can anyone anticipate what the a750 will have?

[David Kilpatrick]

They'll just adopt the old Japanese system - Alpha Sweet, Alpha Kiss, Alpha Fun, Alpha David Bailey Special Edition, Alpha Courreges Style...

The ultimate camera will of course be the Alpha Omega.

Actually, I had a dream about this and their solution was Roman numerals. I was handling a camera labelled Alpha VII.

Of course, eight-bit binary model numbers would be fine and would allow plenty of future models - Alpha 00000110...

Or they could use the Nikon and Canon method of adding an X and S or Pentax's use of L for entry level. I think they should just grab all the available letter suffixes, and have the Alpha 900 XLS.

David

[Greg Beetham]

When I was reading that, I had a horrible thought, can you imagine there in the studio up on the tripod a pink "A900" with Alpha Smile or Alpha kiss written on it.....gaaaaag kof kof
Greg

[Dr. Harout]

It will have a tonometer (blood pressure measuring device) with it regulating the SSS

[Cross_lane]

Seriously...... wouldn't mind a Really good APS-c Camera esp. for wildlife... smaller FOV....lighter lens...
Maybe a A90 as a 12-16 MPx that can do 9-10 FPS and a huge buffer that can take at least 50 RAW files in one burst. Good High ISO also would be good... ISO about one stop noisier than the D3 (if Sony can work up a miracle although it IS very possible). More (cheap and good) tele lenses would be nice also. Must be built very well.. VG must be available. VF must be a bright and nice to use pentaprism. Focusing screen must be easily interchangeable. AF (for such an expensive APS camera) don't need too many points. Maybe 1 triple cross sensor at the center, 10 double cross sensors and 10 other single cross sensors making a total of 21 sensors. The VF must be able to see through the AF sensors. Optional also... 11 point mode and 21 point mode is user selectable. AF from -5 till 24 EV would be really nice. AF assist light MUST be very useful. 3.5" HD ready screen, 16:9 ratio (A lil bit wishful). 16:9 so that the Image will be viewed on the left and the info shown on the right. SSS is a must. The screw drive (for older lenses and current screw drive lenses) MUST be very powerful (although not to strong as to destroy lenses excluding Sigma 70-300 APO) and silent enough to sound more like SSM. AF has to be fast also (2X the one of the A700 so people won't complain of screw drive that sucks). VG should be done more like the canon style ones... not having the grip lower down. Top panel LCD will be there for those who want it but it will be under the 3.5" HD ready screen. Controls must be intuitive and good. Eye start focus will definitely be there. But when at Wide AF mode there will be a sensor in the VF (cannot be seen) that detects where your eye is looking and focus at the focusing point closest to it. Cost will be around 3000-3900 $ (much of it due to the super good AF).. For sports shooters and wildlife shooters..... of course also useful for macro shooters.

MY DREAM CAMERA (it's realistic also)

[Cross_lane]

left these few points out... It will be placed above the A900... it's a pro camera.... intergrated VG..... on JPEG mode it will have auto CA correction and auto Vignetting correction.. Xfine, Fine, Standard and Basic JPEG modes. RAW, cRAW, sRAW and csRAW for RAW modes. hopefully 16mp. Transfer speed from camera must also be fast... like double the speed of the A70 transfer speed... the Wireless transfer will be nice also (the ones on the cybershots)

[Greg Beetham]

It will have a tonometer (blood pressure measuring device) with it regulating the SSS

Doc I've got a feeling I'd need a defibrillator instead...if DK's premonition came too pass.
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

Seriously...... wouldn't mind a Really good APS-c Camera esp. for wildlife... smaller FOV....lighter lens...
Maybe a A90 as a 12-16 MPx that can do 9-10 FPS and a huge buffer that can take at least 50 RAW files in one burst. Good High ISO also would be good... ISO about one stop noisier than the D3 (if Sony can work up a miracle although it IS very possible). More (cheap and good) tele lenses would be nice also. Must be built very well.. VG must be available. VF must be a bright and nice to use pentaprism. Focusing screen must be easily interchangeable. AF (for such an expensive APS camera) don't need too many points. Maybe 1 triple cross sensor at the center, 10 double cross sensors and 10 other single cross sensors making a total of 21 sensors. The VF must be able to see through the AF sensors. Optional also... 11 point mode and 21 point mode is user selectable. AF from -5 till 24 EV would be really nice. AF assist light MUST be very useful. 3.5" HD ready screen, 16:9 ratio (A lil bit wishful). 16:9 so that the Image will be viewed on the left and the info shown on the right. SSS is a must. The screw drive (for older lenses and current screw drive lenses) MUST be very powerful (although not to strong as to destroy lenses excluding Sigma 70-300 APO) and silent enough to sound more like SSM. AF has to be fast also (2X the one of the A700 so people won't complain of screw drive that sucks). VG should be done more like the canon style ones... not having the grip lower down. Top panel LCD will be there for those who want it but it will be under the 3.5" HD ready screen. Controls must be intuitive and good. Eye start focus will definitely be there. But when at Wide AF mode there will be a sensor in the VF (cannot be seen) that detects where your eye is looking and focus at the focusing point closest to it. Cost will be around 3000-3900 $ (much of it due to the super good AF).. For sports shooters and wildlife shooters..... of course also useful for macro shooters.

MY DREAM CAMERA (it's realistic also)

One thing the APS-C format does well is wildlife (and macro) besides having a freebie magnification of 1.5X it also has a small DOF advantage over FF, but I think the A700 has plenty of attributes for a good very good wildlife camera, except possibly a "wake on call" full control remote with remote view screen, that would make it the ultimate WF cam IMHO.
I'm not sure if you would get focus tracking at 9-10 frames/sec..(assuming that you are using it for moving subjects), and that's some serious data shunting using RAW.
Agree with the lenses, I still would like a 100-300 f4.5 or a 100-400 f4.5-5.6 and a 400 f4, Sony already apparently have a 24-105 f4 in the pipeline, that would be very good on the close compositions (birds at nests from camera in hide etc.) for either APS-C or FF.
I'm not sure what I would need 21 focus points for in a wildlife cam, keeping track of just one focus point and exactly what it's focussing on when there is a moving subject, I've foumd that is plenty for me too handle, maybe you could elaborate on this and how you would put them too effective use...
A 3.5" 16:9 screen would be just a bit less than 2" high, might be a bit difficult too work into the rear of a DSLR and leave room for the controlls on the RH side, though the left hand buttons could be transferred to the bottom like the 50D (I think), the current 3" screen is about 2.4" high for comparison (at 5:4 ratio) if my sums are correct, with the simultaneous data/picture display the resultant photo display would end up being a fair bit smaller than what we already have...and how would the zoom function work??
The AF drive on the A700 is already capable of finding some lenses wanting by all accounts, so doubling that would be pushing it I think, one way would be to have an onboard database of lenses that the system automatically makes allowances for...that might work, but what about all those lenses that aren't on the database, most likely all the Sigmas and a good many of the Tamrons....one could always use MF I guess, or the camera could default to MF if it detects a non compliant lens...Sony most likely would have too build a new HD range of lenses just for the new camera, so you could actually use the 2X AF, but from what I've heard recently there is going to be a gradual migration to SSM, don't know what that holds for the in body motor in the future though.
Actually (could be wrong), I doubt that Sony would build a 1D class cam with integrated grip just for APS-C format, realistically why would they when the FF cam would most likely have the ability to do APS-C as well anyway with a frame mask visible in the VF or the rear screen during LV, or both.
Greg

[KevinBarrett]

As long as we're making wish lists, what would be so hard about providing a 5:4 shooting mode with guides in the viewfinder? It would be loads more useful than 16:9, especially for portrait photographers. In fact, I'd like my photos optimized more for portrait standards and available picture frames instead of for the wide screen HDTV that I don't have.

[Greg Beetham]

I agree, for entertainment the 16X9 aspect is much much better than 5X4 in TV screens and computer moniters (for gamers), but I can't see it as much use in a business sense, where I think the 5X4 is much superior, a more efficient use of desk space is had by the 5X4 aspect especially when working with documents on screen or cad, designing, although I can see an application for 16X9 in the display of Plans, when you want to see the standard front elev, plan and end elevation view all in one go but you'd need a very large one to be effective, isometric, perspective and cutaways etc. views can be seen just as well on a large 5X4 I think, the 16X9 generally might be ok to replace the 5X4 if the vertical height is not sacrificed in order to get it, and that again means a quite large and expensive 16X9.
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

Mmm yes, now THAT is a monitor, I'll take one, now where will I put the stuff I've piled onto the top of my CRT, there's a handy flat bit straight above the screen and currently it has a software box, two boxes of photo paper and a FA-18 Jet parked on it, (a large model I was using as a lighting test subject).
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

That 24" LaCie is attractive @ US $1000, but no rotation though...pity.
Greg

[Cross_lane]

To elaborate on the AF points that I stated earlier...
10 double cross points with a center triple cross (wishful) and 10 other single cross type AF. AF mode can be selected to use either spot AF, user selectable and Wide are.
The Spot AF I assume we all know what it is. The user selectable AF is... well... user selectable. This option can be chosen into 11 selectable AF points (10 double cross and 1 triple center cross) or 21 AF points (all the points stated above). Wide are AF, will have a tiny little sensor that cannot be seen in the VF will track on which part of the VF you eye is looking at and select to focus on the closest focusing point. If all lenses are to be SSM-ed, then I hope the SSM motor will be much much faster than the 70-200 SSM. More like the 24-70 SSM or even faster. Hopefully this will allow near instant focusing esp. when used with the wide area AF.

[Greg Beetham]

I'm not complaining about the LaCie, per se, though it would have been nice too also have the rotation like the Samsung and charge the extra...the Samsung was $2200 or so if I recall correctly, so there's plenty of room too manoeuvre for the LaCie on the cost vs feature area I'd say, and still be lots cheeper than the Samsung.
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

That's fairly ambitious the focus on eye point thingy, I rember there was a Canon once that had that feature but I'm not too sure how successful it was, if I think about my eye movement during the execution of a typical photo, their all over the place, somtimes even glancing down at the readout at the bottom of the VF, so it could turn out too be a huge waste of battery power (chasing every involuntary eye movement) for very little gain in functionality, besides I've found in some circumstances it's better too just do it in MF, and save the battery in the process.
I'm not keen on the SSM migration at all, the in body focus motor is easily fast/accurate enough for my purposes, and besides SSM adds quite a bit of weight and size/bulk too a lens that wasn't there before, (more noticable in the shorter lenses) the only advantage is that SSM is lots less noisy, but then so is MF, put it this way, currently we only have too buy stabilization ONCE and AF ONCE, unless we upgrade the body of course, so IMHO it's an advance sideways.
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

Wow, just check the prices, I rember when the LCD's first arrived on the scene the prices for even small screens were out of this world $4500 odd for a 19' if memory serves...amazing.
Greg