Sony strikes deal with Associated Press

ahsanford

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ahsanford

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Struggling to understand why I should care...


1) Because deals with agencies could possibly speed changes to the types of products companies make. If Sony gets a major foothold with a news agency, perhaps their higher end features, accessories, etc. will see more investment because that camp of shooter always had _______ with Canon or Nikon. And Sony might actually have to make a larger body with a chunky grip, now that all these folks packing pickle jar lenses all day are getting hand cramp. :p

2) The AP covers major sporting events, don't they? Would this not imply that we'll see an industry push in to mirrorless superteles and 1-series-like bodies?

3) It's a sign of the times. Mirrorless is starting to flip some of the most stubborn professionals. I just find that fascinating.

- A
 
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Its a big deal because to reach it, Sony will have had to commit to support around the world at a professional level, and for several years. AB must be convinced that Sony is not going to play their old trick of dropping support whenever a breeze comes up from the wrong way, and it provides stability for Sony in a time where camera sales are poor at best. Sony likely had to really cut prices, but having your cameras out in public used by journalists around the world is good.
 
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ahsanford

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Its a big deal because to reach it, Sony will have had to commit to support around the world at a professional level, and for several years. AB must be convinced that Sony is not going to play their old trick of dropping support whenever a breeze comes up from the wrong way, and it provides stability for Sony in a time where camera sales are poor at best. Sony likely had to really cut prices, but having your cameras out in public used by journalists around the world is good.


NYT's excellent political photog Doug Mills has been pushing mirrorless for years. He has cited silent shutters / e-shutters as a competitive advantage as he could be in the room with other photogs and not giveaway when he was shooting (and by extension, what he was focused on).


"I'm using a Sony camera which is completely silent. So, I can be sitting, standing next to my colleagues and they hear me, you know, formerly they could hear me taking pictures, but now, they can't hear. They're completely silent. So that helped to make that image, because I think if I had been photographing while he wasn't speaking or something like that, somebody would say, "What's Mills shooting, what's going on," so it helped."

Also, the obvious: https://petapixel.com/2019/06/29/si...antage-for-photographer-at-democratic-debate/

- A
 
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davidhfe

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Its a big deal because to reach it, Sony will have had to commit to support around the world at a professional level, and for several years. AB must be convinced that Sony is not going to play their old trick of dropping support whenever a breeze comes up from the wrong way, and it provides stability for Sony in a time where camera sales are poor at best. Sony likely had to really cut prices, but having your cameras out in public used by journalists around the world is good.

I read this the exact same way—it's Sony communicating to the world they're committed to imaging. I wonder if the motivation to do this started 6 months ago when the whole "playstation is delaying cameras" thing started floating around. I'd be curious how effective it is. I don't follow a whole lot of photojournalists, but they seem every bit as invested emotionally in their gear as any other photographer. If you're used to a 1DX3 and suddenly you pull an A92 out of the AP cage at a major event it's bound to be a shock?
 
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davidhfe

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Wow. Maybe political testimony / hearings will get quieter with silent shooting:

The "clack clack clack" of a shutter will soon join a host of other sounds from bygone eras: Dial tones, clacking hard drives. Hopefully one day the internal combustion engine…

I guarantee you in about 10 years some kid will watch an "old" press conference and comment on the video "What's making all that noise??!"
 
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ahsanford

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The "clack clack clack" of a shutter will soon join a host of other sounds from bygone eras: Dial tones, clacking hard drives. Hopefully one day the internal combustion engine…

I guarantee you in about 10 years some kid will watch an "old" press conference and comment on the video "What's making all that noise??!"


Or politicians will feel blindsided for NOT hearing the shutter, get caught on photo when they thought they were off the record, etc. that they institute policies that cameras must continue to make the noise even if e-shutter is in use. That would be hysterical.

They'd call it the Prius rule. The Prius was so quiet pedestrians couldn't hear it, so lawmakers made the cars actually emit more noise.

- A
 
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NYT's excellent political photog Doug Mills has been pushing mirrorless for years. He has cited silent shutters / e-shutters as a competitive advantage as he could be in the room with other photogs and not giveaway when he was shooting (and by extension, what he was focused on).


"I'm using a Sony camera which is completely silent. So, I can be sitting, standing next to my colleagues and they hear me, you know, formerly they could hear me taking pictures, but now, they can't hear. They're completely silent. So that helped to make that image, because I think if I had been photographing while he wasn't speaking or something like that, somebody would say, "What's Mills shooting, what's going on," so it helped."

Also, the obvious: https://petapixel.com/2019/06/29/si...antage-for-photographer-at-democratic-debate/

- A
Whoever you find in one camp you’ll find an equally impressive photographer in the other. Pete Souza was a Canon user, he moved to Sony thinking it was the right way to go, he moved back after a few months and is still a Canon shooter.
 
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All those poor hands. And what a terrible industry that the photographer doesn't get to choose the equipment they are comfortable with, they are just assigned a camera and lens(es) and told to learn it, deal with it.
But agency photographers are a dying breed, even the agencies use contracted freelancers for most assignments. I’d think the agency market, that is the gear agencies buy, is a 1/10 it was ten years ago even though there are more images out there than ever.
 
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Keith_Reeder

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Its a big deal because to reach it, Sony will have had to commit to support around the world at a professional level, and for several years. AB must be convinced that Sony is not going to play their old trick of dropping support whenever a breeze comes up from the wrong way, and it provides stability for Sony in a time where camera sales are poor at best. Sony likely had to really cut prices, but having your cameras out in public used by journalists around the world is good.
So it might be a big deal for Sony, but I'm still not seeing a reason why anyone else should care.

And as PBD points out, it's something of a token gesture anyway, given that agency photographers are on the endangered species list.
 
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So it might be a big deal for Sony, but I'm still not seeing a reason why anyone else should care.

And as PBD points out, it's something of a token gesture anyway, given that agency photographers are on the endangered species list.
Its big for potential buyers who have stayed away from Sony over concerns that they would drop camera support in a instant. Sony owners can be a little more assured that cameras are not like some of the other Sony products.

I'm not likely to switch (never say never), I've been bit too many times by Sony.
 
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Keith_Reeder

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Its big for potential buyers who have stayed away from Sony over concerns that they would drop camera support in a instant. Sony owners can be a little more assured that cameras are not like some of the other Sony products.
You'd have to persuade me that this was the main reason for people not buying Sony - and that what photo journalists get up to influences the average photographer - before I'd buy the idea that Sony + AP will make any meaningful difference to Sony sales.

There will be people who think about this, but I'll bet it's not a significant number of potential buyers. Most will buy whatever YouTube or the guy in the shop tells them to (if they're new to photography); otherwise the support question (which is valid, no dispute about that) will just be one part of a bigger puzzle.

And - I completely believe - hardly anyone is influenced by what camera brand a news agency uses anyway: in fact it's impossible to tell, because they always strip the Exif out of their images.

Here's something else: AP's own blog page about "why Sony?"


Completely objectively, many of those images (from the "young flamenco dancers" onwards) are properly bloody horrible.

The dancers' colours are disgusting, for example - Sony's broken colour science to the rescue again - and some of them (the fisherman and the climbers, for example) are really noisy for only 1250 and 3200 ISO.

Indeed, the long jumper is hellish noisy at 400 ISO!

The 5000 ISO hurdlers image (among others) looks hammered by NR.

And where's the much-vaunted low ISO DR advantage? Blocked shadows everywhere...

(Maybe being able to lift shadows by 5 stops to make up for a bad exposure isn't so important after all, eh? ;) )

If I was looking to buy a body, one look at that lot and I wouldn't go anywhere near a Sony. They're deeply unimpressive images in IQ terms. They really are.

But then - PJ isn't really about ultimate image quality, is it? Based on this collection, Sony seems to fit right in.
 
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SteveC

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You'd have to persuade me that this was the main reason for people not buying Sony, before I'd buy the idea that Sony + AP will make any meaningful difference to Sony sales.

There will be people who think about this, but I'll bet it's not a significant number of potential buyers. Most will buy whatever YouTube or the guy in the shop tells them to (if they're new to photography); otherwise the support question (which is valid, no dispute about that) will just be one part of a bigger puzzle.

And - I completely believe - hardly anyone is influenced by what camera brand a news agency uses anyway: in fact it's impossible to tell, because they always strip the Exif out of their images.

Here's something else: AP's own blog page about "why Sony?"


Completely objectively, many of those images (from the "young flamenco dancers" onwards) are properly bloody horrible.

The dancers' colours are disgusting, for example - Sony's broken colour science to the rescue again - and some of them (the fisherman and the climbers, for example) are really noisy for only 1250 and 3200 ISO.

Indeed, the long jumper is hellish noisy at 400 ISO!

The 5000 ISO hurdlers image (among others) looks hammered by NR.

And where's the much-vaunted low ISO DR advantage? Blocked shadows everywhere...

(Maybe being able to lift shadows by 5 stops to make up for a bad exposure isn't so important after all, eh? ;) )

If I was looking to buy a body, one look at that lot and I wouldn't go anywhere near a Sony. They're deeply unimpressive images.

But then - PJ isn't really about ultimate image quality, is it? Based on this collection, Sony seems to fit right in.

Fake cameras for fake news!!
 
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