[jogiba]

Irrespective of Pentax releasing FF or not, I am going to buy A7 and unlikely to buy Pentax or any other FF DSLR, the primary reason is the size. I have become so comfortable with NEX size, swivel LCD etc that I was hardly using my DSLR, eventually sold k-x, k-5 and just kept k-01.

I don't plan on getting the A7 since I am satisfied with my full frame NEX-VG900 with swivel LCD and angled OLED EVF along with my NEX-3N that I use with PK-NEX Lens Turbo adapter with my fast full frame PK mount lenses like my 24mm F1.4, 50mm F1.4 , 85mm F1.4 etc. I will wait until 2015 for a 4K camera.

[Christine Tham]

You never know until the official release, but they are usually pretty accurate, especially when it is this close. Hybrid pdaf is what they are using to drop the slt, for a-mount. It is true that pdaf is secondary for the NEX, but I have found it to be a dramatic improvement, especially for tracking moving objects. The AF in my NEX 6 is superior to my k5. Regardless of the reason for the omission, if it is true, I will be somewhat disappointed.

Lenses that were designed for PDAF don't work well in CDAF - Canon and Pentax both learnt that lesson the hard way - Sony and Nikon were smart enough to come up with Hybrid AF.

But Hybrid AF is a kludge - its a vote of no confidence for Sony's AF technology of choice, which is CDAF. None of Sony's recent premium mirrorless compacts has PDAF - RX100, RX100 Mk II, RX1, RX1R. The A7R will join this club if the rumour is true.

I must admit - I was a little disappointed when I found out the RX100 does not have Hybrid AF. But when I started using it, I realised it didn't need PDAF - the focusing works just fine and is fast enough.

The more premium the camera, the more accurate AF needs to be realise the best possible photos. In my not so humble opinion, CDAF with object detection will deliver superior results - almost as good as MF, possibly better (in my case, since I have poor eyesight).

I agree the NEX6 has better AF than the K-5, but I am disappointed by the focus tracking. When the camera switches to PDAF, I can see a loss of accuracy - the camera is less sure what it should be focusing on and more likely to make typical PDAF "mistakes" - eg. brightly lit and contrasty edges throws the focusing off.

I am sure Sony debates these issues even harder than this thread - if the rumour is true, I am not surprised that they are trying to hedge their bets each way - A7 with Hybrid AF, A7R with no compromises to image quality and no AA filter.