The Sony Alpha 77 (or A77) has now more than 2 years of age on the market. It was a very significant step forward for Sony with the arrival of a semi-transparent mirror, of a good-quality Electronic View Finder (EVF) and of speed performance putting it a world of itself for its price (sensor resolution and continuous shooting speed notably). With the many announcements of Sony seemingly shooting in all directions since the A77 (new camera ranges, new cameras, that fog the big picture a lot), we could reasonably ask whether the Sony SLT cameras, starting with the SLT-A77, would see a follow-up.
According to SonyAlhaRumors (the web site which collects the more rumors, if not the most critical), there are several clear items:
- There will be a successor to the Sony Alpha 77
- It will be named A77-II
- It will have ultra-fast autofocus
- It will come in May 2014
Let’s step back a little and review these:
- Existence: The question was really open, but it appears that Sony is not ready to leave the DSLR market yet, even without a real Reflex chamber, or even if featuring an EVF.
- Name: Don’t listen too much to things that can easily change in the offices of Sony Marketing Department (even if time starts runnig short for a last-minute change).
- The A77 was impressive for its speed. Sony marketing must have pushed this advantage and the A77-II will have an improved-again A6000 autofocus system (already the fastest on the market), an EVF with a slightly improved lag (maybe), maybe-improved continuous shooting (here, to go over 10 fps, you need to pay for special mechanics, and the cost may not be OK for the A77-II price range).
- Date: There is always some fuzzy difference between announcement and availibility dates, but May 2014 launch is possible, depending on the credibility of the sources…
Don’t look for more technical details. For the last years, Sony succeeded in managing its “leaks”. Obviously, in most case, it’s not information theft, but “organized leaks” handled within a self-promotion campaign exploiting the Internet and some Internet web sites. If Sony did not let anything go, either they prepare a thunderous announcement, or they have to wait for after Summer…