Photoclub Alpha

AWARD winning event photographer Keith Trainor – winner of the first ever UK Event Photographer of the Year title in the annual British Professional Photography Awards – hits the road with Sony shortly in the UK to bring a profitable, high energy new line of business to established photo studios and new business entrants.

OUR final production Alpha 900 body arrived on Saturday September 20th, and went along to photokina 2008 on Monday 22nd where it was used in a routine way - without flash - to take whatever pictures were needed for magazine reports. Sometimes it can be better just to use a camera on whatever difficult or poor subjects the world throws at you, than to devise impressive test situations.

Part 3 of the conference presentations, transcribed from a recording by Shirley Kilpatrick. This section deals with the revolutionary new adjustable focusing screen and viewfinder which enables error-free 100 per cent viewing, and the reasons Sony chose to make a 24.6 megapixel full frame sensor. To start reading with the first Part, go to Part 1.

Transcribed by Shirley Kilpatrick from audio record of the conference. For the opening speeches, see our Part 1 of this report.

Nick Sharples: Thank you Fujio-san. I hope that leaves you in no doubt about our commitment at Sony to excellence in digital imaging, and how importantly we consider the launch of our flagship Alpha digital SLR; so it gives me great pleasure to invite Toru Katsumoto, senior general manager of our digital imaging business group, to introduce our new flagship Alpha digital SLR.

By Shirley Kilpatrick - transcribed from recording made during the conference in Edinburgh.
(This is a close transcript of speeches delivered by Sony execs, with photos).

You can download a Sony press conference video from IFA Berlin show via this link:

http://www.gginternet1.co.uk/sony01/

It is mainly about HDTV Motionflow, LED technology, Reader, OLED (Organic LED) screens, Handycam, the electronic Picture Frame, something called Sountina which appears to radiate sound from a column speaker - etc. It features Fujio Nishida, President of Sony Europe; Chairman and CEO Sir Howard Stringer making jokes which fell on a rather mirthless set of ears;

“We continue to grow our enormous digital imaging business where we maintain leading market share”, said Stringer, before lauding the success of Blu-Ray (something which was by no means sure until recently).

He promised network connectivity in 90% of devices in 2010 - which means, perhaps, that DSLRs will have built-in WiFi, just to keep up the count towards a target figure. But he also refers to “electronic” devices in this context, and the Alpha division appears to be a separate category.

He said that Sony has committed to doubling its revenue from countries like China, Russia, Brazil and the Eastern European zone. “The global economic downturn is beginning to have an effect on Western Europe”, he told the journalists, but the east was showing a 25% growth. Eastern Europe and Russia show a 60% sales increase for Sony. Poland showed a 65% sales increase in the first four months of 2008. In Turkey, Sony has seen 43 months of consecutive growth, increasing by 500% in five years.

Nishida said that new products would be launched in Europe on the same date as in Japan. These include the OLED TV XEL-1 which is only 3mm deep. The Bravia EX-1 HDTV will receive its HD content via a wireless link from a media box sited up to 30 metres away. It mounts on the wall like a picture, without wires except power supply.

He said that the 50Hz frame rate of TVs was now old-fashioned and too slow for fast-moving sports. Motionflow introduced 100Hz in March 2007. The new Bravia 200Hz Z-4500 has four times the frame rate of standard HDTV, using algorithms to interpolate between the frames of the original. It will be on sale by Christmas.

New LED TVs would use side-injected illumination instead of a lighting panel placed behind the picture elements. The Bravia ZX-1, only 9.9mm thick, is the world’s slimmest TV and uses this new illumination method. It will also go on sale in Europe in December.

After discussing Blu-Ray, Nishida introduced the Sony T-500 with 10.1 megapixel still camera shooting 720p HDTV video clips, which goes on sale from this month. He then moved on to Walkman S-series players including photo storage, and mood sensing - it will pick the right music to play according to your activity level.

The Sony Reader was explained in the conference by Nishida - it is an electronic book reading device - and its first launch will be in the UK this week, followed by rollout in other countries. Nishida-san concluded with discussion of built-in wireless networking and control connectivity, including reference to Cybershot cameras but not to the Alpha range.

Simon McDowell, of Sony Entertainment Europe, spoke mainly about Blu-Ray and home entertainment. The most spooky thing is a new Blu-Ray based feature, BDLive, which lets you upload a snapshot of yourself into a movie and appear in the film…

Fujio Nishida concluded the press conference by announcing football sponsorship of the EUFA Champions League - a new signing to continue for a further 3 years up to 2012. “We have some exciting technology developments planned for football in the coming months”, he said.

BDLive to let the viewer in as a substitute?

- DK

We have received the first press release today (Sept 8th) for Sony’s presence at photokina 2008. It doesn’t mention the still DSLR range except in referring to digital photography in general. Here is the text.

Sony press release:

Paris, 4 September 2008 - As the world moves on, files get bigger. From high-megapixel compact cameras to the latest Sony α Digital SLR with its 5 frames per second continuous shooting capability, the pressure is on for flash memory. High Definition camcorders are tightening the screw even further, so Sony Recording Media & Energy (RME) has created a solution in the form of the Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo™ HX.

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.

Sony has announced the September introduction of the most powerful flash yet for the Alpha system, the Sony HVL-F58AM which incorporates a brand new body design allowing optimum bounce flash illumination regardless of how you hold the camera.

Increases in pixel count are often dismissed because to ‘double’ the resolution of a 6 megapixel sensor you would need 24 megapixels. Indeed, to double it linearly you would - but the human eye judges density of detail on an area basis.

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.

Today I took delivery of a Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G SSM lens. There is no doubt this is the best built Sony SAL lens I’ve handled (the CZ 135mm 1.8, 85mm f1.4 are a class above again). It weighs over 800g with its lens-hood, which is one of the most efficient deep tele hoods I’ve seen.

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.

The first SONY World Photography Awards were presented in the late April sunshine of Cannes, to what must have been an exclusive gala dinner audience - at €250 a head, our ‘man on the spot’ Thomas Goseberg decided against the opportunity to take his wife out for a quiet meal…

USERS of the Nikon D3 downloading the latest firmware update have found information strings referring to the D3X and listing the file sizes the forthcoming camera will produce. The sizes match the pixel count of the Sony full-frame CMOS sensor due to be used in the ‘Alpha 900′ Sony full-frame body.

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.

Apple’s Aperture 2.0 is a tedious program to test, with all its creation of ‘projects’ and ‘libraries’, ‘albums’, ‘vaults’ and nonstandard GUI, and it isn’t fast in processing files or passing them to Photoshop (which it does in 16-bit form, just another step to reverse before saving as far as I’m concerned). However, it’s handling Alpha 700 raw quite well. And it does things differently, with non-destructive raw editing, stacks of image versions, and so on.

The latest full release - no longer Beta, and accepting previous C1 Pro activation keys for unlimited access but otherwise now on 30-day trial - of Capture One v4 now handles Sony Alpha 700 raw files and transforms high ISO rendering in comparison to the industry standard Adobe Camera Raw.

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.

NOT everyone will want the live view offered by the A300 and A350 - it does turn out to be more or less as we suggested, a secondary optical path adjacent to the eyepiece inside the prism housing. I’ll explain here exactly what the implications are, and why a future model - let’s call it the A500 - offering the 14.2 megapixel sensor without the live view may be worth waiting for.

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.

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.

After reading Andrea Nivini’s article in Italian Tutti Fotografi, December 2007, which launches an attack on Adobe’s Camera Raw plug-in and its handling of many camera types - but specifically, the Sony Alpha 700 - I decided to check out whether the December 5th release, ACR 4.3.1, fixed the problems.

Take your passion for photography to the next level with the most advanced digital SLR camera from Sony to date. Until 31 January 2008 you can claim up to £150 cashback on the new A700 DSLR.

This information is from the Sony UK website with some explanatory additions.