Photoclub Alpha

Canon has today officially announced the 15.5 megapixel APS-C EOS 50D. This is a 1.6X factor sensor, packing a density well in excess of the Alpha 350 - if Sony was to make an Alpha with the same pixel density it would be 17.5 megapixels, and a full framer would be 38.5 megapixels.

It’s not going to be long before we see the Alpha 900, and some cameras are known to be out there on trial in the hands of Sony staff and pre-release testers. I am not one, so rest assured, this is not a leak! What can you expect from the Alpha 900’s full-frame prism finder?

This article was originally published in Photoworld magazine April 2008. It discusses the reasons for choosing between the 18-70mm, 16-105mm, 16-80mm, 18-200mm and 18-250mm kit lens choices for the Sony Alpha DSLR system and has been updated from the original text.

SONY Alpha prices are now the lowest of any competing DSLR system - for current-model bodies - on the UK market. Dealers are now selling the Alpha 200 body for as little as £229.99 and even the Alpha 350 has dropped to under £400 body-only. £100 cashback on the Alpha 700 body, £150 on any Alpha 700 body+lens kit, has been extended to September 30th.

A typical specialist Sony ACE dealer advertisement from London Camera Exchange, about to be printed in Photoworld, reveals the latest price deals:

Click on the ad to view a full size copy. If you call LCE be sure to ask about their deals offering one year’s FREE membership of Photoclubalpha with four issues of our full colour quarterly Photoworld magazine.

One of the problems with the Alpha 350/300 is that the Live View is linked to the settings when you use Manual exposure. It provides a form of metering, a relatively accurate preview of under or over exposure. This makes it impossible to use Manual with studio flash (AC mains strobe) setups. Currently, there is no menu setting to turn off ‘exposure preview with manual’ and enable ‘auto LV gain with manual’. But there is a solution.

The parallel development of Carl Zeiss lenses for Sony (AF lenses in the Alpha mount) and independent manual focus lenses for other makes continues. The latest CZ design is a revision of the classic 18mm Distagon last seen in the Contax system, optimised for colour balance and reflection supression with digital SLRs.

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.

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.

FUJIFILM UK Ltd. (Managing Director Hiroshi Saigusa) has announced that it is to increase prices on its range of photographic papers and films in the United Kingdom. The price changes are being implemented on a worldwide basis.

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 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.

Kenro has announced the release of a series of new hard plastic LCD panel protectors from Marumi - including one for the Sony Alpha 100. The price is very reasonable at only £6.99 retail.

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 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 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.

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.

We have three cartons of these backpacks remaining - they take up a lot of space, which is needed, so I have cut the prices to £29.95 inc post UK, £39.95 anywhere else in the world.

The Bags and Cases sales page has been revised with the new details:

http://photoclubalpha.com/club-offers/bags-cases/

Once sold, they are gone. I will be monitoring sales over the next day and will remove the items once stock gets too low.

David

Online trade photographic supplier www.photomart.co.uk is to hold a bumper day of photo workshops in its huge London showrooms on November 28, 2007. Billed as an “Anniversary Day”, the day-long programme of workshops is to celebrate the second anniversary of the opening of this major photographic venue.

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.

TEMPORARY website pages on the afternoon (GMT) of September 5th managed to leak the entire specification sheet and several new PR images of the advanced amateur Alpha model, along with its name - the Alpha 700. You wouldn’t pick a wife or husband on the basis of their on-paper specification, so remember, the only way to partner up with a DSLR and be happy is to try it in your hands first.

Marrutt Digital has introduced a range of luxurious leather-look professional Photobooks designed for professional photographers to produce Photobooks in-house in minutes, at a fraction of the cost of outsourcing using their own inkjet prints. They are exclusive to Marrutt, who are United Kingdom distributors for Lyson papers and Lysonic inks.

SELECTED ALPHA system lens prices - including the 70-200mm f/2.8 SSM - have been cut on the direct sales SonyStyle website for the USA. B&H and other retailers are following suit.

BRANCHES of Currys, the large UK electronic box-shifter, have been displaying notices saying ‘Discontinued’ under their remaining Alpha 100 kits. This needed some explanation, so we contacted Sony UK to ask whether the camera was genuinely discontinued.

Weybridge, 22nd August 2007 - For sports, for travel or simply for having fun with friends and family – the Cyber-shot H3 from Sony packs big-camera features into its ultra-compact body at a price that’s irresistible (reads Sony press release).

DUE to be launched on Monday August 20th to the press, and to reach the shops a month later, the new Canon EOS 40D anticipates some of the rumoured features of the Sony AA (Advanced Amateur) project also known as the A300. It also leapfrogs the more conversative rumours.

To save a few dollars, whoever assembled a double page advert for Sony-sponsored photo workshops which (I gather) has just appeared in the US magazine Popular Photography went to cheap online stock library iStockphoto and downloaded this image: