Photoclub Alpha

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.

The World Photography Awards (WPA), sponsored by Sony, is an international showcase of the best images taken by renowned and undiscovered photographers alike. From landscape to music and photojournalism to fashion photography, the WPA is the first awards of its kind and is supported by hundreds of the industry’s top photographers, critics, gallery curators, directors, founders and more.

Photo © Ed Robinson/OneRedEye courtesy WPA

THE ALPHA 700 cameras tried in Italy by press representatives, including Paul Olsen of Dinside Data in Norway who sent us the raw and JPEG files for the image used here, may or may not have been pre-production samples. Some cameras which were felt to be poor had over 1,000 exposures recorded before the event. Olsen’s camera appears to have been new, recording frame counts in the 40s during his shoot, and may be a final production sample rather than one of the much-used demo bodies.

System
Camera type: Digital SLR with built-in flash and interchangeable lenses
Lens mount: Sony mount; compatible with Minolta A-type bayonet mount
Lens compatibility: All Sony a lenses and Konica Minolta MAXXUM / DYNAX lenses

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

PRODUCT shots of the Sony Alpha 700 have been released, and are shown here to our standard web page size of 600 pixels or smaller.

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.

FUJIO NISHIDA, President of Sony Europe, speaking at the Berlin IFA consumer electronics and technology show on August 30th, mentioned the Alpha system alongside Cyber-shot digital still cameras and Handycam digital video as part of Sony’s plan to introduce HD (High Definition Television) formats throughout. He held up the new ‘smile shoot’ Cyber-shot T200 with its ability to output playback of images in 16:9 format directly to Sony Bravia LCD TVs.

With only three days to go before the launch of the new Alpha, rumours of a ’sneak preview’ press release have appeared on dPreview’s internet forums. Leon van Bommel, writing from Holland, says he has seen a magazine which has a photograph showing the camera with a kit lens marked 16-105mm f/3.5-5.6. Certainly, a more expensive body than the A100 would look out of place wearing the $99 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens which is the only cheap option now.

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.

INSIDE sources - mainly people who have been invited to press launch events - confirm that Sony is to show its new Advanced Amateur camera, thought to be called the Alpha 300, on Thursday September 6th. A press conference is being held in Italy on the 5th/6th, and journalists from European mainland countries have been invited to attend. Nigel Atherton, editor of What Digital Camera magazine, wrote on the Amateur Photographer public website forums that the product/s would be unveiled on the 5th. (I have now seen a programme for the event, and the main launch conference is on the 6th).

This article has been edited on January 28th 2008 - the Alpha 700 was known shortly after it appeared, but I left the original title with ‘A300′. Since there is to be an Alpha 300 (probably the cause of the confusion originally as this model number was identified in Sony website databases) I am changing the title and references to the body to avoid search engines finding the wrong information.

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).

Weybridge, 22nd August 2007 - The stylish, slimline Cyber-shot T Series from Sony gains two feature-packed new models that make it easier than ever to grab great pictures (reads a press release issued by Sony UK).

THE PRESS and trade announcement made below on August 20th 2007 does little to confirm on deny rumours about the forthcoming AA and Flagship DSLRs. Why? You need to study the image, and study the dimension data, and fully understand what they are talking about, before the implications are clear.

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:

More work went into this page than you think! While it was possible to get an idea of Sony’s lenses and cameras planned for 2007-8 from the group image, the individual press images have all been shot to different scales.

This review from the Summer 2007 edition of Photoworld has been expanded here, and covers the Remote Release IR-1n kit along with third party remote triggers and flash synchronisation options for the Alpha system.

NOT AS a force in the market but as a camera body! This question divides the camp of Alpha owners expecting to upgrade to the new Advanced Amateur model (codename A300) when it appears later this year. We now expect the AA model to be on sale before the end of October 2007 in some markets, with a publicity release date some before this.

Electronic Flash EF-530 DG SUPER

Advanced features and high performance for the latest digital SLR cameras and 35mm film SLR cameras

NEWS RELEASE from Sigma UK

9 July, 2007 - As take up of High Definition (HD) gains momentum in Europe, Sony is to launch a major Pan-European marketing campaign to demonstrate the breadth and depth of the company’s HD proposition and to educate consumers about the intricacies of HD.

IN 1998 Minolta published, for their 70th anniversary, a large poster featuring all the landmark cameras from their own museum and employee collections. Many of the cameras shown - all fairly small on the poster - were well used and worn examples. The original image-files for the poster, which we have archived, are of poor quality. They are Japanese inkset CMYK sharpened for pre-press, with very dark gamma. This page re-creates all the information from the original poster, complete with the photographs.

THE appearance of press-release resolution (14Mb) images of the new Alpha - un-named but thought to be the Alpha 200 or 300 because of the product code earlier assigned to shots of prototypes at PMA - combines with reports on various forums from European Sony executives visiting Japan to suggest that the launch announcement for the new model and a range of full-frame lenses is imminent.

Press release from Sigma 1.30pm today - their phone lines have just been restored after a day out of operation, were cut via hatch in road by the gang:

THE FIRST QUESTION anyone asks about the Sony GPS-CS1 device is whether it will work with their non-Sony digital camera. The answer is ‘yes’ but you may need to buy some extra software, as it only comes with software to link up to Sony Picture Motion Browser. If you can ensure that you buy the product sold as GPS-CS1KA it should include a copy of this software in full. If you buy the product coded only as GPS-CS1, it may have nothing apart from a patch-updater program you are supposed to use with your existing Sony installation. So make sure you know exactly what you are buying (there appears to be no price difference, and very few retailers are making any distinction between the two bundles). There seems to be no reason to continue offering the kit with the updater only.

THE LENSBABY was a novelty item when first introduced as a low-cost meniscus lens mounted on a flexible concertina tube with an SLR mount-fitting at the other end. Like the Diana or Holga cameras sometimes used by professionals to capture a feel of post-modern grunge, it used aberrations creatively.

Shortly before the June 6th 2006 worldwide launch of the Sony Alpha digital SLR system the European press learned that major title editors would meet in Marrakesh for the unveiling of the Alpha 100. No-one anticipated being driven miles into the desert-like countryside of Oued Nfis for the experience of a night under canvas after witnessing feats of Berber horsemanship and a massive pyrotechnic intro! Read David Kilpatrick’s original report from the Summer 2006 edition of Photoworld magazine.