New Sony - Minolta-Mount SLR and Lenses

Holy crap! Sony has announced a very nice looking camera and unified line of SLR accessories:

http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP....bName=acc&var2=

The SLR body looks like it's using a similar sensor to what's in the D200.

Are these all old Minolta lenses or are they all new? This is a very impressive lineup.

Cheers

James

The link's broken, and it looks like the info's been removed from that website, as a search for A100 yields nothing.

There's a sneak preview of the camera on DPreview, though:

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0606/06060501sonydslra100.asp

Haha, looks like Sony pulled the "mistake" off their website, lol. And Phil got P.O'd and released the info on his site. He hates it when the other sites do that... :-)

Cheers

James

With Sony, Nikon's sensor supplier, in the DSLR market the situation gets interesting. The Alpha seems to have the same sensor as the D200. In the future, will Nikon be second in line for new sensors. I seem to remember that Sony had their 8M pixel consumer cam out months before anybody else.

Zeiss* Lens

G Lens

Family

Most of the lenses are Minolta film lenses rebranded as Sony digital lenses. The Fisheye, for example, will only give 180 degree viewing on a film camera, not on the cropped sensor Alpha (although it does take filters!).

Alex

Hi Bluga,

When you post images, please try to keep them under 600 pixels in width. That last big one is really messing up how we read this thread.

Herb: Thom Hogan seems to think that Sony and Nikon worked together on the D200 sensor, and that Sony isn't allowed to use that I.P. We'll see about that after we find out more about this cam. One of the main technology advantages that Nikon is supposed to have helped Sony develop is the 4-channel readout from the sensor. It will be interesting to see how Nikon and Sony's relationship continues after this as they are both fighting strongly for the middle-bottom pricerange.

In any case, I'm happy to see that Sony has kept the Minolta mount alive and this is a very strong showing.

Cheers

James

I'm just getting the dSLR bug, coming from a Sony P&S. I really like Sony products. My question is how similar could this camera possibly be to the D200? I was thinking of purchasing the D70s as I'm not quite a professional yet. Should I hold off for a short time to see how the reviews come out before I make the purchase of a life time.

Camera aside, is there even a housing manufacturer out there that will be interested in making a product for the new Alpha 100?

How do the Minolta lenses perform against the seemingly more popular Nikonos?

"I'm happy to see that Sony has kept the Minolta mount alive and this is a very strong showing."

James,

I have the same sentiment. I'm an old Minolta 7000 user from the 80's and have several nice lenses for that setup that have been pretty worthless. It'll be interesting to see how Sony prices this camera.

I believe the pricing is in the preview article at DPreview.com

Cheers

James

Herb: Thom Hogan seems to think that Sony and Nikon worked together on the D200 sensor, and that Sony isn't allowed to use that I.P.  We'll see about that after we find out more about this cam.  One of the main technology advantages that Nikon is supposed to have helped Sony develop is the 4-channel readout from the sensor.  It will be interesting to see how Nikon and Sony's relationship continues after this as they are both fighting strongly for the middle-bottom pricerange.

 

Cheers

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They're getting out 10M pixels at 3 frames per second. I think it's likely that there's more than one readout channel.

Time to market is important. When the next Sony new and imporved sensor chip comes out the Sony camera using it won't be 8 months behind Nikon's. I would be surprised if it's not ahead. The Nikon may have its own twist, but I think it's likely the next XX megapixel will be Sony first.

The 900 price tag sure looks good... as well as the image stabilization built into the camera...not the lens...wonder how that would work U/W..

M.

But will anyone house the Sony & when? If you're into DSLR for the long run I think I'd stay with Nikon or Canon.

But will anyone house the Sony & when?  If you're into DSLR for the long run I think I'd stay with Nikon or Canon.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Why not? Even my old Sony F717 have housing.

If I had to hazard a guess, I think there will be very few housings for the Sony Alpha 100. I would guess 2 or 3 - along the lines of how many are available for the 717.

I'd be happy to be proven wrong though.

Cheers

James

PS, Since Bluga hasn't edited the size of the images in his post, I've removed the big one. Hopefully he'll resize it and upload a smaller version as requested.

I'm also an old minolta user and very happy that the system will survive. The new sony camera looks good, and based on the proposed prize tag and the attributes it will be a best seller.

I'm agree with Herbko that time to market is very important and it will be the first entry-level camera with 10 mpixel (not to mention body integrated anti-shake and sensor cleaning included).

I hope, that camera housing makers will also consider it. The Minolta support was bad for UW photography, although they produced excellent cameras (IMO 5D and 7D was the best in its class. OK it's a biased opinion)

And I also hope, that the successor of 7D will be even a bigger bang.

Cheers

Marcell

Sample photos here:

http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/sonya100_preview/

There is a very nice review available here:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra100/

Based on the conclusion it's a very capable camera and seems to me a perfect candidate for underwater photography.

Bruder has announced a housing for it, but this company has a not so good reputation here.

I hope Ikelite will also design a housing and since sony alpha is very similar to Konica Minolta 5D, with slight modification they could offer support for two models.

As I know 5D was sold also quite well.

And I'm sure sony alpha will be sold like hot cakes.

It looks like I have to be more provocative to initiate some discussion.

Let me copy some sentences from the review:

"Shooting RAW and equalizing the image processing by using a standard converter gives us a different view on the DSLR-A100 vs. EOS 30D (or 10 vs 8 megapixel) comparison, again while the advantage isn't great there is certainly some extra detail visible in the DSLR-A100 shot."

"As well as shooting our studio test scene at each camera's lowest sensitivity we also shot it at ISO 800 and 1600. As you can see the approach taken by Canon (clean data in, less need for noise reduction) really pays off at ISO 800 and 1600 where it demonstrates far more detail and less visible noise than any other camera here. Between the DSLR-A100 and D200 at these high sensitivities the A100 appears to maintain more detail."

"We were a little surprised to see the Alpha DSLR-A100 beating the Nikon D200 on our resolution charts, but that's how things played out. The A100 delivered slightly more absolute horizontal and vertical resolution than the D200 and continued detail much further "

It looks like this entry level camera provides better picture quality than the well praised nikon d200 and it's behind the canon 30D just at high isos (800 and 1600).

Ok, it's an amateur camera and the build quality, functions and controls are not as good as in the above mentioned prosumer cameras.

But hey, it has built in anti-shake (VR, SSS), dust removal and its dro function is very promising.

It's a very nice, cheap, clever and small camera.

In my opinion perfect candidate for underwater photography.

Ciao

Marcell

OK. I'll play the devil's advocate.

Even though the dpreview review compared it to the D200 and 30D, I think its main competitors are the 350D and the yet to be announced D80 (?), both of which has the same sensor as the more expensive upscaled models and same picture quality. The 350D cost about $200 less than the Sony. I really don't think the difference between 8M and 10M pixels is a big deal. In practice, when the photo sites are that close together you're probably limited by the lens a majority of the time. The difference in resolution between the Sony and the Nikon with the same sensor is probably just due to the choice in noise reduction: less details, lower noise.

For underwater shooting both Nikon and Canon has better lens selection. Nikon has the 10.5 mm FE and the new 105mm AS-F and Canon has the 100mm and 60mm macro USM lenses.

The likelihood of having housings available does not depend on any of the above. I think it's just numbers. If Sony sells enough of these, the housing vendors will probably support it, but I doubt they'll jump in before it's clear that this is a popular camera.