Sony has confirmed in an interview with DPReview that the Sony A7S II successor is finally going to be coming later this summer. It seems, though, that Sony is shifting the focus of the camera, slightly. It’s still expected to be the video-centric powerhouse that A7S II users have come to know and love, but it’s had a complete redesign.
According to the interview with Sony VP, Kenji Tanaka, that redesign includes an entirely new sensor and a theoretical A7S III may include features such as 4K60p, 10-Bit (finally!) 4:2:2, and possibly even raw video.
They don’t mince their words over at DPReview. In the interview, they essentially asked if the A7S II is ever going to be replaced, or if it’s been abandoned in favour of the A7 and A7R product lines. After all, they’re pretty capable cameras that are arguably better in most respects than the five-year-old A7S II.
We’ve received many requests, especially from professional video content creators, and I can confirm that a successor to the Alpha 7S II will be coming, later this summer. Right now we’re focused on the launch of the new camera, and it will be a complete redesign of the whole system, including the image sensor. Everything is new. We hope it will meet and exceed the expectations and requests of our customers. I’m very confident that our new model will meet their demands.
The ‘S’ originally stood for ‘sensitivity’ but now I think it should stand for ‘supreme’ in terms of image quality, and expression. It comes from having really big pixels. I think that many professionals and high-end users will enjoy the new camera.
If you needed official confirmation that it was on the way (which is all users have been asking for for the last couple of years), then there you go. It’s coming, and it’s coming this summer.
Mr Tanaka goes on to say that 4k60p and 10-bit 4:2:2 are two of the main requests they’ve received from Sony users, and given the capabilities of Panasonic, Nikon and Canon mirrorless now, I’d say that this is the least they’ll have to do in order to be able to compete on the video front. Especially when all three of those brands (and Sigma) are capable of shooting raw video either internally or externally with the user of something like the Atomos Ninja V.
But Sony suggests that raw video might be coming at some point, too, acknowledging that there is a demand for raw video, saying that they’re “working hard to be able to deliver Raw data capture to these people”. Whether or not it will be the same Ninja V external solution as the others or whether Sony will jump on CFexpress for the A7S III and offer it internally (or even at all, initially) is unknown.
While the world still doesn’t have the A7S III, at least now we know it’s on the way, and we’ll hear an actual announcement within the next 3 months.
There are some other great bits of info in the complete interview, so head on over to DPReview and have a read.
[via DPReview]
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