It's Here! - Sort of

DPReview have lots of information on today's new launches from Sony. The A77 and A65 both get extensive previews, but the NEX-7 only gets a news story. It turns out that despite this morning's launch no one from the media anywhere in the world, according to DPR, has received an actual production level NEX-7. Their story was based on time spent with a pre-production unit and interviews with Sony. Crucially the pre-production camera did not have the NEX-7 software loaded so the software controlled functions specific to the NEX-7 were not functioning.

I'm sure I'm not the only person that finds this somewhat strange. The NEX-7 was already going to have to shout to be heard above the clamour surrounding the A77 - production versions of which have been with the press for the last week - how much more so now when media and reviewers don't even have the camera in hand?

It sounds like Sony were not really ready to launch the NEX-7 but decided to go ahead and try to piggy back on the media interest in the A77. It seems to me that it would have been better to hold off and give the NEX-7 and the E-mount lenses and accessories a separate launch when it was really ready to go. I also can't help thinking that Sony must have originally planned to launch the NEX-7 with the promised 'G' standard zoom that is part of the lens roadmap and scheduled for 2012. Right now the NEX-7 is being offered body only or with the current 18-55 kit lens. I have argued that this is decent enough as a kit lens but it is not good enough to match this camera and sensor combination. Inthe same way that Sony introduced a new high-spec kit lens for the A77 it would have made sense to do the same for the NEX-7 (though the standard A-mount 18-55 is being offered with the A65)

My current conclusion is that interesting as the camera looks on paper Sony have priced me out of the market - $1200 for the body alone is way beyond me and only a little less than the asking price for the A77. Add in the $1000 Zeiss 24 - the only lens at the moment that will do justice to those 24 MPs - and that's $2200. It will be interesting to see what price the promised 'G' standard zoom comes in at when it appears next year.

 

It does. You'll find a summary under 'Lens Correction' in the Imaging Resources preview.