Sony Announced Hybrid Digital Camera

Anna Merikin writes to tell us that Sony has begun shipping a new digital camera, the R1. With the R1 Sony has married the big digital SLRs' sensor with the live preview display of the compact cams. But to do so, it is not an SLR although it is about the same size as one. The new architecture also allows wider-angle optics to be used, but it does not have interchangeable lenses.

Comments

No thanks.

[eriko]

Sorry, it's a Sony. Not interested.

Re:No thanks.

[eriko]

Wow, my first flamebait *and* troll. Cool.

Perhaps I should explain.

Hint: Sony, as a corporation, has adopted the position that they should be able to do whatever they wish to your updateable systems in order to protect their corporate interests.

My position on this is clear: That's fine. I will, quite simply, not buy *any* Sony product whatsoever until I see compelling evidence that this has changed.

This camera could give me free beer (as in FREE BEER! WOO!) and I still wouldn't buy it -- because that gives capital to a company who wants to control what my devices do, and will install, without permission, software to enable this.

So. You guys still buying Playstations can just shut up about the DRM issues. Sony certianly doesn't care about your opinions. You're still buying their stuff.

I won't. Period.

So, again.

No thanks. It's a Sony.

At least I'm still polite. Come next year (and the next rootkit DRM), it'll be "Fuck no, it's a Sony."

Re:No thanks.

[10Ghz]

No, they haven't. Sony Music did. Sony, as a large corporation, has various divisions that don't communicate and operate very well together.

It's still the same corporation. Whether it happens to be different division of that corporation makes no difference. Both divisions answer to same peolle, the board of directors of Sony Corporation. The money Sony Music earns goes to Sony Corporation, and vice versa. The money Sony Electronics makes can be used to benefit Sony Music.

Do people differentiate between different divisons of Microsoft? No. When they do something stupid with Office, people say "Microsoft is at it again". When they do something stupid with Windows, they say the same thing. They do not say "Microsoft's Office-division is at it again!" or "Microsoft Windows-division is at it again!". When MS pushes .doc-format in Office, people blame Microsoft, not just their office-division. When Microsoft screwes up security in Windows, people blame Microsoft, not just their Windows-division. But still, we should treat Sony differently? I don't buy it.

Saying "But it's not the same company, it's a different division!" is just an excuse. They are part of the same company. And you can clearly see the same bullshit attitude Sony Music has, all through the Sony Corporation. Why does Sony Electronics use some proprietary flash-RAM crap (memorystick) for example? Why can't they use compact flash or any other technology that has wider use, why do they stick to their own crap? What the hell is it with this ATRAC-crap Sony Electronics pushes? Sony as a whole is only interested at their bottom line, at the expense of the consumer.

Like the original poster said: Nice camera, but since it's by Sony, I wont be buying it. I'm drawing the line here. You fuck with me, and you can be damn sure that I'll do my business elsewhere. It's about time the corporations learn that world and people living there are not their private playground where they can do whatever they please. Sony Corporation has the power to replace the entire management of Sony Music. Untill I see them doing that, I wont be doing business with them. If they choose not to do that... Well, there are other companies willing to sell me their goods.

Sony Corporation: Go fuck yourself.

Re:Who cares?

[CyricZ]

Yes, people will still buy from Sony. Why is that? Because, like it or not, they do offer products that some people will want, even if they also offer products that others despise.

I have talked to a number of people here in Britain about the rootkit incident. Basically nobody knows about it. I had my cousins in North America ask people there, and it was the same. The vast majority of people they talked to do not have a clue as to what had happened.

While the geek community may be horrified about what has happened, the general populace in both Britain and North America most likely does not give a damn at all. They are most likely not even aware of what had happened. Thus they will continue to support Sony.

As for Slashdot covering OpenServer, there's no reason for Slashdot not to. If some news item arises involving it, then Slashdot should post it. There are still many companies around who depend on UnixWare and OpenServer. It's still a very important product, even if the company which now owns them has done much to annoy the computing community.

Re:Why Sony?

[Rdickinson]

Carl Zeiss obviously suck at amking glass then eh?

I wont buy sony anymore, doesnt make their cameras poor, though I dont see the thought behind buying an SLR (ish) camera without the mirror or the switchable lenses...

Re:Why Sony?

[CyricZ]

Why would you buy a digital camera from Sony?

Not everyone is as into optics and cameras as you are. Sometimes people just want something that will take pictures or video, even if the quality isn't completely perfect. Not only that, they don't want to spend many pence on it.

Do you know what people do? They go down to their local electronics retailer, and buy cameras from Sony. They may not be the top of the line, but they'll work, and they may offer the best return for what is spent on them.

Re:SLR

[Oh the Huge Manatee]

is an SLR mechanism in a digital camera totally and completely stupid?

Digital SLRs are not "completely stupid." One major benefit is that SLR design almost entirely eliminates the "shutter lag" that is common to most other digital cameras. The top Nikon DSLRs have shutter lag of less than 40 milliseconds; compare that to many non-SLR digital cameras where you sometimes wait half a second (or longer) between when you press the shutter button and when the picture is taken.

Digital viewfinders also use up MUCH more power than SLR designs. Nikon's DSLRs nowadays have a battery life of around 2,000 shots; most cameras that use digital viewfinders can only shoot a tiny fraction of that number without requiring a new battery or a recharge.

Finally, DSLRs allow established photographers to use any of the hundreds (thousands?) of existing lenses for compatible cameras.

Certainly there's a place for cameras with digital viewfinders. But DSLRs offer unique benefits that warrant a place as well.

Re:Vital statistics

[bigberk]

That's funny but it is a valid question. These things always come with software, which you must install. Do you trust software written by Sony, given their history? I sure don't. Who knows what it might have embedded within it.

Re:Why electronic viewfinders are better

[TrumpetPower!]

You've never used a camera with a good viewfinder, I'll bet. Even my Canon Digital Rebel has a somewhat sucky viewfinder, but it's so much better than any EVF could possibly be it's not even funny.

With a real viewfinder, there's absolutely no lag as you pan around. The image is perfectly sharp. Manual focus varies to not-hard with the Rebel to near-trivial with a good viewfinder. It works just fine in low light: I can set up a shot lit by a single distant candle without trouble, something truly impossible with an EVF. And on and on.

Exposure is trivial to check after the shot on the display on the back of the camera, especially with the histogram. Any camera made in the past few decades will include at least an exposure meter in the viewfinder, and modern ones will include aperture / shutter speed, shots remaining, focus confirmation points, and anything else you might want. You don't need to magnify an optical viewfinder, as it's already sharper than any EVF could possibly hope to be.

If you really want to know what an SLR viewfinder should be like, pick up a Canon 1 series (or whatever Nikon's equivalent is). Or, even better, try a rangefinder--there's few better ways to look through a camera lens than the way Leica does it.

When you've got an EVF with instant response, at least a few megapixels, and the exact same dynamic range and color rendition as the camera's sensors, we'll talk. Until then, even the best EVF isn't going to compare to a low-end SLR film viewfinder.

Cheers,

b&