Photoclub Alpha

At the end of September 2006, I set off for a quick visit to photokina in Cologne, having parted company with Icon’s am-pro magazine ƒ2 and not really needing to report on the whole show in detail. Here’s the report I wrote then, with photos, and some thoughts for the 2008 show.

There seems to be a lot of speculation about the Alpha 900 or Pro, and uncertainty about the timing of introduction. The August 14th date is not the 900, it’s two Cybershot models. The Alpha 900 will, as far as we are aware, be shown to the press on September 9th/10th worldwide.

Well, it looks as if the 14th August UK press conference for exciting digital camera news may not be about the Alpha 900 after all - Sony has just officially announced that some colourful little Cyber-shot models with ISO 3200 capability will be unveiled there, and no mention of the A900. Roll on September 9th!

Here’s Sony’s release on the new Cyber-shots - I apologise for leaving the hyperbolic advertising style adjectives (unusable editorially, and just a waste of words) in place:

SONY UK has notified us of a press conference to announce an ‘exciting digital camera’ on August 14th.

They have also said that full details will be provided soon. It is possible this will be embargoed - we may attend a meeting on the 14th, but have to agree not to publish until a date later on, perhaps in September.

Update: it seems there is an international Sony Alpha press trip on Sept 9/10th to Edinburgh. Members of the Euro technical press have been invited, as a two-dayer with a stack of nightlife (the Festival and Fringe have just kicked into action today) it is an ideal location for putting the Alpha 900 and new 16-35mm and 70-400mm into the hands of journos. But it’s one week after the Sept 2nd close of the Festival itself, with the fireworks display. The Fringe is still running.

It seems very unlikely that the Aug 14th conference would be the long-awaited Alpha 900 launch since it is only a single day, or part of a day, and would not take place so long before an apparent pre-photokina pan-European press event. Judging by previous launches - Alpha 100, 2-day event in Morocco June 5-7th 2006; Alpha 700 2-day event on Lake Como Italy end of 1st week in September 2007; my guess is that the Edinburgh event is the big hands-on opportunity for the flagship full frame DSLR almost one year to the day after the launch of the 700. A very busy year, too, during which Sony has launched three other DSLR bodies and several important lenses.

Well, Edinburgh’s 45 minutes from my door and even if I am surplus to the tightly controlled A-list of such events I may be able to drop in and join them for a drink, as there’s one or two folk going I would like to say hello to. But then, Edinburgh is an airport! Just because the press gets to land there does not mean the city is where they are headed. I’ve been to big press events at Gleneagles (Kodak) and even in the middle of the Berwickshire countryside (Canon) in the past. It could be anywhere in Scotland - and some places in Scotland are not on our doorstep!

It costs me over one working day and around £200 to get to a London event (I’d rather by invited to almost anywhere in Europe than London in summer…) but whatever goes, the September date is an essential launch I am sure, and not just another Cybershot across the bows of the enemy!

- DK

What we thought would be the ‘Alpha Pro’ project - display centres for the entire system sited at key retail outlets through Britain - turned out to be the ‘ACE’ project. That is, Sony Alpha Centres of Excellence. London Camera Exchange Colchester, one of the selected dealers, supplied these shots of the new showcase.

Sony has announced the September introduction of the most powerful flash yet for the Alpha system, which incorporates a brand new body design allowing optimum bounce flash illumination regardless of how you hold the camera.

The introduction of a £399 (street price, RRP £449) DSLR with 14.2 megapixels – with or without a useful type of Live View – should have been applauded by reviewers. It’s the single most important point about the camera. No other DSLR approaches this image size and resolution at such a low price.

Our cover photo for the Spring 2008 issue of Photoworld was taken with a Tamron 70-300mm zoom costing less than £120 from most larger retailers or internet shops. The reputation of the lens meant we had to take a look at it, because the current choice in the Sony range is limited to one ‘kit’ 75-300mm costing £179, and the new 70-300mm G SSM lens costing £600.

Now that there are five Sony Alpha DSLR bodies in circulation, with many owners of the original 2006 Alpha 100 considering a replacement, the differences between this ur-Alpha and the 2007-8 generation of Alpha 700, 200, 300 and 350 need examining.

Epson today announces the launch of its high specification professional A3+ photo printer - the Stylus Photo R2880. Aimed at professional photographers and keen amateurs, the printer utilises Epson’s advanced UltraChrome K3 with Vivid Magenta pigment inks

The launch of the Alpha 350, with its small 0.74X viewfinder, makes a proper eyepiece magnifier attachment an essential addition to the Sony accessory range. Olympus, Nikon and Pentax all have such magnifiers, which permit a full view of the screen for most wearers and make all the difference to the manual focusing and general comfort in composing shots. We tested two devices, one of them the highly affordable Seagull 1x-2.5x right angle finder, and the other Olympus’s ME-1 1.2X ocular magnifier.

The Sony Alpha 350 14.2 megapixel DSLR pioneers a new type of Live View, related to Olympus’s original Mode A of the E-330 where a beamsplitting arrangement allowed a video CCD to view the actual focusing screen of the SLR system.

There’s a lot of controversy right now about whether or not the image structure of the Alpha 700 files at very high ISO - mainly 3200 and 6400 - is as clean as raw processed results from other comparable cameras like the Canon 40D (does not offer ISO 6400), the Olympus E-3 (does not offer ISO 6400) or the Nikon D300. At the heart of this is the way different raw processors handle file conversion, and most specifically, the current performance of Adobe Camera Raw 4.3.1.

The Sony DSLR A200 is now on sale, following the end of Alpha 100 production. Although it is without any doubt the Alpha 100 replacement mentioned by Sony executives in October 2007, when they first revealed that the 100 was no longer being made, it is not an exact equivalent and represents a mixture of upgraded performance and simplified specification. Because it has gone in two directions at the same time, the A200 poses a problem for A100 owners.

The World Photography Awards (WPA), sponsored by Sony, proudly announces an impressive number of entries in its inaugural year. Submissions closed on 31st January with a total of 25,934 amateur photograph entries and 44,641 professional photograph entries across the categories.

The prototype ‘Flagship’ Alpha DSLR, with its 24 megapixel sensor, may offer live view - almost certainly off the sensor. Sony prototype (it is still officially in that state) product photographs reveal what looks like an extra button or sliding switch - and at least one rumour states that this is definitely for live view.

In mid 2007, rumours of a 14.8 megapixel Sony sensor came from the usual Far Eastern ‘inside’ sources. As a full-frame Alpha model (the so-called 900) had been previewed at PMA 2007, it was possible this megapixel count related to full frame, or near-full frame. It now looks as if it may have been a leak of development for currently rumoured 14.2 megapixel (active) Alpha 350, which is an APS-C sensor camera.

Sony Europe’s Recording Media & Energy (RME) division today announced a new LTO-4 photo contest promotion that offers the chance to win one of three digital cameras from Sony – in return for creative pictures of LTO-4 tape cartridges. The competition can be entered by distributors, resellers and end-customers of Sony’s LTO-4, its highest capacity media.

We have a Photoworld day in Edinburgh on February 10th 2008, to which all Photoclubalpha registered members are welcome (it is strictly by prior arrangement, so please do not turn up on the day). It starts at 10.30am and ends around 4.30pm, and will be held at Edinburgh Photographic Society. There is a small fee for refreshments. Details follow.

Sony say that the Alpha 100 has a 230,000 pixel rear screen and the Alpha 700 has 920,000 pixels. What they don’t make entirely clear is how many individual R, G or B pixels are used to create each ‘pixel’ of the image (complete RGB). In fact the 920,000 pixel screen is VGA - 640 x 480 - in display resolution, which is 307,000 pixels not 920,000. What is going on? We took some macro images to show you.

A mention of 16mm Minoltas reminded me that a few years ago I found a perfect kit - without outer box or instructions, sadly - at an antique fair. A daylight developing tank for the film turned up in the closing-down stock from Konica Minolta’s warehouse. I decided they should really find a new home together via the normal eBay route, but before they went, a studio shoot was needed to record them for our virtual museum.

On January 5th, Photoworld was lucky enough to be able to attend the dress rehearsal and official photo-call for the new Cirque du Soleil production at the Royal Albert Hall in London, and to put the Alpha 700 through its paces for high ISO fast action stage show capture. This article with large reproductions of the images appears in our Photoworld issue due out later in January.

AT THE Consumer Electronics Show, Las Vegas, Sony has announced introduction of the new Alpha DSLR-A200 camera which has been the subject of some strange speculation but was known beforehand to be a replacement for the Alpha 100. This is the first time a DSLR has been launched to the world at this show, and Sony’s decision to do so sends a major signal out as to where they see themselves and the Alpha system in the marketplace. It is highly competitive in price and we have just ordered our body for £369 including VAT (£314 + VAT) plus £13 express shipping from www.sonystyle.co.uk. This is exactly the same price as we paid for our last Alpha 100 in summer 2006.

SINCE September 2007 I have had for test the Canon EOS 40D, Sony Alpha 700, Nikon D300, Olympus E-3 and Nikon D3 in that order. The reports have been published in the British Journal of Photography, and later on in Master Photo Digital and f2 magazines (some are yet to appear, in February, in these titles). My own system is Sony Alpha but I have to be as objective as possible when field testing all makes. I also have to seek out the unique selling points, the reasons for owning any given model, rather than just compare them on a tick-chart feature basis.

With the Alpha 200 about to appear, I guess it’s time to sum up what I think about the Sony Alpha 700 and how it compares to the competition.

It’s the same on every web forum - if you post a digital picture which would be acceptable to a photo library or professional buyer, half a dozen grumpy one-liners will come out saying ‘That don’t look sharp to me’ or ‘there must be something wrong with your XXX’ (fill in D300, A700, E-3, D3, 40D as required). Then someone posts a hugely messed up image and people say ‘Wow! What sharpness!’…

Sony has released a firmware update for the Alpha 100 - version 1.04. This comes in four regional flavours and it is important to use the right one. Here are all the links you need plus instructions.

ON OCTOBER 10th I left the UK London press launch complete with an Alpha 700 review camera. I’ll be covering the many aspects of the Alpha 700 performance in later reviews, but this camera is so good I wanted to get just something out to you right the next day.

Adobe has posted updates to Photoshop, Lightroom, and the Photoshop Camera Raw plug-in, both available immediately for download on Adobe.com. The updates provide raw file support for 14 additional camera models and camera backs within Lightroom and Camera Raw, including the Sony Alpha 700. Links here.

THE question is being asked, will the Alpha 700 match the rich colour rendering of the Konica Minolta 7D and 5D? These cameras had identical colour profiles, and were in turn very similar to the Dimage A1 and A2. The Sony Alpha 100 proved very different. Here’s my best attempt to explain why.

TOUGH, RESPONSIVE α700 DELIVERS STUNNING NEXT-GENERATION PICTURE QUALITY… FROM SHOOTING TO VIEWING

Sep 6, 2007

• Superb picture quality with newly developed Sony 12.24 effective megapixel Exmorâ„¢ CMOS sensor and brand new high-speed BIONZâ„¢ processor with RAW noise reduction
• Ultra-responsive operation with fast, high-accuracy 11-point autofocus and 5fps continuous shooting
• New ‘Quick Navigation’ function for instant access to camera settings
• Rugged magnesium body with dust/moisture resistant seals
• ‘PhotoTV HD’ Full HD image display on new BRAVIA televisions
• 3-inch 921k dot photo-quality LCD screen and bright, high-magnification viewfinder