Let's Talk Tech
It’s Saturday! Which means we spend the morning wrapping up all the week’s tech news. Catch opinions from the editors of Boored At Work, Mobile Burn, BWOne, and yours truly as we chat out this week’s headlines.
On the docket:
Sit back and relax. We’ve got tech to talk!
Damn Sony.
So this could shake up the semi-pro and pro photo markets a little. Sony took the wraps off of their two newest mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, and they’re sporting some incredible image sensors. Specifically these are the first mirrorless cams to sport full frame image sensors. The A7 has a 24.3 megapixel sensor, and the A7R has a shocking 36 megapixel sensor which is likely a close cousin to the sensor found in Nikon’s D80o Digital SLR.
This is all neat and techie sounding, but why is this impressive? Normally bigger numbers like this are taken with a bit of skepticism. Like when your phone has a ton of megapickles in its camera, we make a squinty face and then explain why that might not mean better photos. Moving into this new breed of interchangeable lens cameras, Sony’s making a couple of exciting plays.
It’s not the megapickles, it’s the sensor size.
This more than anything else is what gets us wannabe photogs lit up. The larger the sensor, the more surface area you have. This means the sensor has an easier time soaking up light, it’s just a bigger sponge. The A7 and A7R sensors are twice the size of most entry and mid-range SLR’s like my Canon 7D. It’s almost three times bigger than the sensor found in most mirrorless cameras like those made by Olympus and Panasonic.
This makes high resolution more attractive. Look at that chart to the right. That smallest box is what often comes on entry level point and shoot cameras, and it’s a little bigger than the sensor found on most nice phone cameras. Packing 16 MILLION dots on that square is a far more cramped experience than placing 36 million pixels on a full frame sensor. That same comparison holds true, though is less severe obviously, when comparing these new Sony’s to other interchangeable lens cameras which might use Micro 4/3rds or APS-C sensors. Each of those pixels can be larger, and each has an easier time soaking up more light, which results in better detail and less noise.
Larger sensor = Wider field of view
The other aspect of smaller sensor cameras to consider is crop. All lenses being equal, the smaller the sensor, the less of the lens is used. We call this crop. It’s not like digital crop where you remove pixels from the borders to “zoom” into the middle, with sensor crop the camera is only able to use the middle of the lens instead of all the glass. This starts to resemble zoom to a degree, and it really taxes the clarity found at the center of the lens.
Photography gear is all built around the original 35mm frames we shot on film, so if you have a crop camera, your frame will be different than it is on a full frame sensor. My Canon 7D sensor is half the size of a 35mm frame, so all of my adjustments are roughly 1.5X. This is good for reach as it gives my zoom a little bit of a bump, but it’s awful for wide angle photography. A 24mm lens on a full frame camera is decently wide, on a crop sensor it starts to resemble a 36mm lens which is a bit more “normal”. A 50mm lens very closely resembles the field of view we humans have on full frame cameras, on APS-C that 50mm starts to look a bit more like an 80mm zoom.
The A7 and A7R employing full frame sensors will mean you won’t have to do that mental mathematic trick of understanding how wide or how zoomed in you might be.
Slim and Sexy + Market Disrupting Price
Lastly, these cameras represent a “legitimizing” influence over the semi-pro and pro markets for smaller and compact interchangeable lens systems. SLR’s have their name because a mirror in the camera is responsible for feeding light from the lens into your eye piece. Hit the shutter button and that mirror flips up exposing the sensor, and light from the lens now generates an image on the digital guts of your camera. This has been the way photogs work since the film days, and it’s generally accepted as the “professional” way a camera should work.
Experimenting with slimmer camera bodies has meant doing away with the mirror box, and instead permanently operating the camera in a “live view” mode, where light from the lens hits the image sensor directly, and then an electronic screen shows you what the lens sees. With cameras which can swap lenses, this is often relegated as “entry-level” or “consumer” grade photography, especially as previous solution incorporated smaller crop sensors.
Now Sony is offering up their top of the line sensors in smaller and compact camera bodies. Not only that, but we’re seeing pricing aimed at shaking up the full frame market. The A7R will retail for $2300, a decent chunk of change for sure, but it uses a very similar sensor to the one found in the Nikon D800 which has a street price of $2800. Canon’s 5D mark III uses a 22MP sensor and has a street price of $3100 against Sony’s A7 which should perform similarly at the sensor level and only costs $1700 MSRP.
The rest is just gravy…
Hardware controls, highspeed 60fps video in full HD, WiFi, NFC. That’s all just great, and are often features you’d have to pay more for with SLR’s, or add via accessories. They’re creating a formidable package.
Of course there will be pros and cons still to using mirrorless cameras, and pros will probably still gravitate towards optical viewfinders over electronic screens for the near future, but Sony has fired a clear shot at this market. Just like Mac vs PC, the photography market is largely divided between Canon vs Nikon, so it’s really exciting when a third player does anything to shake that duopoly up.
Full details, press release, and camera specs after the jump.
I’ll be covering more semi-pro photography and audio gear on this channel in the coming months. To start, I wanted to jump in with one of my favorite hobbies. Macro photography! I like taking pics of thinks super close up, but I haven’t yet been able to afford a proper macro lens. Extension tubes are a solution which have helped improve the quality of my shots, so let’s go hands on with a set!
Sony was a busy bee today, unveiling all kinds of goodies in Berlin.
CAMERASÂ
For those wanting to rock some HD video with great audio, the HDR-MV1 might be just the trick. Pairing a small HD camera to a pair of stereo mics, this looks to be an improvement over previous Flip-style cameras. A wide angle lens is built into the front so you shouldn’t have to stage it too far away to get the whole band in the shot. NFC and WiFi are also built in allowing you to quickly tap and share pics and vids to your favorite online destination. No current pricing info or availability.
If you need something a bit more “pro”, the FDR-AX1 Handycam might be more your speed. Sony’s first 4K camcorder records video at 60 frames per second in four times the resolution of HD TV. Pro mics are built into the front, with the ability to plug in XLR cables for additional audio options. Sony is using a 20X zoom lens (31.5mm-630mm) so you should have most shooting situations covered in that range, and built in ND filters can help you cut bright light out of your frame. $4499 is the pre-order price and it’s expected to ship early October.
Speakers and Headphones
Portable wireless speakers are hot right now, we’ll be covering a few audio solutions in the coming weeks here on SGG. Sony showed off their Splash-Proof Bluetooth wireless speaker today. Looks like a great solution to bringing audio to small gatherings and spaces. Plus you don’t have to fear a trip to the pool or beach as they’re water resistant. Available now in six colors for $129.99 each.
If you want to keep your tunes to yourself however, Sony is also dropping a new pair of noise cancelling headphones. The MDR-10R feature a comfortable looking on the ear design which should help with isolation, and active noise reduction will sample the background audio around you and block it. $269.99 pre-order and they should ship the middle of October.
Laptops and Tablets
Sony is moving into its Windows 8 strategy nicely.
The Vaio Tap 11 is Sony’s response to the Surface Pro and Asus Transformer Books of the world. It’s an 11″ slate running a full version of Windows 8. Built into the rear of the Tap is a kickstand like the Surface, which allows the tablet to stand and interact with a wireless keyboard cover accessory. Folded up together, the keyboard and Tap 11 are about as thick as the Surface pro alone, and Sony might just be telling us the truth when they boast this is the world’s thinnest PC.
Standard Ultrabook options are built in behind the 1080p display, and you have your choice of Core i3, i5, and i7 paired with up to 512GB of solid state storage. USB 3 and Micro HDMI are on board for connectivity, and the screen has a wacom tablet built in for pen touch computing. Front and rear facing cameras help with your video needs, and an IR blaster is built in to use the Tap as a universal remote for your TV and cable box. No pricing or availability yet.
The Sony Vaio Flip is an interesting twist on the convertible laptop (see what I did there). A hinge in the middle of the screen allows the display to flip outwards from the keyboard in a kiosk-like setup, or to fold flat on top of the keyboard to use the computer as a slate. And that display is a very high resolution 2880×1620, while the guts of this mobile work horse are also capable of driving a 4K display.
Screen sizes will come in 13, 14, and 15 inch flavors with your standard CPU and storage options. 14 and 15″ models will also have the option for discrete graphics, here an NVIDIA GT735M, a welcome option for graphics professionals really wanting to get the most out of that UltraHd screen.
Lastly, the Tap 21 is pretty much what it sounds like, a 21.5″ version of the Tap 11. Obviously more of a desktop replacement, it does only weigh eight pounds, which could make it an interesting semi-mobile solution for things like presentations where we would normally carry a computer and a monitor or projector. Improvements to the Tap 21 include a new hinge which allows the system to reach just about any angle from near perfectly flat to completely upright.
Well done Sony. I think I might need to take a nap now…
Sony has its work cut out for itself in scratching out a niche in the Android ecosystem. They’ve been releasing quality hardware, and their fan base, while small, is passionate. With the announcement of the Z1, they’re hoping to give the Galaxies and Ones a run for their (customer’s) money.
The Xperia Z1 sports a five inch 1080p “Triluminous” LCD utilizing the same color tech found in Sony’s TV lineup. Under the hood you’ll find a Qualcomm 800 quad-core CPU paired up with 2GB of RAM which should handily outperform the GS4 and HTC One. 16GB of onboard storage is lean these days, but you do have access to an SD card slot to expand. A non-removeable 3000mAh battery should perform decently, but we haven’t seen many real world battery tests of the Qualcomm 800, so the increased battery capacity might get eaten by the more powerful internals.
The camera is a huge 20.7MP job with a 27mm wide angle lens (good for group shots and landscapes) and a fast f2.0 sperture for low light sensitivity. The image sensor is the same size as those found in most point and shoot cameras. Hopefully that combo works out, as there’s no mention of image stabilization on board, and 20 blurry megapixels are no fun. Â If you pull the shot off however, Sony is including software to aid in sharing to your family and friends and favorite social networks.
Also of note, while not a rugged device, it will feature enhanced water resistance like that found on the original Xperia Z. So you folks who drop your phone in fluids (I don’t want to know what you drop your phone in, please don’t tell me) will have a little extra piece of mind that your handset might actually survive a two year contract.
the Z1 will ship with Android 4.2.2 alongside Sony’s custom skin and widgets, and availability is set for “later this month” No word yet on pricing and availability, but it will come in black, white, and purple, so that’s cool.
What’s the point of having a TV with four times the resolution of HDTV if you don’t have 4K content to watch? Sony gets it. They’re unleashing 4K films and TV episodes on Video Unlimited.
Thanks to a new video codec, Sony thinks they can pack more movie into a smaller data footprint and claims the upper limit download should be around 60GB. That’s still a terrifically large file however as most of the country struggles to adopt faster broadband. To stream a 4K film, you’d probably need a sustained 15+Mbps connection, which my “50 megs innernet” can sometimes struggle to provide. Damn you lucky people who live in a Google Fiber zone.
Individual TV episodes should run $3.99, movie rentals around $7.99, and $29.99 to buy the films outright. You’ll need to put a Sony 4K Ultra HD Media Player under your TV. This large puck will house 2TB worth of content, which at 60GB per film might not be as many films as we’re used to storing. The FMP-X1 is going to sell for a hefty $700, making it a somewhat pricey home media server. I’m really hoping, for the sake of Sony’s ecosystem, that the PS4 will be able to engage with this content. I don’t want any more boxes under my TV than I need.
That said, I think 4K looks gorgeous, and hopefully we see some good transfers of our fave films. I’ll be much more inclined to give 4K a try than I was during the fight between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray.
Of course what fun is talking about 4K content without a 4K TV to watch it on?
Sony took the wraps off of theirX850A series 65″& 55″ XBR Ultra HD TVs. Not only featuring an insane screen resolution, this WiFi enabled set will also come with one year of Netflix and Hulu Plus out of the box. Not a bad little perk for a premium TV. Plus with all those pixels, gamers may appreciate local multi-player without having to go split screen.
The 55″ XBR is expected to ship this October, and you can pre-order now for $3499.99, which really isn’t too bad in terms of high end TV’s.
So many different tactics to improving mobile photography. Galaxy Cameras and Nokia Lumias wow us with their photo and video quality, but often come at the expense of additional bulk. Sometimes you just want to keep your phone as slim as possible, but want the option of a good camera when you need it. That’s literally Sony’s new approach for their pair of camera attachments the QX10 and QX100.
The QX10 is a 1/2.3″ point and shoot style 18.9MP CMOS image sensor with a 10X optical zoom. Lens aperture is a little on the slow side at f3.3, but Steady Shot image stabilization is included to help with low light sensitivity and motion blur. Â The QX10 is available for pre-order for $249.99.
The QX100 is a step up, and includes a 1″ 20MP CMOS sensor. That’s roughly one third the size of an APS-C SLR sensor, which is HUGE for a phone accessory. You lose out on some zoom range, only a 3.6X zoom, but you make up for it with a light absorbing f1.8 max aperture and Steady Shot. This thing should be a low light monster. Pre-order price is $499.99.
Both attachments feature NFC+WiFi pairing, a really novel solution for combining this type of hardware to compatible phones. Currently Sony’s site only shows the Xperia Z as a compatible handset, yet the footnotes claim they’re “Compatible with virtually all iOS and Android smartphones. Smartphone case or protective cover may prevent attachment”.
This is an interesting approach to product engagement. The more open it is, the more likely consumers will play with Sony gear, and hopefully we’ll see more mindshare for Sony phones moving forward.
Full spec sheets for QX100 and QX10.
UPDATE
That was fast folks! The QX10 and QX100 are both already available for pre-order on Amazon. Get shooting folks!