Right after Canon it is now turn for Sony to rid itself of its CEO for a new one. Kazuo Hirai made a big name for himself in the gaming division. 

LA Times reports:

The outcast for next quarter ain't luminous either. Sony puts the blame on the usual culprits (mama nature and the strong Yen). The report keeps a gloomy a pessimistic tone thorough, like it was almost written by an emo accountant.

Two of the new cams are just 'me too' digicams, and as such, WE won't bother with them. The one (DSC-TX200V) that stands out however, is a different kind of beast, a shiny, glass covered hipster beast.

Tord S Eriksson is a buss driver from Gothenburg Sweden, the town where Hasselblad has its roots, and the locals nick-named 'little London' due to the constant drunkenness  almost constant fog and rain. He's also an avid photographer:

DigitalRev is back with a video review, this time the NEX-7 gets the treatment, and they take it for some ice-skating.

"Overall, the NEX-5N's photo quality is very good. The only issue I ran into is a very consistent tendency for the camera to underexpose by 1/3 or 2/3 of a stop. Thankfully, that issues is pretty easy to get around (use exposure compensation or bracket). One exposure-related problem that

The iso samples in this review really show off the huge fall in overall image quality starting at iso 3200. What would have been exceptional by Aps-c sensor standards just a couple of years ago, is now in the "mediocre to good" class, eclipsed by among others its own sibling, the NEX-7.

We don't normally cover point'n shooters, but this one claims "a DSLR-like performance"  Gavin Stoker from TR tries to find out:

"Most effective is Sweep Panorama mode, which automatically generates a single elongated image as an MPO image file, viewable in its fullest

"Why you’d buy the NEX-7: access to E-mount lenses, Carl Zeiss and (via an adaptor) Sony A-mount optics.
Why you wouldn’t: you prefer external control of exposure modes; with lens attached the camera is not pocketable; pricey.

"For those of you wondering about how the NEX-7 handles high ISOs as compared to the A900, look no further.  I’ve made some comps of both RAW and jpeg images, cropped from the center, with no changes other than converting the RAW (using ACR 6.6) to jpeg for posting.  I shot the

"The past weeks months Sony changed the product for 2012. So it hasn’t been easy to get reliable info about their camera and lens release. Finally I got a more reliable overview of Sony’s strategy. There will be three new NEX cameras within the next 8 months. Sony will announce the

"The A65 may look a lot like a DSLR, but it’s different by design: a translucent mirror removes the need for mechanical mirror movement when each shot is fired. Instead light is fed to the sensor and an autofocus sensor simultaneously and without interruption which means this nifty bit of

"The NEX-7 (and NEX-5n) are interesting to anyone wanting to shoot video because unlike most video-capable DSLS and CSCs there are almost no restrictions on what "mode" you need to be in to shoot video. Indeed, with the NEX cameras there isn't a video mode. If you press the red

" The NEX-7 offers significantly improved performance over the NEX-5 in a couple of key areas. Sony claims prefocused shutter release lag of just 0.02 seconds (we measured 0.022s in the lab), which it says is not only five times faster than that of the NEX-5, but the fastest of any

"use a shorter lens than one would with the A900 or use the same lens and move back. In actual practice, I would use a shorter lens. So, most of the testing followed that path.

Stuff-Review has made a nice little chart that pits the newcomer against the almost established crowd. That's all pretty theoretical though, since 3 of the 4 cameras are practically not available in the majority of the western world:

"The 30mm ƒ/3.5 Macro offers good results for sharpness, though it doesn't get to tack-sharp results no matter how far you stop it down. Wide open at ƒ/3.5 it has a generously sharp central region, marred only by slightly soft corners; stopping down helps a little bit with these, but even by

By "mco_970": I tested my kit lens at 18-55 versus the ZA 24 1.8 - setup was gorilla pod on car window, using self timer, and using AF to focus (sorry Herb). I did not check focus point manually because I hate MF'ing fly by wire lenses.  Too fiddly for me. These are from the RAW files, with whatever little bit of default sharpening LR applies (something like 25).

“For photo enthusiasts, Xperia ion features a new Fast Capture innovation to make sure life’s unexpected moments are not missed,” Sony says. “The HD camera goes from standby mode to first shot in 1.5 seconds.”

It seems Sigma lenses tops out at bottom. Or bottoms up at the top? Anyway, that's not the whole picture:

"It may just be us, but during the last year we’ve had an amazing increase in the number of repairs that went straight back to the Service Center because the repair wasn’t made correctly. About one in 20 repairs had to be done over, far more than any previous year.

"A more direct competitor to the Nikon J1 is the Sony NEX-C3 mirrorless interchangeable lens camera. The Sony NEX-C3 differs from the Nikon J1 in that it incorporates a larger APS-C type sensor, the same size found in Sony's Alpha SLR camera's like the SLT-A65, and approximately the

The XQD specification is based on the PCI Express® specification, which is capable of 2,5Gbps or faster  speeds and superb reliability. After the announcement by Nikon of its new flagship DSLR D4,  currently the only camera supporting the new format,  Sony unveils its new range of XQD memory cards. 

"Here’s what you need to know about the auto focus systems and aperture in order for this test to make sense. When slr’s or slt’s like the a77 are trying to focus, the aperture of the lens is always open to widest aperture until the shutter button is pressed. Then the camera then adjusts the aperture to whatever setting you have, and takes the picture.  This all happens in a micro-second as you would imagine.

"The path we took in NEX-7 design was hardly straight. All we had decided initially was that three dials would be used. This came from a desire to organize setting elements (for shutter speed, exposure, color balance, and so on) with a three-way control system and provide more immediate control and versatility when shooting. It was essentially our only beacon in design. With the trio of dials, and within the general framework of NEX design introduced for the NEX-5, we revisited the question of what DSLR

Bit short but there's some good info in there.

"The last point on focussing is the Manual option. When focussing in Auto mode, within the viewfinder a small box highlights in green when the point of focus is reached, however Sony have cleverly used this to also assist in Manual mode. When manally focussing back and forth as you reach a sharp point the box turns green allowing the photographer

"Smartphones have punched a hole in many product categories, not the least of which is the simple pocket digital camera. Still, one category of pocket digital camera that's not withered is the pocket long zoom, or travel zoom, and and quite a few players have joined the category in the last few years. As ubiquitous as they are, smartphone cameras can't pretend to zoom to even 3x optically, let alone compete with the 12-18x optical zooms we've gathered for our Travel-Zoom Shootout.

"Then I found a handy carrying routine was to heft the camera around by holding the largish lens barrel. All controls are located at the camera’s right end, which gave me some angst when, during a fumble-full night shoot, I crashed into one of the camera’s major faults: its right end is crowded with controls, so much that occasionally, when trying to fire the shutter, I hit the assignable ‘soft keys’ or the control wheel … so firing up the viewfinder menu!"

FTA: "Several factors have combined to make the Beginners' class the most competitive of the Mirrorless camera market. The main one is the camera makers' belief that there is an un-tapped market of buyers who would like to get better pictures than their compact camera

Sony has really made a big hit with the NEX-7. Too bad about the production delays, oh, and the menu.

"At the risk of repeating myself, I'm going to say it again. The NEX-7 desperately needs user customizable settings. This is a sophisticated and complex camera, with a wide variety of special modes and settings. Switching between them, in part because of the poorly designed menus, is a frustrating process that is time consuming and requires a lot of