Sony’s Photo Enthusiast DSLR

Latest Top-of-the-Range Digital Camera for Minolta Lenses

Sep 18, 2007 Philip Northeast

Sony aims their new ? (Alpha) digital camera at amateur photographers taking their hobby seriously. The A700's specifications will interest budget-minded professionals.

Sony may be a new name in the digital SLR marketplace. With their acquisition of Minolta, they have a reputation and user base to build on, as this digital camera is compatible with most Minolta Maxxum® mount lenses in addition to Sony lenses

Sensor Features

The heart of the A700 is the new APS-C sized sensor with over 12-megapixel resolution, providing the detail necessary for large prints. Sony’s new Exmor sensor has host of features to make good use of all those extra megapixels.

With image stabilization built into the sensor, the A700 offers the benefits of shake reduction to photographers over their whole collection of lenses, including the legacy Minolta lenses. Sony says that their system will allow an extra four shutter speed step reduction for hand-held shots in situations normally requiring a tripod.

To help reduce dust spots on images, the A700 has an anti-static coating on the sensor filter, and the sensor automatically shakes to clear any dust particles when turning the camera on or off.

Noise Reduction

Noise is increasingly a problem as the megapixel count increases. Sony brings their electronic innovation background to the digital camera arena with a dual attack on the noise problem. Sony applies the first stage of noise reduction techniques to the signals very early on in the capture process, while the signals are still in analog form. After the image’s conversion to digital data, the A700 applies second stage of noise reduction to the image.

“These digital signals are virtually immune to external noise and interference.” said Phil Lubell, Sony Electronics’ director of marketing for digital cameras.

As testament to Sony’s faith in their noise reduction technology, the A700 offers ISO settings up to an impressive 6400, making the A700 useable in a wider range of low light conditions. The A700 includes a host of electronic aids for the serious photographer, housed inside the lightweight, dust- and moisture-resistant magnesium alloy body.

Lenses

Besides being compatible with a wide range of existing Minolta autofocus lenses, Sony continues to add new lenses for the Minolta mount system. Two new lenses introduced with the A700 are a 16-105 mm f3.5-5.6 zoom and an 18-250 mm f3.5-5.6 zoom. With the smaller APS-sized sensor, the focal lengths extend by factor of 1.5 in normal 35mm terms.

As well as their own lenses, Sony also offers lenses for their DSLRs wearing the legendary Carl Zeiss name, promising exception optical quality for the very serious photographer.

Other features

The A700 uses Compact Flash memory cards as well as their own memory sticks for digital image storage up to 8 GB capacity, important with the increased file sizes due to the higher megapixel output from the camera’s sensor.

Power comes from a Lithium battery pack rated at 650 shots on a fully charged battery, and there is an indication of the percentage of how much battery power remains. An optional battery grip doubles the capacity and the camera will automatically switch over to the spare unit when the main battery is exhausted.

A nice pro touch is the remote capture application; the photographer controls the camera from a compatible PC via USB without even touching the camera, and files are stored on the computer instead of the media card. This feature is used mainly by professional studio photographers and underlines the A700’s advanced capabilities.

The autofocus system has a nice touch; it is activated automatically when the photographer starts to look through the viewfinder, making reflex grab shots a little bit easier.

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