Alpha specs released
Well unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll have heard by now that Sony have released the specs for their upcoming Alpha dSLR. Now as I said before, Sony seem to have gone to great lengths come out with an immediately desirable product. Not something that is desirable because it is dirt cheap (the usual way for new guys to try muscle in), but because it is just so damn cool.
Now a spec sheet is only a spec sheet, and until the reviews start coming in I doubt we’ll have a true idea of just how competitive this camera will be. Yet, I have to say, on paper it looks impressive.
The 10 mega pixel CCD will have the pixel counters happy, but of course lots of pixels are only nice if they are good pixels. Of course Sony DSC-R1 had a 10 mega pixel sensor as well (CMOS not CCD), and the noise and picture quality on that was impressive to say the least. Not Canon impressive mind you, but close enough, and one can only assume this camera will be better. The auto range of ISO 100-800 hints at their confidence in their picture quality at high ISO.
Happily, my guess that they would bring in some Zeiss lenses was correct, it wasn’t hard to see that they would need some help bringing in enough new lenses. Most of their other new lenses do appear to be rebranded Konica Minolta lenses, but in addition to the Zeiss lenses, there are some new Sony super zooms. Compatibility with previous Konica Minolta lenses plus a nicely sized range of lenses (old and new) that Sony will sell will definitely put some consumers doubts to rest. The rather large list of accessories is impressive as well, and one cannot help but feel you are buying into an old system (which I guess in a way you are). The prices seem a bit high, one will have to wait to see if the quality warrants this.
Taking Minolta’s shift Anti-Shake (now called Super SteadyShot) was not a surprise; but if the enhancements claimed by Sony are true, allowing up to 3.5 stops slower shutter speeds, then they have a very competitive solution on offer. Though it should be said, the prices for their telephoto lenses are higher than the equivalent price of an Canon IS lens of the same focal length. So apparently no benefit to lens pricing.
The continuous shooting in JPEG mode was impressive, with the camera only being limited by the memory card. RAW continuous shooting less so, at 6 shots. Hopefully they don’t achieve this by compressing the JPEGs too much.
That’s all for now, DPReview’s hands-on preview has a very comprehensive look at the camera if you want to know absolutely everything.
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