Find all about it on YLovePhoto.

The Sony 70-400mm f/4-5.6 G SSM is described in the PDF documentation of the Sony 70-300mm f/4-5.6 G SSM. Obviously, they were designed together. It is a twist-zoom. This will differentiate quite notably from the push-pull type of others like the Canon 100-400mm and it should protect it efficiently against dust entry (and we know that this is the bane of push-pulls.

The technical features can be read from this table. I can imediately notice that the diaphragm is staying between f/4 and f/5.6 (the golden standard of this type of zoom), that the weight is rather high (heavier than the Nikon and the Canon, nearly as much as the Sigma equivalnet) and that the minimum focus distance is very competitive.

Let’s wait for images and tests (and the price), but this could be the ideal lens to go and shoot in a wild-life safari.

Source: DPreview forums. See also my previous article about high-end tele-zooms.

• Canon: 24.5 millions (18%)
• Sony: 20.9 millions (16%)
• Kodak: 12.6 millions (10%)
• Samsung: 11.7 millions (9%)
• Nikon: 11.4 mililons (8.4%)
• Olympus: 11.3 mililons (8.3%)

For the SLR market (Single Lens Reflex), two companies are overwhelming:

• Canon: 43%
• Nikon: 40%

Canon looses some ground to Nikon, but the margins were going down thanks to added competition.

https://support.d-imaging.sony.co.jp/download/DSLR/DSCA100V104E.zip

• First, Sony just announced a firmware upgrade for the just-launched Alpha 700 professional photo camera. Some reviewers (like Chasseur d’Images) had noticed that the excellent sensor was not giving its best with the tested cameras (low-contrast foliage was easily blurred by the noise reduction algorithm). Not surprisingly, Sony presents an upgrade to v1 firmware “improving image sharpness and noise performance as well as tweaking flash performance with non-ADI lenses.”
• Second, Canon UK stopped shipping of EOS-1D Mark III and initiated a recall of unsold cameras pending an official announcement by Canon related to camera repairs/replacements of the autofocus system.

All this points to excellent cameras that arrived a little too early on the market. The pressure to be right in time for the big year’s end sales seems to be forcing these apparently serious manufacturers into technologico-marketing limbo. Will we have to apply the automotive market adage of “never buy a car within less than 6 months of its launch”?

The Sony upgrade is only for to early production cameras with v1 firmware (press the Menu and Display buttons simultaneously to check your firmware version).

Last minute update: Canon issued an official statement indicating that the issue comes from an AF mirror adjustement problem and that repairs will start in November 2007. If the serial number on the bottom of the camera is between 501001 and 546561, the camera might require an adjustment of its AF mirror mechanism.

Canon official statement.

It is becoming more and more critical to lure the public into company information to avoid the impact of rumours and grey-market information. We’ll see if Sony learns to handle this kind of communication.

Nothing great or very new, but 12.8 MP, up to 3200 ISO, 10 frames per second and image stabilisation on the sensor. 10 fps looks a bit too high to be completely credible and the post does not give any precise source of information, so beware.

Nonetheless, speculations are raging in the forums on a probable cooperation between Sony and Nikon where the former would bring a full-frame sensor (not merely an APS-C sensor with a correction factor of 1.5) and the later would build a magnificent successor to the beautiful D200 under the name of Nikon D300. It is known that both companies are quite discreet, so hopes are hightened by Sony’s announcement that there will be a new SLR before the end of the year (a simultaneous presentation of a Sony Alpha 200 or Alpha 500 and of a Nikon D300 in September would be ideal).

Interestingly, parallel reasoning is heating up Canon-lovers’ minds. Since the successors to the 30D (very nice medium range semi-pro D-SLR) and to the 5D (excellent full-frame sensor but a body that is less than what is normally expected by pro photographers), hopes and dreams are orienting themselves toward a shock-solution for next Fall: A full-frame Canon 40D that would draw the best from both products, a proven body with a slightly improved full-frame sensor and able to bring the best in image quality.

Click to enlarge

For people interested in the longer focals, the most attracting part of the image is on the right. We see a black tele-zoom that points at the long awaited 100-400mm (possibly a f/5.6 to keep the AF coupling with Konica-Minolta and Sony bodies). I hope I read it well and I can’t wait to have this for wildlife photo. Then, there is a prime which looks a lot like a 300mm f/4 that is not the Minolta APO G design. It will have to compare favorably with the second-hand marvels that are still moving around eBay (my own Minolta APO G 300mm/4 is a blue diamond). The last one on the right is certainly a 600mm at f/4. Prepare your significant other now to avoid a heart attack when you will sign the check for this. Prepare your physician for the back aches after lugging this around.

On the left, it’s much more difficult to get certainties. There are three zooms and two primes. Two of the zooms and one of the primes have quite large front lenses pointing to very large apertures (more probable than only wide angles).

The pro camera (on the right) is probably no longer the wooden mock-up of PMA, but they keep the odd-looking penta-prism. I wouldn’t comment long, but many people said that this was the clue to a Full-Frame sensor. The counter-argument is still that the Canon 5D did not need to have such a beast of a prism to do full frame. However, many observers still think it would be the right time to introduce a full frame in the Sony line.

Update: Don’t ask about the availability dates. This is very hush-hush at Sony. There is a persistent rumour that the left side camera will be available in June, but it seems quite surprising knwowing that we are already mid-May. Maybe an announcement in June 2007. For the lenses, nobody seems ready to give precise dates; So, it’s still “2007-8”.

This is not everyday that a web site makes the effort to compare 26 Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) cameras in one single article/review. Nevertheless, this is what GearDigest (affiliated to the excellent Tom’s Hardware of good fame among PC enthusiasts) does today. This is an orgy of cameras between $600 and $7000 (around 600-7000€)! Are missing though: Panasonic and Leica for being late and the Fuji S3 pro that is -surprisingly- considered a specialty camera for infrared.

The guide contains several pages of explanations and of theory on the advantages of the specificities of the SLR and DSLR cameras (the journalist visibly does not expect its readers to know much about that photo technology and compensates with the clarity of his writing).

unfortunately (but this is understandable for a general public audience – rather than photo enthusiasts), the comparison is done essentially at the limited level of technical characteristics. Nonetheless, this is a very wide review of the photo DSLR landscape of available products and it will ease the initial sorting between the many offers.

Link.

Availability: Some time this year for one of the cameras (you can’t get more fuzzy than that!)

Both cameras will have Super Steady Shot (Sony’s technology to stabilize image by moving the sensor inside the body). Both will be extended with an external/additional grip.

One of the products (for high amateurs) should be described as:

• Higher end/higher performance than the Alpha 100 (many people wanted a Dynax 7D replacement)
• New sensor (it is not said if it will be more than 10MP or larger than APS-C)
• higher-rez BIONZ image processor (suggest more than 10MP resolution)

The other one (the flagship model) looks quite ugly in its PMA display. I wonder where they found the idea of moving back in time to this design. It seems that they wanted to make it look definitely serious. But the body displayed here could well be inert rather than a full working prototype (my feeling only). I’d bet that this one will not ship in 2007.

Complement: Sony will launch some more lenses as 24-70mm f/2.8, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6, DT28-250mm f/3.5-6.3 (nice zoom ratios).

Source: Gizmodo, The Photo Station and Photim forums.

Sony Alpha-100

After making a successful entry in the market of the digital SLR photo camera with the A100 in July 2006, Sony should be preparing the extension of its product line (still containing one camera only). Most people expect it to take the form of the addition of a higher-end camera that could be named either Alpha 10 [A10] or Alpha 200 [A200] (Wanna bet?) This would be a good complement to the A100 and would fit nicely after the Konica-Minolta D7D.

It is definitely interesting to notice that there is still no information leaking out of Sony about this future product. However, we should remember that the Alpha 100 was not preceded by months of pre-launch propaganda; Sony went shot for a quick launch followed by months of heavy advertising (and kept its word on the launch date).

Launch date

It seems that people heard Sony murmuring in 2006 that there would be no new launch before the first months of 2007 and they decided that it meant a new product (either Alpha 10 [A10] or Alpha 200 [A200]) at the PMA 2007 in March. But there is not even a murmur now that we are nearing the right time for it.

Sensor

Here is the biggest rumour. Based upon the launch of lenses that are 100% 24×36 (also known as Full Frame, to contrast with the more common reduced size sensors – APS-sized), people started to extrapolate that Sony does not want to have “digital format” lenses because it would go against the near arrival of a full frame Single Lens Reflex. This is a first supposition. The second would be that the next Sony D-SLR camera would go right for this large sensor.

Most observers still think that most of Sony’s effort came from rebadging existing Konica-Minolta lenses that left no choice on their size. The new Carl Zeiss lenses could have been designed semi-independently with this in mind without pressure from Sony marketroids.

Nothing for it, nothing against it.

What’s sure is that Sony is a sensor manufacturer and it gives them a large choice and they are able to access to the newest technology (larger sensors or more resoolution) as much as they would need. The available technology is the only limit -and their engineers can push it.

More info, later

This does not amount ot much. Don’t stop your decision based on these weak rumours, if you intend to buy a new digital SLR camera. But we’ll keep you informed.

• Minolta AF 200mm f/2.8 Apo G
• Minolta AF 300mm f/2.8 Apo G (D) SSM
• Minolta AF 600mm f/4.0 Apo G
• Minolta AF 70-200mm f/2.8 Apo G (D) SSM
• Minolta AF 300mm f/2.8 Apo G
• Minolta AF 28-70mm f/2.8 G

Very interesting reading.

My motto, seeing the short delay, Wait for image quality. the Alpha A100 will not be perfect, but if you really are tempted, Sony A100 is good enough.

Alpha A100 advantages:

• Larger resolution : Sony will allow you to easily print in A3 size (instead of a good A4).
• Sensor auto-clean
• Light-weight camera

Dynax/Maxxum 7D advantages:

• Superb viewfinder (if you come from a non-digital camera, you may find using most other cameras – including the Sony Alpha A100 – like looking into a keyhole).
• Very robust mechanical design. It’s heavy but you know that it won’t break if you are rough with it.
• Price falling down since it was discontinued. There are great stock-emptying offers for new cameras and the second-hand market is following. Astounding offers while it lasts.

Both cameras are currently difficult to get. Sony will appear at the end of July (possible shortage at start, pre-ordering only for now). Maxxum/Dynax is fast becoming impossible to buy new (stocks are evaporating quickly).

All in all, I don’t think that this should really be an open question. Both cameras are strictly different and most people should have no difficulty in choosing. But, now, you know the reasons. It all comes from what kind of camera user you are.

After expressing my concern about the future of the Minolta photographic system (with Konica-Minolta recently leaving the photo market, orphaning KM digital single lens refelx cameras like the Maxxum 7D), it was opportune to come back on this while Sony just presented its first Digital SLR (DSLR), the Sony Alpha A100.

I sincerily believe that the arrival of the new camera is very good news for Minolta fans (as I have been for years). Sony just demonstrated its will to enter this market with all needed power and courage. Even if the Japanese manufacturer certainly has lost most of the brio it had in the Akio Morita years (time when Sony shattered preconceptions with the Walkman whose brand quickly became a household common name), the Sony Alpha A100 has taken critical strategical steps to serve the prosumer photo market.

Instead of starting with an easy-to-design product which would be a replacement for the previous Dynax/Maxxum 5D and Dynax/Maxxum 7D, Sony chose to start at a logical price point (just below $1000) but with very distinguishing features that may appear as terrible competition:

• A 10 M-pixel sensor (straight to the high-end)
• In-body image stabilization associatd to sensor cleaning by shaking the sensor (a nice differenciation feature)

If you add to it a notable effort to launch a whole set of optical lenses (about twenty of them, including new Zeiss-designed primes ; flashes), you start to see a broad picture of Sony decided to reach the head of the pack of high-end photo camera manufacturers.

This is an attractive market where financial margins are still enough to feed an innovative company. But it is also a market where Canon and Nikon will not let anybody else approach the meal that is served for them. Sony just decided that they wanted to be #1 in the Digital Single Lens Reflex camera market.

We can wish them luck, indeed. It won’t be easy. But nobody can say that this is a half-baked attempt. For us, observers of Sony or Minolta users, it means that Sony’s will is real and it is no longer necessary to worry about the future of the Minolta system. In the past, Lords, Earls, Baronets have been known to give their title to a worthy commoner in order to ensure the continuity of a lineage. Minolta probably found a worthy heir.

Polish magazine Fotopolis (www.fotopolis.pl) just published some images taken with the new Sony Alpha DSLR A100. They give a very first impression of the image quality of the camera.

Essentially, it is impossible to know the exact state of the camera and its embedded software may not be the final version. But the limited quality of 1600 ISO images may explain why Sony did not include a 3200 ISO setting on its Alpha A100 camera.

The most telling part is probably (in the full size image file that you can grab by clicking directly on the small size image presented in the article on the web site) the darker zones of the images. The noise is pretty visible there with a lot of colored artefacts that could be thought as the “grain” of this digital sensor.

But there are good news too in the lighter zones: No perceptible blooming. The high lights will be quite clean if they are kept at this level of quality.

Beware: the web site is very slow (probably a bit overloaded by the overall attention).

After the first leaked informations, most of the serious web sites around are presenting today the news of the day: Sony Alpha A100 becomes the first photo camera to enter the field of digital single lens reflex (D-SLR or DLSR) for Sony after the demise of Konica-Minolta a few months ago.

To know it all…

New features

As previously seen photographs, this is a camera very similar to the previous Dynax/Maxxum 5D. But its very significant evolutions allow Sony to start thinking about not only grabbing the patient Minolta owners (body and lenses), but also new customers, too. Let’s see what hit me first in this good prosumer digital camera:

• A 10.2 Mega-pixel APS-C CCD sensor! This is shocking news for the competition, knowing that the body will sell at 900900$ (probably 900€), a price point that competition is not reaching with Nikon D200 for example.
• Lenses announced by Sony (no less than 19) should offer a full range for the prosumer and the addicted photo lover. Most are coming from the Konica-Minolta catalog, but Carl Zeiss is also called in for new designs: A new 16-80 mm Vario-Sonnar T* zoom, two fixed focal length Planar T* 85 mm and Sonnar T* 135 mm.
• Image stabilization will use an actuated mobile sensor (even if the name changes to Super Steady Shot, this is probably 99% Konica-Minolta technology).
• Sensor mobility is also used to force clean the CCD by vibrating it upon power up. Copying Olympus, but intelligently.

Some features are less clear and should be seen in action:

• The new Bionz image manipulation/optimization is not well known yet. Sony has the epxerience to avoid being worried, but they include many new features that may err far from hig quality (management of luminosity and colour could be a great bonus or a complete crap depending on the actual implementation).

Some other features are completely unsurprising (knowing the context):

• 100-1600 ISO
• 2.5″ LCD screen, with histogram display.
• JPEG and RAW image formats.
• CompactFlash I/II & Microdrive cards
• MemoryStick Pro and Pro Duo (with adapter)
• Pentaprism viewfinder, but with characteristics near a Dynax 5D (I would have prefered the much better 7D).
• Minolta-compatible flash system.
• 3 images/seconde (unlimited in JPEG, 6 images max in RAW)

Finally, priced around 1000$ with a 18-70mm zoom , the camera will be available as soon as July in the USA. Pre-orders immediately accepted.

Previews on the main photo reference web sites

• DPreview
• Au sommaire de Photim (Chasseur d’Image)
• DCresource
• Imaging Resource

In a publi-interview, he tells us that Sony does not intend to wait with the current large offer of existing lenses compatible with the Minolta lens-mount. They will launch 20 new lenses in year starting this Summer to complement the unannounced offer of digital single lens reflex cameras expected after buying the photo business of the dying Konica-Minolta photo group.

http://www.digit.no/wip4/detail.epl?id=91529