Crippled by its recent financial scandal, Olympus is in need of a bailout and has been open to the idea of forming a strategic alliance with other companies. The latest news is that Sony is on the brink of acquiring a 20-30% stake in the beleaguered medical device and camera company, a sizable increase from the 0.03% it currently owns. The alliance would combine Sony’s expertise in making camera sensors with Olympus’ expertise in medical devices. Fujifilm has also been named as a company that’s interested in investing in Olympus, but Sony seems to currently be the clear front-runner.
Well, well, well, look who’s first to the XQD game. It’s not Sandisk or Lexar, but Sony. On the same day Nikon announced its new D4 with XQD compatibility, Sony has announced the first line of XQD memory cards (intended to eventually replace CF cards). They offer 125MB/s transfer speeds, and can quickly store up to 100 RAW images in continuous shooting mode. A 16GB card will cost $129, while a 32GB one will be priced at $229. They’ll hit store shelves sometime in February.
In other news, Lexar has announced new 1000x CompactFlash cards, which can read at 150MB/s. A 128GB one is priced at a staggering $900. They’ve also announced the industry’s first 256GB card, which has read speeds of 60MB/s.
After damaging the pellicle mirror in his Sony A55 with cleaning fluid, a guy named Dario decided to look for a makeshift replacement while waiting for a real replacement mirror to arrive. He then discovered that food wrap (AKA Saran wrap) works nearly as well as a real pellicle mirror. The only downsides are occasionally degraded autofocus and a soft-focus effect when facing bright lights.
Sony’s NEX-7 mirrorless camera has been extremely difficult to find due to manufacturing being disrupted by the flooding in Thailand earlier this year. As a result of the shortage, the camera is selling for absurd prices on eBay — people are buying the camera for over $3,700 new. If you managed to snag one of the cameras while they were available, you might want to auction it off now before supply is restored. You’ll be able to buy three of them then for the current price of one!
Major camera makers including Olympus, Samsung and Sony have all filed patents in recent days for liquid lens technology. Unlike traditional glass lenses, liquid lenses don’t have any moving parts. Instead, liquid is used to focus light, and different voltages are applied to the liquid to change the shape of the liquid, thereby controlling the image. In the video above, techie Ben Krasnow introduces the technology, and then shows off a device he made by ripping a liquid lens out of a USB webcam.
In interviews published on Sony’s website, the company’s designers talk about how its latest DSLRs are based on a styling technique called “Tensile Skin”, in which sharp lines and curved surfaces giving a “natural sense of tension”. What’s interesting is the tool they used to explore this idea: an ordinary sock. Art director Takuya Niitsu says,
What helped me explore this idea was an ordinary sock. As soon as I stretched the sock over our structural mock-up, it transformed the jumble of blocks into a coherent, sculptural unit. It looked fresh, and the jutting edges resonated nicely with the gentle contours. Although this unified whole could be called “monoform,” it was hardly monotonous, and there was a pleasant sense of tension. I knew that following this approach would lead us to the new shape for Alpha SLRs.
Kodak’s fall from grace is an interesting case study that modern day companies can learn from. Even though the world’s first digital camera was invented by one of its engineers, the company was unwilling to cannibalize its film business that, at the time, was making money hand over fist. By the time digital cameras started catching on, Kodak had missed the boat. Read the rest of this entry »
Here’s a photograph by the The Bangkok Post showing Sony’s sensor manufacturing plant in Thailand submerged under flood waters roughly 3 meters (~10ft) high. The shutdown of the 502,000 square foot, 3,300 employee plant doesn’t just affect Sony, as other companies — including Nikon and Apple (in the iPhone 4S) — rely on Sony image sensors as well.
A week ago we shared a photo showing Nikon’s factory in Thailand submerged due to the catastrophic flooding happening there. The latest news is that both Nikon and Sony have had their camera factories severely damaged, which may have cause delays of at least 1-2 months. 90% of Nikon’s SLR cameras — the low to mid-range ones — are produced at the company’s Thailand plant, while 100% of Sony DSLRs are made at its now-damaged factory.
Nikon was expected to announce a new DSLR by the end of this year, but it seems like that may be postponed indefinitely at this point. Sony’s new NEX-7 and A65 cameras have been pulled from Amazon due to “manufacturing concerns”.
If you’re one of the many frustrated Sony NEX-5N owners who are experiencing a mysterious clicking noise when moving the camera around, hope for click-free video recording has finally arrived. Sony updated its support site yesterday acknowledging the issue:
We have received reports of a “clicking” sound which may be heard in the audio playback of movies recorded by the NEX-5N camera. This phenomenon occurs if the camera undergoes sudden motion while recording; motion generally inconsistent with smooth video recording. [...] an adjustment has been developed to reduce the clicking sound resulting from sudden motion during movie recording.
Sony will offer this performance improvement to NEX-5N end users during the period of its limited warranty accompanying the product. Please call 888-868-7392 to arrange for this improvement.
So basically, if you insist on doing motions “inconsistent with smooth video recording”, just give Sony a call and they’ll give your camera the repair performance improvement it needs.
