Photo Rumors

Sony SLT a37, a57 cameras and 70-400mm lens listed as discontiunued

By PR admin | Published: December 19, 2012

Sony Japan listed the Sony a37 and 70-400mm f/4-5.6 G SSM lens as discontinued. B&H recently also listed one of the a57 camera configurations as discontinued:

The Sony a37 was announced in May 2012, the a57 was introduced in March, 2012.

Posted in Sony| Tagged Sony a37, Sony a57, To be discontinued...| Leave a comment

The latest patent applications from Tamron, Canon and Sony

By PR admin | Published: December 19, 2012

Tamron

Patent 2012-242504 from Tamron is for a 300mm f/2.8 full frame lens for mirrorless cameras (?):

Tamron 300mm f/2.8 full frame lens for mirrorless cameras patent

Canon

Patent 2012-247451 from Canon is for a 50mm f/1.2 lens:

: Canon 50mm f/1.2 full frame lens patent (for DSLR cameras)

The next example is interesting – it looks like Canon filed a patent for a 50mm f/2.0 full frame mirrorless lens:

: Canon 50mm f/2.0 full frame size mirrorless lens patent

Posted in Canon, Sony, Tamron| Tagged Patents| 5 Comments

Kodak selling patents for $525 million

By PR admin | Published: December 19, 2012

Kodak will get approximately $525 million for its patents portfolio. This was a necessary step in order to get the previously reported $793 million in financing in order to exit from bankruptcy and continue as a commercial printing company.

Full press release:

Posted in Kodak| 3 Comments

This is the Polaroid IM1836 (Android based mirrorless interchangeable lens camera)

By PR admin | Published: December 17, 2012

I just received those new images of the already leaked Android based IM1836 interchangeable lens camera from Polaroid that were published on a Russian social media network. The only new addition to the previously reported specs is that the IM1836 will use MicroSD memory cards.

Posted in Polaroid| Tagged Android, Polaroid iM1836| 4 Comments

Polaroid to announce an Android based mirrorless interchangeable lens camera

By PR admin | Published: December 17, 2012

Polaroid is expected to announce the world’s first compact, interchangeable lens, Android based, mirrorless camera. Here are the details:

Model name: IM1836 (this is probably not the final name)
Powered by Android 4
3.5″ touchscreen
18.1MP sensor
Pop-up flash
Built-in Wi-Fi
HDMI and headphones outputs
Panorama, blink detection functions

Update: see also this related post.

For some reason, the Polaroid IM1836 looks identical to the Nikon 1 J2 mirrorless camera with the exception of the lens release button. Even the 30-110mm lens focal length corresponds to one of Nikon 1 lenses:

Posted in Polaroid| Tagged Android, Polaroid iM1836| 8 Comments

Fujifilm XF1 and X10 win 2013 iF Product Design Award

By PR admin | Published: December 16, 2012

Fujifilm won the 2013 iF Product Design Award for their XF1 and X10 cameras:

Posted in Fuji| 11 Comments

Nauticam NA-NEX5R underwater housing for Sony NEX-5R mirrorless camera

By PR admin | Published: December 16, 2012

Nauticam announced the NA-NEX5R underwater housing for Sony NEX-5R mirrorless camera with a depth rating of 100m:

Posted in Nauticam, Sony| Tagged underwater camera housings| Leave a comment

Rumor: Fuji X200 with X-Trans sensor coming in early 2013

By PR admin | Published: December 14, 2012

The online f11 magazine published a review of the Fuji X-E1 which included also a statement that the Fuji X200 will have X-Tran sensor and will be released in early 2013 (probably during the CES show in January or the CP+ show in February). The author of the article Tony Bridge is sponsored by Fujifilm, which gives even more credibility to this rumor (maybe he is currently testing the X200). The Fuji X100 was announced during the 2010 Photokina show and has already been listed as discontinued by some retailers. The X100 is still listed for its original price of $1200, which is unusual. The price of the black limited edition is currently $1399. Expect those price to drop in the next month.

Posted in Fuji| Tagged Fuji X200| 19 Comments

DxOMark test score for the Canon EOS 6D is out

By PR admin | Published: December 14, 2012

DxOMark published their test results for the Canon EOS 6D camera. The sensor performance of the 6D is almost identical to the 5D Mark III. The Nikon D600 still scored significantly higher then the 6D. From DxOMark conclusion:

Posted in Canon| Tagged DxoMark test results| 25 Comments

Sony RX1 review: first impressions

By PR admin | Published: December 13, 2012

I have to admit, I am not a big fan of Sony cameras. I understand that the NEX-7 and RX100 are top performers in their categories, but for some reason they never “clicked” for me. My mirrorless/compact solution of choice for the past two years has been from Fuji (X100 first, then X-Pro1). I also rarely see a new camera that impresses me right from the announcement, since most of the companies recently just copy what the competition is doing (I guess Fuji and Leica are exceptions here). Since Sony is the new kid on the block, they have to play aggressive and they have delivered several innovations in the past few years, but they still had to convince me that they have something for me. I have been lusting for a compact full frame camera for a while – maybe since Leica released the M9 over three years ago. When the first RX1 rumors started floating around, I was immediately intrigued. Few days ago I received my RX1 and here are my first impressions and few sample images. Since there is still no RAW support for the RX1 (with the exception of the RAW converter provided by Sony, which I have not tried yet), all images in this post are taken directly from the camera (standard JPG mode; no post-processing; NR, lens distortion, shading and chromatic aberration all set to ON/AUTO. I will have a follow-up post with more details on the Zeiss Sonnar 2/35 lens and some ISO performance tests. Update: today Adobe released Lightroom 4.3 with RX1 support. Download links: Win | Mac.

Click on images for larger view, or just check the full resolution JPG files on flickr.

f/2, ISO 100: