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August 24, 2006
[ SONY DSLR-A100 digital SLR camera ]
Price: $1500 – body only $1750 with kit lens
Highly recommended
The low-down: The Sony DSLR-A100 is a 10.2 megapixel single lens reflex digital camera, evolved from the Konica Minolta DSLR technology acquired by Sony last year. The KM heritage is evident in the fact that Minolta auto-focus lenses will work with the Sony.
Construction quality is generally good although there is evidence of cost-cutting. Sony usually boast of their connection with Carl Zeiss but the kit lens on the A100 is branded “Sony – China”. It works well enough but some of the supplementary lenses are branded Zeiss, suggesting that the kit lens is not from the top drawer.
Control layout and ergonomics are excellent. The A100 is relatively small and light and all controls have a pleasant soft, progressive action. Auto-focus is fast and the camera is very responsive. The LCD screen is big enough and has good resolution but its colour rendition is misleading. Some shots that looked too bright and saturated on the LCD were perfect on the monitor.
We took about 40 photos at ISO1600 under mixed light and found the combination of low noise at high ISO, excellent auto white balance and effective in-camera image stabilisation means that a flash hardly ever needs to be used. We avoided using the in-camera noise reduction because this feature rarely works well and in the case of the Sony the inherently low noise made NR unnecessary.
The A100 takes Sony’s Memory Stick and also the cheaper Compact Flash memory. The battery has quite exceptional capacity and doesn’t take long to recharge.
Like this: The image stabilisation is achieved in the camera body rather than in the lens which means that supplementary lenses may be cheaper and even the legacy Minolta lenses benefit from the vibration reduction.
Dislike that: The kit lens is not up to the quality of the camera body. We would be looking seriously at buying the Sony body and the Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T 18–80 zoom.
Parting shot: The Sony A100 feels just right in the hand, is very responsive and is intuitive to use. Anyone with Konica Minolta auto-focus lenses in their bag should look seriously at the Sony, it is a fine product of the marriage of the two companies.
[THERE ARE SAMPLE IMAGES FROM THE SONY ALPHA 100 IN THE GALLERY]
Posted by terry at August 24, 2006 06:04 AM
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