Rumour. None of the following has been confirmed by Sony. The information comes from Sony Alpha Rumors and should be treated as speculation until there’s an official announcement.
Sony has had a busy year already — the Alpha 7R VI, the RX10 V and the FX5 have all landed — but the rumour mill suggests it isn’t finished. Two threads are worth pulling on, one imminent and fairly mundane, the other rather more dramatic.
The near-term one is a lens: Sony Alpha Rumors reports that a 16-28mm f/2.0 GM will be announced soon. If accurate, that’s a genuinely interesting optic. A constant f/2 across an ultra-wide zoom range is faster than the f/2.8 that has become the professional standard, and it would sit alongside Sony’s existing 50-150mm f/2 GM as part of a push towards a faster zoom line-up. For astro, interiors and low-light event work, an extra stop at the wide end matters more than almost anywhere else.
The bigger story, and the more speculative one, is persistent talk of a Sony medium format system. The chatter describes a 53.5 x 40mm sensor at 150 and 200 megapixels, accompanied by a range of f/1.7 primes, and — unsurprisingly — a very high price. Sony already manufactures the sensors inside most medium format cameras on the market, including Fujifilm’s GFX line and Hasselblad’s bodies, so a first-party system is not a fanciful idea. A 53.5 x 40mm sensor would also be notably larger than the 44 x 33mm chips those cameras use, which would put it in a class of its own outside Phase One territory.
We’d file the medium format talk firmly under “interesting if true”. Sony has never shown any inclination to compete with its own sensor customers, and building a lens system from scratch is a decade-long commitment. But the same was said about Sony entering full-frame mirrorless.
One less welcome rumour to note: the same source suggests there’s no Alpha 7S IV coming any time soon, and raises the question of whether the S line has a future at all. With the FX3 and now the FX5 covering low-light video from the Cinema Line side, the logic for a separate S body has certainly weakened.
Sony rumours: what’s being reported
Sony FE 16-28mm f/2.0 GM: reported as due for announcement soon; would offer a constant f/2 aperture across an ultra-wide zoom range. Sony medium format system: reported as a 53.5 x 40mm sensor in 150MP and 200MP versions, with a range of f/1.7 prime lenses and very high pricing. Alpha 7S IV: reported as not arriving any time soon, with questions raised over the future of the S line. Source: Sony Alpha Rumors. None of this has been confirmed by Sony, and no specifications, pricing or dates are official.
