Ever more exciting: Spectacular Sony A7S will boast silent shooting, wider movie sensitivity and more
posted Monday, June 2, 2014 at 3:44 PM EDT
Launched this April, the full-frame Sony A7S mirrorless -- which sports an exquisitely sensitive, low-light friendly 4K image sensor -- has to be one of the most thrilling camera announcements in recent memory.
Ever since it was first announced, the A7S has had fans of low-light shooting or high-quality video on the edge of their seats in anticipation of its availability. Doubly-so with last month's news that the A7S would be shipping at a reasonably affordable US$2,500. Now, more news has come to light that will take the excitement up another notch or two, especially for nature shooters and others for whom a quiet camera is a must-have.
The reason? An announcement from Sony Europe that, when it goes on sale next month, the new model will boast a Silent Shooting function. The press release, spotted by the folks at Photoclubalpha, doesn't elaborate, but rumor has it that the Silent Shooting mode is fully electronic. That is to say that no mechanical shutter curtain is used either to start or stop exposure, unlike some cameras which can use an electronic first curtain for reduced noise, but still rely on a noise-inducing mechanical second curtain to complete the exposure.
If true, the Sony A7S is going to be uniquely-suited to any environment where silence is key, whether to avoid attracting the attention of your subject, to prevent untoward noise from being captured on a simultaneous still / video shoot, or for any other reason.
Nor is that all! The press release also touts an expanded movie sensitivity range that now starts from ISO 100 equivalent, rather than the ISO 200 lower limit we'd been expecting. (The upper limit of ISO 102,400 equivalent in movie mode, expandable to ISO 409,600, remains unchanged.) And Sony also says that it has achieved a wider-than-expected dynamic range of 15.3 stops when shooting in raw format.
All of which is likely to make the queue to get hands-on with a Sony A7S even longer. For much more on this very interesting camera, read our Sony A7S preview. And if you don't want to get stuck waiting for the preorders to be filled before you get yours, place your preorder now with Imaging Resource affiliate B&H!
(via Photoclubalpha)