While no official statement has been made, Sony Japan has listed all of its A-Mount lenses as “discontinued” or “no longer available” through its store. In total, that comes to 33 lenses made for the system and ranges from the Zeiss optics through Sony’s first-party G series optics. Until now, A-mount lenses were still available to purchase on Sony Japan’s website, as the lenses still work with older A-mount camera systems and even E-mount cameras via various adapters.

The A-mount was created by Minolta way back in 1985. It was inherited by Sony during their acquisition of Minolta in 2006 and they haven’t released an A-mount body since 2016. E mount is most definitely the future of Sony – especially now Sony finally has an E mount flagship body in the form of the Sony A1.

Despite being removed from the main Sony Japan website, a number of A-mount lenses are still listed as being available on the Sony US website. However, authorized dealers may still have stock available, which may soon find their way into the clearance bin. Sony shooters still dependent on the A-mount may find this the perfect time to expand their collections. But as we’ve seen with other digital formats, they don’t have the same longevity that film cameras had.

Street photographers on a budget can also look to use A-mount lenses, and adapt them to E-mount bodies.

Sony’s last A-mount DSLR, the a99 II, was announced in 2016. That camera came just a year after there were rumors that Sony was about to abandon the format altogether, and while the a99 II renewed hope that Sony would continue to iterate on DSLR design, that never extended beyond that final camera.

More info on Sony’s website.