New rumors suggest that the Sony A77 will be getting refresh around the first of the year. Interestingly though, the A77 replacement is expected to include no mirror at all.
While the A77 make the most of Sony’s SLT technology, apparently the loss of light transmission through the pellicle mirror is detrimental enough that Sony is moving to a completely mirrorless design. I would expect some advanced AF sensors that still use phase detection on the image sensor itself. Sony has made fast AF on mirrorless cameras an expectation throughout the class with its NEX-6 and NEX-7 models. However, a step this huge to a semi-pro DSLR-ish system means that there is no room for compromise.
As a giant consumer electronics company, Sony has continued to surprise us with innovation after innovation in the digital camera markets. I’m really looking forward to seeing how these rumors pan out and what Sony has up its sleeve. I would expect an announcement for early 2014 to be made at CES 2014 in January.
Stay tuned.
[via SAR]
So basically what micro 4/3 does already with full size sensor and SLR styling ? I fail to see the innovation here… Still stuck with EVF too….
@EricB
You obviously have not used a Sony EVF if you’re using the word “stuck.”‘ I much prefer the OLED viewfinder of the a77/99 to the the optical on my canon 7d. It changes how you shoot for the better; you’re actually seeing what the recorded image is going to be ahead of time and how each setting affects the image live. I am convinced that is will eventually replaced optical viewfinders. I have found this to be a great tool to teaching my friends about the relationship between iso/shutter/aperture. The translucent mirror currently in the A77 from my tests shows about a half stop loss of light when I compare two images (one with the mirror locked up and other not); to some that’s a big deal. The main advantage I think the SLT/out right mirrorless of sony/panasonic has is in its video/AF capabilities vs Canikon DSLRs. Only thing I really am jealous of is the Nikon CLS being the kind of flash features.
If this rumor is true, basically it means Sony will discontinue a high-end camera and make a new NEX camera. That would hint that Sony may want to move strongly in that direction over the next few years …. like Panasonic, make only Compact System (mirrorless) cameras.
Olympus stopped developing DSLRs some time ago and is now making only the mirrorless cameras.