DPReview: Sony Photokina 2018 Interview
There have been lots of Photokina interviews to cover and each has its own points of interest. DPReviews interview with Kenji Tanaka, VP and Senior General Manager of Sony’s Business Unit 1, Digital Imaging Group and it’s a good one. Below are some excerpts:
- ‘I don’t care about competitors, I care about customers’
- Sony want’s to satisfy the needs of all photographers
- Recently they made a lot of sports photographers happy
- Sony is the largest sensor manufacturer
- Their stacked sensor is unique but everything associated with it has to be high quality too take advantage of the sensor
- Sony isn’t trying to switch DSLR users to mirrorless they are trying to make new customers
- Sony wasn’t surprised that Canon and Nikon entered the mirrorless market because it’s an area with a lot of innovation to come
- The fundamentals of mirrorless are Lenses, image quality, speed, and battery life (Some of their competitors struggle with battery life)
- Sony is focused on getting full frame mirrorless right before possibly moving on to larger formats
- Some customers want small high quality primes like the 24mm f/1.4 and Sony plans to produce more
- APS-C is still a big market for them and they will continue making bodies and lenses even though they have been focused on Full Frame lately
- APS-C is important for portability and ease of use
- They need to find out what customers want from an APS-C camera
- They aren’t differentiating between lenses for APS-C and Full Frame at this time
- Many APS-C customers buy Full Frame lenses
- Sony is still working on improving their weather sealing
- Sony hopes the price of cameras like the a7III will come down so that anyone can buy one
- The Sony a7II recently reached $1,000 and that made some customers happy
- Processing speed is a limiting factor fully utilizing SD UHS-II
- In the future current SD technology won’t be enough for future technologies like 8k/30p
- Most customers want two SD card slots
- E-mount is open so there is going to be competition that benefits customers
- They are currently working on a new Sony a7S but it will take time because they want to exceed expectations
- Current Sony a7SII users want 4k/60p, 4:2:2 10-bit, battery life, AF performance and more
- Sony doesn’t think the next S should be all about video because the current ones have great dynamic range and are good for photography too.
- Sony wants to use AI to let their users focus on things like composition instead of focal points
via DPReview