Sony working on a camera that will AF with any lens?

[fatdeeman]

According to Sonyalpharumours Sony is working on an NEX camera that has sensor shift autofocus where the sensor will move backwards and forwards to achieve focus similar to that old contax camera that move the film plane.

I'm guessing you would have to manually focus the lens still to get it near to being in focus and then the camera could fine tune, if that's the case it could be revelation for legacy lenses, no more peaking or magnified views, just get it close to being focused and the camera would do the rest quickly and accurately!

It sounds to good to be true but Andrea gives some pretty big hints in the comments to this article http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-breakthrough-on-rumor-front-plenty-of-new-sony-e-mount-cameras-to-come-soon-and-more-e-and-a-mount-info/

He's definitely heard/seen something and is very excited about it and the vast majority of the rumours on his site end up being at least partially true.

I can't wait to find out more!

[iangreenhalgh1]

Doesn't appeal to me, focus peaking and 7/14x focus magnify is all I need, and I would never trust the camera to make the focus decision for me.

[rbelyell]

for those of us who actually used a contax ax, this is very exciting because we know how well that decades old technology worked. the ax was an engineering marvel, easily one of the great all time cameras, and was spot on focus almost all the time. thanks for bringing this to our attention. i'm not a sony fan, but i hope this project moves forward.
tony

[ManualFocus-G]

Sounds awesome! Finally my wife can take a picture of me using my own camera

[LucisPictor]

Sounds definitely intereting!

[Attila]

Let's hope we able to afford it and will be fast enough for scenes what require AF really.

[miran]

[cooltouch]

I don't mean to throw a wet blanket onto this party, but there is another interpretation of the term "sensor shift" that you should be aware of, and it's a technology that Sony already uses in its A-series cameras. They refer to in-body image stabilization as "sensor shift" technology. See:

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/technology/technology/theme/alpha_01.html
http://petapixel.com/2011/07/13/nikons-reasons-for-lens-stabilization-vs-sensor-shift-stabilization/
http://www.digitalrev.com/article/lens-vs-sensor-shift-image/MzU4Mg_A_A

But hey, it's possible they might be moving in a direction where it could be used for AF, but I don't see the incentive for it, do you? I mean, Contax built the AX because they refused to produce AF lenses (claiming AF tech wasn't accurate enough), and this fact was the reason for the incentive to build the AX. The old Contax AX was something of a milestone camera. I remember wondering when it came out just how long a camera like that could last with all that precision technology needed to make it work. Apparently pretty well. I see six of them for sale on eBay right now. So anyway, Contax proved that it could be done, but Sony doesn't have this same incentive, do they? So why would they do it? Maybe Zeiss is planning to build a set of lenses for the A mount that are MF only? I doubt that. I mean, their gargantuan 135mm f/1.8 in Sony mount is AF, so that makes it seem unlikely.

One of the Sony rumors I've read recently was that Sony has entered into a shared technology agreement with Olympus, and that their reasoning for doing so was to be able to use Oly's in-camera five-axis image stabilization technology in Sony cameras. I don't know anything about Oly's system other than what I've read, but apparently Sony thinks highly enough of it to be willing to link up with Oly to get it. See:

http://petapixel.com/2013/06/05/olympus-5-axis-image-stabilization-may-soon-arrive-on-sony-a-mount-cameras/
http://www.43rumors.com/ft4-olympus-will-now-share-the-5-axis-stabilization-system-with-sony/
http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr3-nex-ff-priced-below-3000-has-olympus-5-axis-stabilization-2/

My advice? Think "image stabilization" when you hear the buzzwords "sensor shift."

[iangreenhalgh1]

One big reason why Sony would want to license IS technology from Olympus is the simple fact their own sensor shift system is crap. Maybe more recent Alpha models are better, but the old ones, SteadyShot is usually broken. The a100 and a200 were particularly bad, you will see a hell of a lot of them for sale on ebay with SteadyShot not working.

[calvin83]

The manual for the Sonnar T FE 35mm F2.8 ZA has been leaked. It will be nice to have sensor shift on the new FF NEX camera. I hope Sony will make sensor shift available to all lenses like Olympus do.

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-first-full-frame-zeiss-35mm-f2-8-e-mount-lens-listed-on-sony-germany/

[iangreenhalgh1]

I hope they don't, unless they'd managed to make it reliable.

[eddieitman]

Yep Steady shift is pretty unreliable if you drop the camera, I have had Sonys, here is the list 2x A700 1x A200, 1x A55, and 1x A57 all working fine except one of my A700's that was dropped.
I think you will find the steady shift has failed due to dropping.
Also in Sonys defence any failure such as that will only cost £117 maximum as that is the most they charge for a repair
So a shutter failure would be £117

[SonicScot]

[iangreenhalgh1]

Now that's just an attempt at trolling or to start an argument, shame on you.

[SonicScot]

Nah it's just funny.
What you should have said is; I used to do that but would never make that mistake again.

[iangreenhalgh1]

No, it's not funny, you took a comment made a longtime ago and quoted it out of context in order to make me look bad.

Quite frankly, I'm disgusted with you.

Why do you think I said I wouldn't trust AF if not for prior bad experiences?

[SonicScot]

Whatever

Learn to laugh at yourself dude, makes life a lot easier.

[Nesster]

Heh, not me. I'm still waiting for the first true auto exposure camera: one where I don't even have to push a button. It frames, focuses, sets exposure, and trips the shutter based on a database of thousands of successful photographs. By comparing what is in the frame, the camera matches to a similar family of photographs, shifts the sensor to frame and focus, and voila, a perfect photograph.

I'd also like to buy portfolios of famous photographers' works. So for example, when going out West for some landscape work, I could license all of Ansel Adams' photos, load them into my camera, and presto, all my photographs would come out looking like Ansel's. Or, I might go out shooting the streets, in which case I have a choice, say I pick Robert Frank. If I'm in the mood for the bizarre, I can choose the Diane Arbus mode...

After all, for most photographers, the existence of personality and individuality can only have a negative impact on the quality of the photograph. Only acknowledged masters have solved this problem by integrating their individuality to a high technical level. I think our cameras should do the same.

Therefore I applaud Sony's market leading direction here... they will be doing their utmost to upset the Canon/Nikon apple cart.

[fatdeeman]

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/sr5-there-is-a-sony-camera-to-come-also-for-nikon-and-canon-lens-owners/

[kuuan]

Of current digital cameras only Pentax Q, Nikon 1 and Fuji XF have shorter register distance than E mount for which the biggest variety of cheap adapters are available which imo makes it the most versatile mount today. Therefore I am very happy to see that Sony is developing the E mount, with the ILC3000 starts to offer SLR shaped E mount cameras, and certainly I am very curious how well that sensor shift AF will work, if converting our manual lenses to AF will be tempting for us MF freaks

[cooltouch]

[kuuan]

[cooltouch]

[my_photography]

[cooltouch]