 video.

– Autofocus hasn’t been improved (why not add the amazing A6000 hybrid AF?).

Good:

– Low resolution sensor allows amazing 409,600 ISO.

– Sony says this si the FF sensor with the highest dynamic range and color fidelity

– Costs just like the Panasonic GH4 ($1699)

Full specs and details and image/video samples at SonyAlphaRumors.

Hardcore Pentax Q system fans can now buy that limited edition Q7 premium kit. This is the full press release:

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DENVER, CO, April 2, 2014 – Ricoh Imaging Americas Corporation  (Ricoh Imaging) is pleased to announce the PENTAX Q7 Premium Kit, featuring the world smallest and lightest interchangeable lens camera system, four high-performance lenses and a host of accessories all wrapped up in an exclusive package.

Available in a limited quantity of 1,000 units world-wide, the PENTAX Q7 premium kit includes the following items:

PENTAX Q7 camera body (Color: black x black)
PENTAX-01 STANDARD PRIME (Color: black)
PENTAX-02 STANDARD ZOOM (Color: black)
PENTAX-06 TELEPHOTO ZOOM
PENTAX-08 WIDE ZOOM
MH-RB40.5 Metal Hood for 01 (Color: black)*
PH-RBB40.5 Plastic Hood for 02
PH-RBA40.5 Plastic Hood for 06
PH-RBF49 Plastic Hood for 08
PENTAX -100 PL Polarizing filter**
O-CB133 Camera Bag
Special kit box

Accessories: rechargeable lithium-ion battery, battery charger, AC power cord, USB cable, CD-ROM software, strap

* This hood is exclusively designed for the kit, and is treated with a special black coating.
** Usable on the 01, 02 and 06 lenses. The 02 lens may be affected by some vignetting at its wide-angle end when mounted on the Q7 camera body.

Note: The specifications of the camera body, lenses and accessories are identical with those of standard products.

Weighing in a just 7 ounces, the Q7’s compact body enables easy pocketable portability while the in-camera filters and assorted lens variety inspire the casual photographer to elevate their creativity.  Featuring a 1/1.7 inch, back-illuminated CMOS image sensor, high sensitivity shooting up to ISO 12800 and enhanced Q ENGINE with fast response time during start-up and shooting, the Q7 produces sharp and beautiful images with a creative flare.

Main Features

The PENTAX-01 Standard Prime and PENTAX-02 Standard Zoom lenses have been treated with a black coating identical to that used on the camera body, to enhance visual harmony.

The Metal Hood for 01 is treated with a special back coating that matches the color of the 01 lens.

The O-CB133 is a shoulder-bag-type camera case, which holds a Q7 camera body with the 02 lens mounted, and as many as five interchangeable Q-mount lenses.

The kit is packaged in a specially designed kit box.

Pricing and Availability

The limited edition PENTAX Q7 Premium Kit will be available at www.us.ricoh-imaging.com  in late April 2014 for a suggested retail price of $1,199.95.

If you look at the stats posted by Cipa you will see that compared to February 2013 this year Japanese companies shipped 33,7% more mirrorless cameras and 12,3% less DSLR cameras! After many months of negative trend the mirrorless shares are increasing again.

The data include DSLR and mirrorless camera shipped by Japanese companies. So these do not include Leica and Samsung for example. Doesn’t make a lot of difference as the big producers are all Japanese anyway.

Personal View analyzed the data in detail and you see how mirrorless sales are incredibly problematic on US market. Americans still love DSLR many times more than Mirrorless cameras :(

Imagine a sensor that has no light loss on corners, no aberrations. A sensor designed to allow faster apertures without to sacrifice image quality. Such a sensor would have to be curved to allow all this. Well, this is no more science fiction. Sony officially unveiled their curved sensor tech! And suddenly the hopes are high Sony uses this kind of tech on future RX or Full Frame E-mount cameras. This is the Sony presentation published right before the start of the Technology Symposium (pdf file here):

We realized an ultimately advanced imaging system that comprises a curved, back-illuminated CMOS image sensor (BIS) and integrated lens which doubles the sensitivity at the edge of the image circle and increases the sensitivity at the center of the image circle by a factor of 1.4 with one-fifth lower dark current than that of a planar BIS. Because the lens field curvature aberration was overcome in principle by the curved sensor itself, the curved BIS enables higher system sensitivity through design of a brighter lens with a smaller F number than is possible with a planar BIS. At the same time, we controlled the tensile stress of the BIS chip to produce a curved shape that widens the energy band-gap to obtain a lower dark current. The curved CIS can be applied to an ultimately advanced imaging system that is validated by the evolution of the animal eye in Nature.

If Sony is going to put this into a mass production camera…it will really put under pressure Canon and Nikon ;)

Well, there are plenty of amazing (and fake) news today! So here is a roundup of some April Fool’s day articles:

1) The video on top shows you how to make a pancake lens for MFT (Source: mirrorlessphototips)

2) Facebook just bought Leica (LesNumeriques).

3) Panasonic goes Full Frame (43rumors)

4) First Foveon Sony A9 camera (SAR).

5) Ricoh buys Nikon (Lepidi).

Let me know if you find some more! :)

E-M1 owner will be happy to see that Olympus just released a new firmware (version 1.3) for their camera (http://www.olympus.co.jp/en/support/imsg/digicamera/download/software/firm/e1/).

This is the full improvement list:

• Dynamic range has been expanded when using the external mic. The sound level adjustment has been changed to adjust to 21 levels in accordance with this. A function to turn the Volume Limiter on and off was added.
  • * When it is on, it automatically limits the mic input volume if sound input volume exceeds the designated level.
• A 0 second setting has been added to Anti-Shock mode.
• The camera operation when the Frame Rate of live view is [High] have been improved.