Sony Alpha 900 – Roumazeilles.net

Sony Alpha 900 – name confirmed by ad

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 14:49:42 +0000

A Danish photography magazine just leaked the official name of the new flagship camera from Sony.

Sony Alpha 900 - magazine ad

As everybody expected, it will be named Sony Alpha 900. Also,this tends to contradict the possibility of additional similar cameras (possibly with a different/smaller sensor).

Features

24.6 Mega Pixel Full Frame Exmor CMOS Sensor
Dual BIONZ Image Processing Engine
Intelligent Preview
100% Viewfinder (with 0.74x Magnification)
3.0”, 921K-pixel Hybrid LCD
9-point double-cross AF (with f2.8 wide-area sensor & 10-point secondary sensors)
5 fps continuous shooting
SteadyShot on the sensor

Update: Yet another ad has been found.

Sony Alpha 900 - Magazine ad

Sony Alpha 900: Sony confirms (most of) it

Yves Roumazeilles — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:09:55 +0000

In today’s press conference in Las Vegas, Sony confirmed nearly everything we were saying here yesterday: The Flagship model will be coming in 2008. It will have a Full Frame sensor of 24.6MP (I was off by 0.2MP only). It will be stabilized by Super Steady Shot (the in-body Sony image stabilization). But once again, we did not get the official name. I’ll keep thinking that it will be Sony Alpha 900.

Sony Alpha 900: 24.8 mega-pixels in Full Frame in 2008

Yves Roumazeilles — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 19:40:37 +0000

Ok! Sony did not disclose this in so many words yet, but it’s become quite clear. Let’s review the facts and the rumours:

Fact: Last year, Sony showed a mockup of a future Digital SLR camera tagged as “flagship”. Rumour: The enormous size of the pentaprism of the viewfinder shown lets people wonder whether Sony will make it a camera with a big Full Frame (after Canon and then Nikon).
Rumour: The high-end “flagship” camera should be named Sony Alpha 900 to keep the naming conventions of the pro-line of late Minolta brand.
Fact: Sony announces today that they have developped a Full-Frame sensor of 24.81MP resolution with a set of very good features for superlative image quality. The chip will be shipping in industrial quantities before the end of 2008.

The logical conclusion: Sony will use this new sensor in its flagship camera. It will be named Alpha 900. It will have 24,9 mega-pixel resolution, continuous shooting at 6 or 6.3 frames per second, 12 bit pixel management, optional capture of a window leading to lower resolution upon request (maybe with even faster continuous shooting). The Sony Alpha 900 will be available in 2008 (using the full production of the sensor).

The only thing that seems less certain seems to be the name, because this one relies only on hearsay.

Sources for the sensor specification: PhotographyBlog, DPreview.

Photo of the Sony A900 (Alpha 900)

Yves Roumazeilles — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:00:34 +0000

A photo has popped up on the Internet forums allegedly showing the Alpha 900 in Berlin IFA. If it’s a fake, it’s a rather good one.

From the look of it, I would draw a few conclusions and comments (only valid if the image is a real scoop).

Sony has cleaned up the original design a little from what was shown last March. Specially the pentaprism, while still large, looks less rough and unfinished.
No weather-sealing visible between the body and the lens, but there could be some level of weather protection for the body buttons and such.
Upper LCD screen, probably in addition to the one on the back of the body. This was a feature disappearing from most cameras (think high-end customers, pro photographers in sight).
Most of the interface elements have already shown on the Sony Alpha 700 (incl. the battery grip)

Anyway, it’s probably a fake model (look at the chamber closed by a black plastic, and the alignment of the top LCD with the rest of the body looks a bit low). But it could well be a reasonably good demonstration of the current state of the external design in the Sony labs.