News/Views
Last Week’s Mirrorless News Shorts (July 21-28)
As an experiment, I’ve started accumulating “small” news announcements into a once-a-week story. This helps me be a little more productive and seems to align with the way most people are coming to this site (once or twice a week, but every week). Here’s last week’s “small” news relating to mirrorless cameras (similar Z System news is on the zsystemuser.com site):
- Fringer shipped the NF-FX II, which is a newer version of the Nikon F-mount to Fujifilm XF-mount lens adapter. The primary changes are that this adapter is better weather-sealed and has a smaller foot underneath the adapter itself.
- The Sony A6700, recently announced, was noted to not include any way that comes with the camera to charge the battery. You’ll need a USB PD wall wort and cable, or a dedicated charger that supports the NP-FZ100 battery.
- Samyang added an L-mount version of their recent 35-150mm f/2-2.8 lens.
- Yongnuo added a 50mm f/1.8 autofocus lens for Fujifilm XF.
- Canon is predicting it will sell 2.9m ILC cameras in 2023, or approximately 50% of the market (again).
Sony Revisits APS-C With the A6700
Sony today announced the A6700, ostensibly the new top-of-the-line APS-C sensor model. I’m not 100% sure what everyone was expecting from the next generation of A6### models, but I’m fairly sure that everyone will find something that misses their mark, as this is an incremental update, not a new statement of technologies. The introduction also explains Sony’s recent instant discount on the A6600 model (currently US$1000, body only), as the A6700 comes in at the old A6600 price (US$1500).
The body changes some from the A6600: overall a little larger, particularly at the grip, plus we now have a front command dial just below the shutter release.
Inside, we get the 26mp APS-C sensor, ostensibly a newer Bayer version of what Fujifilm has been using, plus the new processors that supports Sony’s recent AF and AI work. This provides some new abilities, most notably on the video side (the boost from 24mp to 26mp really doesn’t impact stills meaningfully). But it also powers the new autofocus system, which is effectively the A7R Mark V one now. Better subject recognition and tracking, more frame coverage, AI used with human posing.
Some of the small “surprises" on the A6700 are the articulating rear LCD, and the single SD slot (most were expecting two slots). Overall, while some probably feel that the A6700 isn’t quite as exciting as some previous Sony generational updates, I suspect that in practice the A6700 will turn out to be a reasonably competitive and well-rounded camera, as it seems to bring together a lot of Sony’s current technologies.
Along with the A6700, Sony also announced a new 70-200mm f/4G Macro OSS lens. The big story here is “very compact, but 1:2 macro capability.”
