photogopinion

‘4 The top left is blank and wasted.’

Seems a common complaint. But what would anybody really need on it? (I see some owners of other brands complaining, for instance, that similarly otherwise wasted space is taken up with a power switch they’d prefer to have in reach of the fingers on their right hand.)
Makes sense to me to have all camera functions in reach of the right hand and lens functions for the left. (Don’t most people still grip the lens with their left hand to steady a camera, or does everybody think IBIS means you never need to do that any more?)

@dnaeyy: I wonder if they could? Sony managed to confound those who argued they could never make this or that because the E mount wouldn’t allow it, and their lens designers seem to be getting pretty clever, so I could imagine a 20-85 f2.8 now, though I suspect squeezing a 20-105 into something of manageable size and weight could be really difficult.

@SNJops: It will also probably allow them to gauge the degree of interest so they get an idea of what their production should be, hopefully avoiding the situation one company seems to have got itself into where people have to wait months for delivery. It’ll presumably be useful if the have an idea in the next few weeks or months whether they’ll need to produce 20, 200, or 2000 a year.

Given the only two known ‘development announcements’ were for serious (-ly expensive) pro lenses, just looks like Sony’s really announcing ‘Hi there, you pros, we are thinking of you.’
(Perhaps impelled by the frequency of Nikon’s product and development announcements aimed at the same sector of late.)

@whitelens
Shall we have a poll?

SNJops:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/9932035277/sony-developing-of-400mm-f2-8-g-master-lens
If they did a development announcement of the 600, it’s no longer visible, as far as I can see.
Two ‘development announcements’ in a little more than five years. At this rate Sony might catch up with Nikon by about 2083. . .

The exception that proves the rule. Apart from that, it’s going to be expensive, so they’re giving the pros a year to save up, double their fees, ha, ha, fat chance, or tout for more work.
Or time for the accountants at the agencies to get their spreadsheets and cost/benefit analyses worked out.
PS: @ShaiKhalud: am I the first? Always amused by TRU’s trolling of Sony users. Won’t be bothering to save up for this one though. Just admire it from afar.

@Liam K
Is that a rumour from a reliable source?

Just enough time for Tony Northrup to find his glasses and intone “Breaking Nooos!!!!’

@ panther fan: Actually, it’s pretty obvious none of those rumour sites actually have (or ever had) any informed contacts in the various companies. They seem mostly to have relied on a single Japanese online rumour source and Google Translate. They’re mostly there to generate income from click-throughs despite their purported ‘news’ status.

Somebody hit the ‘upload’ or ‘publish’ key from the ‘Drafts’ folder three hours early , I presume. I also presume (it’s becoming traditional with DPR these days) that after 1500 GMT we’ll have a second attempt with all the specs. And then maybe a third post with a photo, and then a ‘pre-review’, a ‘review’ and a ‘post-review review’.

Well, they were wrong. The ‘Sigma Z lens’ Nikon Rumors had pencilled in for January turned out to be this one. Perhaps Nikon and Sigma are going through similar negotiations Nikon went through with Tamron, seemingly, from the first results, about which lenses they’ll be allowed to produce for Z mount and perhaps which Nikon want to rebadge for themselves. It may be Nikon are not being as open-handed (‘Oh, go ahead, make whatever you like, we don’t mind’, more or less) as Sony.

‘Talking head’ Youtubers seem to want lots of things; mostly to do with videoing themselves with wide angle lenses at f1.2 from less than a metre away. I think they should get out more.
How many ‘real’ (‘pro’, if you like) photographers spend most of their lives filming themselves sitting behind a table worrying about the bokeh of what’s on a wall half a metre behind them?

What I’m waiting for—not!—is all those Youtubers congratulating themselves around 1501 GMT saying ‘There, Panasonic, we TOLD you’ and ‘I was the one that made them do it!’.

Yes, it did (still does) work as it was supposed to. (Originally introduced in 2003 in a ‘bridge’ camera.) Minolta claimed 2-3 stops and I think most users got that easily and regularly. The beauty of it was (still is) that you got image stabilisation with any Minolta A mount lens no matter how old (still do) and Minolta at the time had some pretty good, light and compact AF lenses.

Ironically, at this same moment Samuel Streetlife (clue in the name?) published a Youtube video on why he used a DSLR for street photography. . .

It means C1 expects you to perpetually keep paying them.

Yes it does. In fact the organisers seem to encourage it. But (unlike the camera companies’ or others’ competitions) there’s no requirement that the photographer explains how much.

@Merida
I delved a little further. There are some additional expenses. Eleven bound books of the photos to each winner at a cost of somewhere around 50-130$AUS each (depending on size, not specified by the organisers, but I would hope not A5) roughly $US 30-$70, think, and five people get a framed print at cost of somewhere around 135 -200+ ($70-$120?) depending on size. (Not specified either.)

The two guys who run this thing positively invite massive fakery (oops, I mean ‘post processing’):

“We’re constantly amazed at the lengths photographers go to, whether physically in the landscape or creatively in post-production.”

Er. . .me too ;-)