Sony A6400 Makes A Comeback: Production Restarts
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- 02 Jun 2022
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Sony announced it was resuming production of the a6400 with a statement headed ‘Notice concerning resumption of acceptance or orders for some digital imaging products.’
The notice went on to state about the a6400, ‘after May 27 2022 we will resume accepting order from dealers to us and customer orders at Sony stores.’
The news of the ‘rebirth’ of the a6400 comes as Sony has revealed new 11mm f/1.8, 15mm f/1.4 and 10-20mm f/4 APS-C wide-angle lenses.
Halting orders
The news comes under six months after Sony stopped accepting orders on six cameras – the a6400, a6600, a7 II, a6100, a7C, and ZV-E10 – due to global supply problems with parts.
Sony subsequently revealed that it had discontinued production of its a7 II and a6100 cameras.
It did so with the notice, ‘At the time of announcement on November 19, 2021, we have designated the α7 II series/α6100 body (black) as “Target product to stop accepting orders”, but since there is no prospect of future parts supply, production will be completed as of December 23, 2021.’
The fact that Sony has restarted production of the a6400 does provide a glimmer of hope for the future production of the a6600, a7C and ZV-E10 models, but, as yet, no firm announcements have been made with regards to production of them recommencing.
These three cameras are all still listed by Sony Japan’s website as ‘temporarily suspended’ in terms of orders from dealers and customer orders at Sony stores.
In 2021 the Japanese business news service, Nikkei, reported that Sony had teamed up with the Taiwanese firm TCMC to build a new factory in Japan to make extra semiconductor chips, although production is not expected to start until 2024.
Global semiconductor shortage
The global shortage of semiconductors has affected not only the production of photographic equipment, with photographers potentially facing equipment shortages throughout 2022, but also the production of cars, smartphones, washing machines, games consoles and many other products.
The shortage was caused by a numbers of factors, including the closure of chip factories during the Covid-19 pandemic, the increased demand for electronic office equipment (laptops, tablets, webcams etcetera) for people working from home, rapidly rising shipping costs for moving chips from Asia to Europe and delays caused by chip makers having to catch up in response to demand by increasing their manufacturing capacities. Read More...
