A 15MP Sony Mirrorless Camera will be Announced Soon

[Andrew Reid]

The problem is that the premium end of the filmmaking market is going full frame.

Sony will want their XDCAM and CineAlta in pole position to capitalise on the trend.

Let's put it another way... They did not cripple the recent releases (A7R IV, A6400) to protect the A7S line.

They are doing a Canon... But the ironic thing is, Canon have changed strategy... FF 60p 5.5 RAW and DCI 4K 10bit on a DSLR.

Oops.

Is it too late to get the "other" A7S III out of the cooker or are testers already being served the lukewarm version??

4 minutes ago, eleison said:

Short term, yes its sonys internal politics.  Longterm, its blackmagic imho since blackmagic are willing to use other peoples sensors and gives what filmmakers want.

It's a mistake to think Blackmagic is any different. The Pocket cameras are just loss-leaders for URSA and there to increase adoption of Resolve and brand awareness.

Blackmagic would put more effort into the Pocket 4K and 6K if they were serious about enthusiasts... They'd be made a proper factory without sawdust on the sensor.

[eleison]

2 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

The problem is that the premium end of the filmmaking market is going full frame.

Sony will want their XDCAM and CineAlta in pole position to capitalise on the trend.

Let's put it another way... They did not cripple the recent releases (A7R IV, A6400) to protect the A7S line.

They are doing a Canon... But the ironic thing is, Canon have changed strategy... FF 60p 5.5 RAW and DCI 4K 10bit on a DSLR.

Oops.

Is it too late to get the "other" A7S III out of the cooker or are testers already being served the lukewarm version??

It's a mistake to think Blackmagic is any different. The Pocket cameras are just loss-leaders for URSA and there to increase adoption of Resolve and brand awareness.

Blackmagic would put more effort into the Pocket 4K and 6K if they were serious about enthusiasts... They'd be made a proper factory without sawdust on the sensor.

Blackmagic has aproximately 390 employees - compare that to sony or canons camera/video division.  Blackmagic is a small company and they cant "play arround" or else they will get steamrolled by the big players.

I dont have the exact numbers, but between their ursa camera and pocket 4k, i bet the majority of blackmagics revenue is coming from the sales of the pocket 4k.

There are just not enough buyers of the higher end cameras to support many mid to larger company.  I speculate that is why red is trying to go down market.  

Most of the companies are targeting the $1k to 3k marketplace.  This is where most of the profit and demand is.  Just look at panasonic s1h.  At $4k, it too expensive and "not selling as well as it should" even through it is full frame and netflix approved.

Its pretty much do or die time for the a7s4 or 3.  With that release sony will tip its hand on what their strategy is - be like canon or try and innovate.

[TheDingo]

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

But the ironic thing is, Canon have changed strategy... FF 60p 5.5 RAW and DCI 4K 10bit on a DSLR.

With a 30 minute recording limit...

[Trankilstef]

I am pretty confident that the next Canon FF mirrorless bodies (at least the more video centric one) will give the Sony a7sIII/A7sIV a run for their money. As Andrew said, Canon stopped resting on their laurels and decided to go to fight again in 2020, and they know they have something unique with their RF mount. Fuji too will release a powerful camera with the xt-4, the early rumors are quite impressive, and the x-t3 is already an incredible little camera. I bet Sony is the new Canon.

[JurijTurnsek]

Canon is now trying to innovate hard, since the shrinking market could now change severely. However, don't read too much into the technology in a huge brick that is the 1DXIII. Fitting all that into a mirorless body is more than an exercise in willpower.

If you look close enough, it becomes obvious no brand has the perfect tech that they are crippling intentionally - Panasonic lacks PDAF, Olympus lack continuous PDAF, Canon lacks good downsampling and a middle tier codec, Nikon basically has everything, but needs a more reliable continuous PDAF, Sony desperately needs more efficient encoding (looks like their new sensors are still balancing readout speed/mp count ratio as none can do everything perfectly). Fuji is now the closest to perfection and the next generation will seal the deal, if you don't need FF. Sensors tech seems to have plateaued and these brands are very slow to upgrade the overall feature package.

[Andrew Reid]

15 hours ago, eleison said:

Blackmagic has aproximately 390 employees - compare that to sony or canons camera/video division.

390 employees and not one to attach a hinge to a screen, I know, it's tragic.

[Alex Uzan]

So 6K is comming earlier than expected.
Glad I didn't buy the Ninja V last month.

[hmcindie]

13 hours ago, TheDingo said:

With a 30 minute recording limit...

When you are recording RAW on the 1dx you probably will hit another limit before that 30mins is up  

[Video Hummus]

4 hours ago, JurijTurnsek said:

Olympus lack continuous PDAF

Not anymore. Latest firmware added PDAF to the aging EM1.2

16 hours ago, eleison said:

At $4k, it too expensive and "not selling as well as it should"

Who are you quoting here?

Sony has momentum. Anything they put out besides a complete turd will be sold and hyped like no tomorrow. I wouldn’t be surprised that every single YouTuber that has touched a Sony will be hyping the A7S4 and reading those taking points.

I know a couple of people that bought the A73 and it was their first camera...ever. Why? They saw all those YouTube videos “saying this the the camera to get Full Frame 4K $2000!!!!” , when it came out. I bought one too. I didn’t keep it in the end.

I hope all of these companies are successful. I really hope Canon wakes up and releases an R camera everybody wanted to begin with.

Im a Panasonic fanboy but I’m getting tired of their very stubborn approach to their AF. Either get it to work or just move on and pay to have PDAF. Everybody, I mean everybody that has touched a Panny, wants it. They could have starting eating everybody’s lunch if it wasn’t for their shitty AF performance.

[eleison]

1 hour ago, Video Hummus said:

I know a couple of people that bought the A73 and it was their first camera...ever. Why? They saw all those YouTube videos “saying this the the camera to get Full Frame 4K $2000!!!!” , when it came out. I bought one too. I didn’t keep it in the end.

I hope all of these companies are successful. I really hope Canon wakes up and releases an R camera everybody wanted to begin with.

Im a Panasonic fanboy but I’m getting tired of their very stubborn approach to their AF. Either get it to work or just move on and pay to have PDAF. Everybody, I mean everybody that has touched a Panny, wants it. They could have starting eating everybody’s lunch if it wasn’t for their shitty AF performance.

 

The 1k to 3k market is so big because it includes the casual shooter - those that will buy their first camera; and those the will buy the camera to test it out and resell it later.  It's a huge segment especial if it includes semi-professional, and professional videographers and photographers.  The a7iii hit that mark.

 

The s1h is too expensive.  People do like the camera, but it is positioned too close to "real professional" cameras like the URSA, C500, FX5, etc...  For those people who have the money to buy the s1h and a business reason to buy it, they usually step up and buy a "professional videocamera" perhaps even spending a little more because it's their living. 

 

Those that will be buying their first camera will not be buying the s1h.  It's just not the autofocusing since people are willing to live w/o the great autofocusing if the price is right - Pocket 4k, Ursa, zcam, etc.  I think subconsciously people use the autofocusing as a reason to not buy the s1h but it's really the cost.  After all, when the A7iii came out nobody complained about the price.  When the s1h came out, while basically everyone was impressed; almost everyone complained about the price saying it is expensive, "but you get a lot for your money" -- or something like that.  This was completely different for the a7iii -- people were basically saying it was such a steal for the price.

 

For the s1h to create as much excitement as the a7iii did, it needed to be cheaper WITH good autofocusing - no more than $2.5k.  As it is now without good focusing, a good price for people to say "this is the camera to get" would be $2k.  As a $4k camera, it does not fit into the sweet spot that will generate the most sales. I'm sure blackmagic with it's pocket 6k for $2.6K could have easily created a comparable full frame camera priced at $4k - just basically slap on a full frame sensor on their pocket camera; but they didn't because their market research probably showed that they couldn't sell as many cameras to make it worth their time.

[wolf33d]

Canon rumors just released a CR2 rumor that Canon EOS R competing A7S line will come this May.

Let’s be clear, if Canon releases an EOS R with same video specs as the 1DX (maybe at least 10 bit 4K60, not raw) with IBIS and enabled DPAF, and Sony releases an A7S3 with no better specs, I am selling all my Sony gear and move back to Canon. 
A few clowns here liked to say I am a Sony fan, I couldn’t care less about Sony or any camera manufacturer. I am buying the gear I need wherever it comes from. If H&M releases the camera I need tomorrow I would buy it. 

First company to offer 4K60p 10 bit with IBIS and Canon DPAF or Sony-like AF in a small mirrorless body gets my money. If both Sony and Canon do it this year the same, I go to Canon because at same spec level I would rather have better menus/ergo. But it’s hard to believe Canon won’t fuck up again (they did not with the 1DX but only because it’s $6.5K and very big body with easy heat management). 
Oh and Tamron better releases 17-28 on the Canon bodies, cause who wants to pay 3 times the price for a twice the weight 15-35mm? Not me. 

Credit card is ready anyway. 

[KnightsFan]

3 hours ago, Andrew Reid said:

390 employees and not one to attach a hinge to a screen, I know, it's tragic.

To be fair, mechanical moving parts are more difficult to make, test, and repair than software. Overall Blackmagic hardware isn't great. Battery life sucks, ergonomics have been sketchy (remember the 2.5k?). I bet Blackmagic and Sigma save a lot of cost compared to photo cameras by removing shutters and articulating screens.

[Mokara]

7 hours ago, JurijTurnsek said:

Canon is now trying to innovate hard, since the shrinking market could now change severely. However, don't read too much into the technology in a huge brick that is the 1DXIII. Fitting all that into a mirorless body is more than an exercise in willpower.

If you look close enough, it becomes obvious no brand has the perfect tech that they are crippling intentionally - Panasonic lacks PDAF, Olympus lack continuous PDAF, Canon lacks good downsampling and a middle tier codec, Nikon basically has everything, but needs a more reliable continuous PDAF, Sony desperately needs more efficient encoding (looks like their new sensors are still balancing readout speed/mp count ratio as none can do everything perfectly). Fuji is now the closest to perfection and the next generation will seal the deal, if you don't need FF. Sensors tech seems to have plateaued and these brands are very slow to upgrade the overall feature package.

It is all about the processors and what they can do. Until Sony come out with next gen processors they are not going to be upgrading the camera specs. If the processor can only handle X amount of data processing before overheating, don't expect X+Y performance any time soon. If the new S camera comes with a Bionz X processor then it will probably be limited to similar capabilities as existing Sony cameras (the big video cameras can do more because their thermal envelope is more forgiving).

Canon are not "innovating hard" now, what is happening is that their processors are finally becoming somewhat competitive, specifically they seem to be getting their heat generation under control which in turn allows enablement of more advanced features from the sensor.

1 hour ago, wolf33d said:

Canon rumors just released a CR2 rumor that Canon EOS R competing A7S line will come this May.

Let’s be clear, if Canon releases an EOS R with same video specs as the 1DX (maybe at least 10 bit 4K60, not raw) with IBIS and enabled DPAF, and Sony releases an A7S3 with no better specs, I am selling all my Sony gear and move back to Canon. 
A few clowns here liked to say I am a Sony fan, I couldn’t care less about Sony or any camera manufacturer. I am buying the gear I need wherever it comes from. If H&M releases the camera I need tomorrow I would buy it. 

First company to offer 4K60p 10 bit with IBIS and Canon DPAF or Sony-like AF in a small mirrorless body gets my money. If both Sony and Canon do it this year the same, I go to Canon because at same spec level I would rather have better menus/ergo. But it’s hard to believe Canon won’t fuck up again (they did not with the 1DX but only because it’s $6.5K and very big body with easy heat management). 
Oh and Tamron better releases 17-28 on the Canon bodies, cause who wants to pay 3 times the price for a twice the weight 15-35mm? Not me. 

Credit card is ready anyway. 

The EOS R models will likely have Digic 9 processors in them, so more like a limited version of the C500M2. Digic 9 should have the same hardware capabilities as the DV7 in that camera, but obviously in EOS-R bodies the thermal envelope will be more constrained, so the feature set would be more limited.

20 hours ago, eleison said:

Blackmagic has aproximately 390 employees - compare that to sony or canons camera/video division.  Blackmagic is a small company and they cant "play arround" or else they will get steamrolled by the big players.

I dont have the exact numbers, but between their ursa camera and pocket 4k, i bet the majority of blackmagics revenue is coming from the sales of the pocket 4k.

There are just not enough buyers of the higher end cameras to support many mid to larger company.  I speculate that is why red is trying to go down market.  

Most of the companies are targeting the $1k to 3k marketplace.  This is where most of the profit and demand is.  Just look at panasonic s1h.  At $4k, it too expensive and "not selling as well as it should" even through it is full frame and netflix approved.

Its pretty much do or die time for the a7s4 or 3.  With that release sony will tip its hand on what their strategy is - be like canon or try and innovate.

I would guess that the $1.5k - 2.5k range is the sweet spot. Margins are decent at the price range, it is cheap enough to be affordable by the masses, and the sorts of people who buy in that price range are more likely to invest in additional add ons, such as lenses etc, than the folk who buy at sub $1.5k (those mostly do not buy anything else other than the kit itself).

[newfoundmass]

I don't think they have released a follow up to the DVX200 yet because the market it appeals to (ENG) moves a lot slower. A lot of local network affiliates are using the same cameras they got when they changed over to HD. They ride their equipment until the wheels fall off. The DVX200 also still exceeds the needs of a lot of ENG shooters, so it's not really out of date. 

The local CBS affiliate bought DVX200's and my buddy Michael loves it. 

[Cliff Totten]

4 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

 

Im a Panasonic fanboy but I’m getting tired of their very stubborn approach to their AF. Either get it to work or just move on and pay to have PDAF. Everybody, I mean everybody that has touched a Panny, wants it. They could have starting eating everybody’s lunch if it wasn’t for their shitty AF performance.

Panasonic is NOT being "stubborn" with PDAF. In order to have phase detect AF, you need to buy a sensor that has dual PDAF photosites. Sony sells them to Fuji, Olympus and Nikon. I'm told by somebody I know in the sensor industry that Sony REFUSES to liscense PDAF sensors to Panasonic "specifically"....by request from Alpha. Panasonic has no choice but to go the contrast AF road. This is a harsh marketing tactic by Sony and everytime Sony reads complaints about Panny AF....Sony Alpha is VERY ...VERY.....V E R Y....happy.

Panasonic is going to have to fix their AF complaints...on their own. Sony is NOT going to help Panny fix it! Sony can live with Nikon and Olympus as competitor's but they will NOT help their long time rival, Panasonic.

Believe me,....Panasonic is TIRED of hearing their AF complaints. They KNOW....believe me,...the know! They are doing the best they can with what they have.

[ND64]

I don't feel good about this quad bayer thing. 

[Amazeballs]

49 minutes ago, Cliff Totten said:

Panasonic is NOT being "stubborn" with PDAF. In order to have phase detect AF, you need to buy a sensor that has dual PDAF photosites. Sony sells them to Fuji, Olympus and Nikon. I'm told by somebody I know in the sensor industry that Sony REFUSES to liscense PDAF sensors to Panasonic "specifically"....by request from Alpha. Panasonic has no choice but to go the contrast AF road. This is a harsh marketing tactic by Sony and everytime Sony reads complaints about Panny AF....Sony Alpha is VERY ...VERY.....V E R Y....happy.

Panasonic is going to have to fix their AF complaints...on their own. Sony is NOT going to help Panny fix it! Sony can live with Nikon and Olympus as competitor's but they will NOT help their long time rival, Panasonic.

Believe me,....Panasonic is TIRED of hearing their AF complaints. They KNOW....believe me,...the know! They are doing the best they can with what they have.

If that is true, I hate Sony with all my heart for such an unethical and durty move. All the more reason to go Fuji instead of Sony when new cameras arrive this year. Panasonic needs to find their way around it or I will have to leave them behind unfortunately.

[Cliff Totten]

1 hour ago, Amazeballs said:

If that is true, I hate Sony with all my heart for such an unethical and durty move. All the more reason to go Fuji instead of Sony when new cameras arrive this year. Panasonic needs to find their way around it or I will have to leave them behind unfortunately.

It's important to know this is just hearsay and not a verified fact. My source is a sensor engineer that does not work for Sony or Panasonic but his company has done busines with and fab'd with Sony.

This is just something he told me at NAB and I know him well enough to believe him.

[Video Hummus]

That doesn't make any sense to me. FujiFilm and Nikon are just as much a competitor with Sony Alpha as Panasonic.

What is Panasonic offering us (and competing with Sony with) that Fujifilm doesn't? Fuji and Panny both have 4K 60p cameras. They both offer 10-bit recording modes. They both have competent color science. They both compete with Sony's A7 series of cameras. Why sell PDAF to Nikon, a proven household name in quality cameras, with it's FF Z6 & Z7 which is a direct competitor to the A73 and the A7R3 when it was released!

Why let any other competitor have PDAF? They could refuse to sell/license it to anybody and force them all to contrast AF and compete only with Canon.

No. There is something much more to the story that probably stems from weird contorted patent deals or technology partnerships that Panasonic just happened not to be a partner too. Either that or Panasonic slept with Sony Alphas mom or something.

 

Hopefully someday there will be a documentary about this market for us camera nerds. Kinda weird and mysterious and cloak and dagger. @Andrew Reid when can we expect this? 😁

[Amazeballs]

7 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

That doesn't make any sense to me. FujiFilm and Nikon are just as much a competitor with Sony Alpha as Panasonic.

What is Panasonic offering us (and competing with Sony with) that Fujifilm doesn't? Fuji and Panny both have 4K 60p cameras. They both offer 10-bit recording modes. They both have competent color science. They both compete with Sony's A7 series of cameras. Why sell PDAF to Nikon, a proven household name in quality cameras, with it's FF Z6 & Z7 which is a direct competitor to the A73 and the A7R3 when it was released!

Why let any other competitor have PDAF? They could refuse to sell/license it to anybody and force them all to contrast AF and compete only with Canon.

No. There is something much more to the story that probably stems from weird contorted patent deals or technology partnerships that Panasonic just happened not to be a partner too. Either that or Panasonic slept with Sony Alphas mom or something.

 

Hopefully someday there will be a documentary about this market for us camera nerds. Kinda weird and mysterious and cloak and dagger. @Andrew Reid when can we expect this? 😁

I agree with your logic. It is an illogical thing to do in terms of business, like personal vengeance. All companies forget about competition when they can make money with each other. Look at Apple using Samsung tech. Yes Samsung can mock them as much as they want in their commercials but at the end of the day they will perfectly supply one another with tech and make profit.