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Now that we can bask in the glow from two new Sony Alpha dSLR models announced in the last four months, it is time to step back and wonder about the original Alpha — the Sony A100.

Sony has finally admitted that the A100 has been discontinued, although many observers believe A100 production stopped months ago. That doesn’t mean here aren’t plenty A100 kits in the pipeline. If you want a new Alpha A100, you probably can find one easily. The question is; should you buy one and how much should you pay?

Long time readers of Alphatracks may feel I don’t really like the A100, as i seem to always be negatively comparing it to the A700. That isn’t true at all. The A100 is a nice enough piece of hardware, but it is totally outclassed by the features of the A700. The A700 is superior in every way to the A100. Then again, the A700 is selling for about twice the price, so it should be superior.

Sony Alpha A100 — still a good, solid dSLR

Viewed on it’s own merits, however, the A100 is still a solid dSLR. It lacks many of the features available on pro and semi-pro dSLRs, but then so does the Nikon D40 and the Canon Digital Rebel. You get what you pay for, and if you don’t need those high-end features the A100 could serve you very well.

The Sony A200 carries a list price of $699, ships in February.

Photo: Sony Corp, used with permission

The big question is how will the announcement of the all new Sony Alpha A200 affect to the price tag on the remaining A100 kits? The A200 is much closer in specification to the A100, so comparing the two cameras is easier. Once again, the A100 lags behind the newer model, but the differences aren’t as great. The two cameras boast the same pixel count and feature set. The new A200 offers faster auto focus, a larger LCD screen, faster burst shooting and several minor improvements. The A200 will accept a Sony made vertical grip and Sony claims the high ISO performance has been tuned to dramatically reduce noise.

About the only area where the A100 can claim to be better than the A200 is the controls, as the A100 is quipped with two top panel knobs, while the new model has been reduced to a single adjustment knob. It is a nice feature, but i doubt many photographers would choose the A100 over the A200 because of this solitary advantage.

In the market for an A200? Would a great deal sway you toward the A100?

Here is the thing. When the A100 was introduced in June 2006, it was the first 10mp dSLR to break the thousand dollar price threshold for body and lens. Originally priced at $999.00 ($899 body only) Sony gradually reduced the list price to accommodate the changing marketplace.

Sony Alpha A100 is still available in many places. How much would you pay for one?

Photo: Sony Corp, used with permission

During the 2007 Christmas shopping season, I spotted the A100 at several of the local outlets — Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Max and HH Gregg. All four stores were advertising a price of 695.00 for the camera and kit lens — two hundred dollars less than the original 2006 sticker price.

Not too bad. But wait. Sony is taking pre-orders for the A200 at $699 — about five dollars more than I can buy an Alpha 100 locally. Online, the A100 is all over the map. If you eliminate the dealers advertising the A100 for a ridiculously low prices (trust me, the unbelievable online prices are almost always scams), you find legitimate dealers like B & H Photo selling the A100 kit for $649 — a mere $50 bucks less than I could order the A200 for. Amazon is even worse — they are actually offering the A100 (through a third party) for $727.00 — almost $30.00 more than a pre-ordered A200.

Sony still has A100 kits in stock — the body only package is listed as sold out, but you can still order the A100 with the 18-70mm Lens for $799 or you can splurge and get the A100 with the SAL-18200 Lens for 1099.95.

Can you say yikes? Obviously these prices won’t hold. The A200 isn’t available as yet, but Sony claims it will ship in February. Unless you absolutely have to have a camera now, it seems to be a no brainer to wait and get the better model. Otherwise you would be paying more for a lesser featured camera.

Caution. Falling prices ahead!

So what so you think the price of the A100 should be? If I were in the market for a dSLR in the A100/A200 class, it would take a substantial price cut to get me interested in the A100. If the difference was only $50.00, I would definitely spend the extra cash and get the better A200. I think the improved features of the A200 are easily worth more than a hundred bucks, so I would need to see prices fall well south of $600 before I would consider a new A100 over a new A200.

So far, we have been discussing brand new, full-warranty cameras. What about used models of the A100? If you are hoping to sell your A100 in the near future, you are probably going to have a hard time getting what you think it is worth. I don’t know how many A100s are still on dealer shelves, but I expect to see some fire sales as dealers clear the old stock to make room for the new hardware. How much would you pay for a used dSLR when you can buy something brand new for less than $600?

Of course there may be suckers who aren’t willing to do their homework before trading their cash for a shinny dSLR. When Minolta exited the camera businesses there were plenty of brand new Maxxum 7d camera kits in the warehouse. I saw several reputable outlets — places you know would stand behind their merchandise — selling brand new 7ds with warranties for less than $650.00. At the very same time, I saw numerous 7d auctions on eBay where the uninformed bid over $900 for a used model.

Back to the subject of pricing on the A100, I think we are going to see some interesting times in the months ahead. There are still many A100 hold outs who have decided to pass on the A700 and wait for the A900 (or whatever Sony ends up calling the flagship model). When the A900 is released, there will undoubtedly be a flock of used A100s on the market. If the dealers still have new A100 kits to rid themselves of, we may see some unheard of bargains for A-mount digital SLRs.

Let the price slashing begin!

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Sony has released another firmware update for the Sony Alpha A700, which will update the camera’s firmware to Version 3.

Sony says the new firmware will fix several issues with the A700. Sony discovered that occasionally an Alpha A700 SLR would stop responding with the Access lamp lit after capturing several images in quick succession. It was also discovered that turning the A700 off in the “MR” mode could cause some settings to carry over to other modes.

The new firmware resolves both of these issues, as well as

• Sharper images for pictures taken under low contrast conditions
• Reduced noise for pictures taken at ISO 3200
• Improved flash control for objects closer than 1 meter with non ADI controlled lenses

Sony suggests all Alpha A700 camera owners upgrade their camera if the firmware version is less than 3.

The serial numbers of the applicable A700 dSLR models follows:

• DSLR-A700 (body) with serial numbers 0500001 - 0508500
• DSLR-A700P (body bundled with 16-105 lens) with serial numbers 800001 - 800200
• DSLR-A700K (body bundled with 18-70 lens) with serial numbers 1100001 - 1105600

Unfortunately, Mac and Linux users need not apply. The upgrade utility is supplied as a Windows .EXE file, so you will need a Windows box (or an Intel Mac running Bootcamp) to prepare the upgrade.

I’m rather disappointed in this, as it appears the only thing the EXE file does is extract the upgrade application. I could be wrong, possibly it needs some system resources. But it seems you run the EXE file and it extracts a file called DSCA700.APP, which you then copy to a Memory Card. The actual upgrade occurs when you insert the Memory Card into the camera and follow a sequence of steps to upgrade the camera from the card. (There is also a provision to upgrade through a USB cable if you simply can’t afford a $7.99 card reader to upgrade your $1500 camera.)

Since the camera doesn’t need to be connected to a computer during the upgrade, I don’t understand why Sony needed to use an EXE file for this — couldn’t they simply have used WinZip or something similar? That way any computer capable of unzipping the file (which would include Mac and Linux boxes) could transfer the application to a Compact Flash card or Memory Stick and proceed to upgrade their camera. As long as you can extract DSCA700.APP, you’re in business. Why select an extraction model that will only run under Windows?

Hopefully, Sony will realize that a large number of professional photographers use a strictly Mac workflow. They aren’t going to be happy if they are forced to scrounge up a Windows machine every time they have to upgrade their camera’s firmware. Just put all the resources in the upgrade app, zip it up and provide it to the users.

You can find the Alpha A700 version 3 update at the Sony support site.

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So how do you tell the US version of the Sony Alpha A700 apart from it’s European cousin? The US version includes Sony’s version of the Minolta Grip Sensor, while the European models don’t.

This isn’t a case of Sony short changing European customers. Although the details are rather murky, it appears that the Grip Switch is made of a nickel alloy, and the European Union recommends that nickel not be used in proximity to human skin for lengthy periods. So apparently Sony decided to follow along with the recommendations and simply eliminated the grip sensor from the Alpha A700 models bound for Europe. This also applies to the add on vertical grip, the European models of both the camera and the accessory grip are sans the Minolta style grip sensor.

Here’s where everything gets sort of fuzzy. Apparently the recommendation is just that: a recommendation, not a law. So Sony probably wouldn’t have broken any regulations by including the grip sensor in European Alphas. No one seems to know whether Sony simply chose to voluntarily remove the sensor for the Alpha models sold on the European continent, or whether the European Union used some political muscle to force their hand.

No more phantom Eye-Start problems

Grip sensor on the Sony Alpha A700 helps prevent unwanted Eye-Start trigger, but don’t look for it in Europe.

Photo: Sony Corp, used with permission

Basically, the grip sensor is a useful addition to the Eye-Start system available in the Alpha A100 and many Minolta cameras. Eye-Start allows the camera to be in a low power standby mode until you raise the camera to your eye. When the camera senses your eye near the view finder, the camera changes to full operation, including metering, auto focusing, image stabilization, etc. When you move the camera away from your face, it returns to standby — a feature that can greatly extend battery life.

The problem with the eye-start system is that it can’t always tell your eye from your shirt sleeve or your pant’s pocket. Dangle an A100 on a neck strap while you wander about and the camera may turn on and off constantly as the camera falls against your clothing. It thinks it senses your eye, so it powers up the LCD, and attempts to meter and focus, even though you have no intention of shooting anything.

You can turn the camera off, but then if something really interesting turns up, you have to hope you don’t miss the shot while the camera goes through it’s start up sequence. Neither choice is very appealing, and many people have criticized the eye-start system because of the phantom power up cycles.

Sony listens to Alpha users

As I’ve said before, it appears that Sony listens to it’s customers, because they have corrected a number of issues that people had with the A100. One of the things they did was reach back into Minolta film SLR technology to bring back the grip sensor. If you have the grip sensor mode turned on, the A700 will remain in standby, even if it thinks you are looking through the viewfinder. Only when your hand is covering the sensor and your eye is at the viewfinder does the camera become fully operational. Or least that’s the way US versions of the A700 operate.

Grip sensor is not a pressure switch

If you are wondering why the switch has to be made of nickel, instead of some other material, the grip sensor is not pressure sensitive. Instead it actually uses a small electrical field across your skin to sense that your hand is there. So the sensor has to be made of a conductive material and Sony apparently couldn’t find an adequate substitute for nickel.

Many have pointed out the European Union recommendation are aimed primarily at things like ear rings and other body piercing jewelry. Simply touching nickel probably doesn’t present much danger for most users. Some people apparently have or are prone to develop allergic reactions to nickel. Let’s not forget the electrical current involved in the switch. It’s very small, but perhaps it could aggravate an allergy in someone using the Sony A700.

So no grip sensor for the Europeans, at least until Sony finds another material for the sensor. Does this mean that US cameras will cause allergies? I rather doubt it. There might be some people with a severe skin sensitivity that could be adversely affected by the nickel in the sensor. On the other hand, you find nickel in all sorts of products, from automotive controls to fountain pens to silverware. Most people aren’t bothered by these items — I sort of doubt that a camera control will have a much greater effect. Of course, I am not a doctor, so if you have a nickel allergy, you might want to discuss this with your medical adviser.

Remember that Minolta has made long use of a similar nickel grip sensor in the Maxxum/Dynax 7 and 9 as well as the A2 and A200. I haven’t heard of a rash (no pun intended) of photographers developing skin allergies from using these older Minoltas.

Why choose a electrical sensor over a switch?

Which leads to my next question, why exactly did Minolta choose to use the nickel sensor in the first place? A simple pressure switch would be cheaper, could be made of any hard materiel and could even be used with gloves on — something that can’t be said of the nickel sensor.

About the only reason I can think of for choosing the nickel sensor is that if you left the camera on when you put in a camera bag, padding or other equipment might possibly trigger both a pressure switch and the eye start system — running down the battery. Because the grip sensor actually measures current through your skin, it can tell the difference between a hunk of foam rubber and the fingers of your hand.

The Senswitch — forgotten Minolta technology

Yet Minolta long ago developed technology that could eliminate false triggers and didn’t require any electrical skin contact. Im refereeing to the Senswitch that appeared on the Minolta XK cameras in the mid seventies.

Minolta Senswitch is neatly hidden inside the grip on the XK Motor

The Senswitch was just simple pressure switch that turned the camera meter on when you touched it. It saved battery power, because the camera could be left in standby until the user pressed the switch.

I’ve heard that a lot of XK owners didn’t like the Senswitch on the basic XK model. It was just a long strip on the front of the camera, and apparently many photographers had trouble engaging the switch consistently. And it would also be vulnerable to pressure from other sources like the foam padding that could press upon it and drain the battery.

Minolta, however, followed up the plain vanilla XK with the incredible XK-Motor. This wonderful camera was my main shooting machine for many years, I loved the Senswitch on the XK-M, because Minolta moved it from the front of the camera to the inside of the built in grip. You would have to work awfully hard to miss engaging the Senswitch on the XK-M. If you were holding the camera by the grip, your middle-finger just naturally fell upon the switch. You almost couldn’t miss it.

Located deep inside the recess of the grip, the XK-Motor’s Senswitch was also fairly invulnerable to being pressed accidently by something other then your finger tip. I’m not saying it would be impossible for a hunk of padding or gear to engage it…but it would be a very rare occurrence. I never saw it happen in all the years I shot with my XK, Then again, I usually switched the camera off when it put in the bag.

One final thing. The XK-Motor’s switch was made of some sort of hard plastic , so you could use it with gloves.

It seems to me that Minolta had almost fool proof system with the XK-Motor’s Senswitch. Too bad Sony didn’t study the XK-M grip before opting for the nickel grip switch on the A700. It works even with gloves, it is fairly safe from accidental triggering and it won’t cause skin allergies. Oh yeah, they could sell the Senswitch in Europe as well.

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Bart Pasquale, who last appeared on these pages with his insightful comments on the Sony Alpha Full Fame - Antishake question, is back with a detailed analysis of the Sony battery for the A700 Alpha and it’s lack of compatibility with the A100 batteries.

The complete text of Bert’s email follows:

Hello Tom!

Here’s some info regarding the new Alpha A700 battery, the NP-FM500H. As you may know, there is a grove in the new battery, and a ridge in the A700 battery compartment, which prevents interchangeability with the A100 battery. I contacted my usual 3rd-party battery suppler from eBay, and he said Sony has blocked the manufacturing of NP-FM500H compatibles. It was not clear weather this is legal/political maneuvering, or simply an issue being able to reproduce the circuitry required for A700 to display the % charge remaining, but he expected something out of Taiwan by January. What he did know is that one person reported to him filing out the ridge inside their A700, and the A100 batteries did NOT power the A700.

A700 battery shown being loaded into new vertical grip. Notice the groove that allows battery to fit the A700 compartment.

Photo: Sony Corp, used with permission

Being the anti pay-for- proprietary-items consumer that I am, I find myself waiting it out to avoid buying a $80 Sony battery, understanding the implications of battery consumption suddenly became very important. So, I spent the past day and a half draining a fully-charged battery under controlled conditions. My goal was simple: take bursts of pictures throughout the day at various intervals, review the pictures, delete a few, and record the image count and battery charge remaining. Many batteries fall off very quickly once they indicate “half charged”, but SONY claims the new battery’s reported % is “accurate”, and the battery is good for 650 shots. Curiously, the second day I had the camera, I cranked off 900 pictures on a photo shoot, but the battery indicator still showed being more than half-charged. Let’s examine…

I began with a fully charged battery two days ago, At various intervals (a few hours to a few minutes) I would fire off 50-100 images, and review them, at a medium pace, deleting every few images as I went. I was shooting compressed RAW, anti-shake on, DRO standard. This simulates my camera use in the studio or shooting on location. After the first 50%, I continued to review the imagers quickly, but did not delete many images, as I might do to conserve battery power while on a shoot. The results are summarized in the following table:

	Shots	% Charge	Charge Drain Rate
Day One:	0	100%
	550	75%	1% = 22 frames
	1200	50%	1% = 26 frames
Day Two:	1800	25%	1% = 24 frames
	2600	1%	1% = 32 frames
	3080	Dead	1% = 400 frames

Over 3,000 shots from a single charge! I’ve never worked so hard to drain a battery. That was the battery’s third charge, so we’ll see how that changes after a couple dozen cycles, and how the generic versions hold up to that when they finally do come out. A few other statistics:

• Reviewing 150 images uses 1% of battery charge
• Leaving the display on for about 5 minutes uses 1% of battery charge
• Overnight, the battery looses about 2%-3% of it’s charge
• Straight shooting without reviewing images can achieve 30+ frames per percent at any phase in the charge cycle.
• Once the battery indicates zero charge, you can still quickly eek out a few hundred shots!
• This is about an extra 12% of charge not indicated in the charge level.

During recharge, the first 15 minutes were spent to achieve 1% charge status back. After that, it was pretty linear, adding about 12% every 15 minutes achieving 86% after 2 hours of charging. The battery indicated “100%” about 35 minutes later, but continued to take a charge for an additional 15 minutes to top it off. So, one could theoretically shoot 400 frames, recharge for 15 minutes while the model changes, and never run out of charge. Of course, YMMV; I don’t know how consistent one battery will be to the next. Happy shooting all!

- Bert Pasquale

BTW, I have a couple well-cared-for A100’s for sale! (With several extra batteries…)

Wow, that is a pretty exhaustive (no pun intended) sample of the battery life of the NP-FM500H when used in the A700.

I found it interesting that someone would actually go as far as removing the locking ridge from a new A700 to try to use the older battery. The fact that the NP-FM55H (used in the A100) would not power the A700 indicates to me that the ridge serves a purpose beyond an attempt to sell more batteries. It’s easy to point to an incompatibility like this and suggest it is being done to sell more batteries. I’ve found that manufacturers rarely make components less compatible just to move additional product. They have to stock additional components, manufacture additional components and distribute two lines of batteries instead of one. Usually is in the company’s best interest to stock and sell as many common items as they can, because that drives manufacturing and stocking cost down.

That said, several printer manufactures have taken great pains to make sure only their own cartridges work with their hardware. So who knows? This could be Sony’s attempt to eliminate after-market battery competition, but I doubt it. Usually when an electronic product carries a lock out ridge like the one described above, it is to prevent using a non-compatible item that might cause damage to the devise. The upshot is A100 batteries are NOT compatible with the A700 — don’t try to reengineer the camera or battery in attempt to make them work.

It Bert’s tests are indicative of how long a typical NP-FM500H will last, it seems like for most shooters a single battery will cover most assignments. A second battery, either used as a spare or inserted in the A700 Vertical grip should be more then sufficient power for most A700 shooters.

Thanks again Bert, this is a great report. If anyone is interested in Bert’s A100 gear, email me and I will get you in touch.

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Sony’s first dSLR. the Alpha A100, was a great effort, but it did fall short in a few areas. From the e-mail and comments i get at Alphatracks, the biggest complaint about the A100 is that it didn’t offer a vertical grip option.

As I’ve pointed out before, this wasn’t Sony’s oversight. The A100 was based to a large degree on the very successful Konica-Minolta Maxxum 5D. For some unexplained reason, Minolta and friends crippled the 5D by not designing it to use a vertical grip. The 5D’s big sibling, the Maxxum 7D, did offer an optional battery grip, but the 5D was a different design and couldn’t use the 7D grip.

New grip adds 3.5 inches and a pound of weight to the A700

When Sony built the A100 on the chassis of the 5D, there was no provision for a grip. Sony would have had to heavily massage the 5D components to add grip connections and controls, making the camera more expense and most likely delaying the launch. So Sony wisely brought the A100 to market without an accessory battery grip.

Aftermarket vertical grips for the A100 selling briskly

This hasn’t stopped some aftermarket accessory makers from developing grip fro the A100. We’ve discussed the DeCain and Ownuser accessory grips on these pages in the past.

• Aftermarket Vertical Grips for the Sony Alpha and Minolta dSLRs
• The Sony A100 vertical grip saga continues
• Vertical grip options for the Sony A100 and Minolta 5D

Many photographers have had good experience with the aftermarket units, but since there are no internal contacts to allow a grip to communicate withe the camera, users have to put up with external cables to get the job done While it’s mice to have an aftermarket alternative, it’s obvious that a factory designed grip with internal connections would be a preferable solution..

When the Sony started to design the Alpha A700 dSLR, they started from scratch. Sony went to a lot of effort to make sure the Alpha A700 corrected any weaknesses inherent in the A100. One of the first things they did was add internal connections for a battery grip. The grip, known as the VG-C70AM is due to start shipping this month.

The two biggest demands for a vertical grip center around better handling when shooting in a vertical mode and the addition of extra battery power. Sony nailed both of these objectives with the VG-C70AM grip.

Vertical grip enhances the Alpha A700’s ability to shoot in the portrait orientation.

Everything the horizontal grip can do, the vertical grip can do as well

The new A700 vertical grip looks like someone took an A700, cut the standard grip off and glued it to a battery container. Every control and button that appears on the camera’s built-in grip is mirrored on the accessory grip — in virtually the same location. Anything you can do with the standard grip you can accomplish with the accessory grip as well. Since the A700 automatically rotates the menus on the camera’s big LCD screen, this results in an excellent vertical image making machine.

Two batteries are better than one

As far as extra power goes, the grip has provision for two NP-FM500H batteries, which Sony claims will produce twice the battery life. (Well, duh!) . You have to remove the camera’s standard battery to attach the grip, so you only have two batteries available — but that is still a major improvement.

Two batteries power the removable grip.

The question of weight naturally arises. The VG-C70AM weighs in at 10.1 ounces without batteries. Add two NP-FM500H power cells at 2.75 ounces each and the whole works is still slightly under 1 pound. The grip also adds about 3.5 inches (87.2mm) to the height of the A700 — a nice bonus if you have large hands.

Like he A700 itself, the VG-C70AM battery grip is constructed with an internal Magnesium-Alloy. Sony also says the unit has rubber gaskets to seal out dust and moisture.

Vertical grip should be forward compatible

Now there is good news and bad news. The bad news is that the VG-C70AM cannot be retrofitted to the A100, The A100 and A700 have completely different camera bodies and as we’ve already discussed, there are no internal provisions for a grip on the Alpha 100. So if you were hoping to bolt one of these bad boys to your A100, you’ll have to be content with on of the aftermarket solutions.

Ah, but there is a very good chance that the VG-C70AM will be fully compatible with Sony’s next dSLR; the famous Sony Alpha flagship. Based on the mockups shown last March, the A700 and the flagship share a common body. Thus the flagship (which many observers are calling the A900, although Sony hasn’t confirmed the name) will most likely be able to use the VG-C70AM. It makes sense, as it will save tooling and design costs if Sony can create a single grip for both models.

Rear side of the grip shows the thoughtful control layout.

Of course the standard disclaimers apply. Sony has only revealed a mockup of the flagship, so there is no guarantee that the A700 grip will be compatible. Don’t base your buying decisions on the mockup, as things could very well change. If I was a betting man, however, I would give you pretty good odds that the VG-C70AM will fit the flagship when it appears..

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Sony is offering a free firmware update for the A700. According to the release, the new firmware update

“improves image sharpness and reduces noise under certain circumstances and improves flash control at very short distances with non-ADI control lenses.”

Sony says the update offers:

• Sharper images for pictures taken under low contrast conditions
• Reduced noise for pictures taken at ISO 3200
• Improved flash control for objects closer than 1 meter with non ADI controlled lenses

In addition to the updated firmware, Sony is also updating the Image Data Converter SR and Image Data Lightbox SR applications included with the camera.

You can download the Windows and Macintosh versions of the firmware and software updates at the Sony Support site.

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Last week, I posted about the alleged difficulty of using a full-frame sensor with the Sony/Minolta anti-shake system. See the post: Can Sony build a true full frame dSLR? I made critical error in my post, when I suggested that the sensor had room to move up and down but not side to side. This is incorrect. The typical 35mm image circle only needs to cover the full-frame sensor from corner to corner, so there would be no room to move the sensor in either direction.

So I was mistaken, but sometimes mistakes can be a positive thing. My error encouraged Bert Pasquale, an optical engineer (and Sony/Minolta SLR user) to write me with his assessment of the full-frame, anti-shake situation. In addition to pointing out my little misconception, he has several innovative ideas on how Sony could deal with the problem.

I asked Mr. Pasquale for permission to reprint his comments and he readily agreed. His remarks follow:

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, Bert. This is exciting stuff! In camera, computer controlled gain? Falloff curve corrections. Sensor based warning that the stability could cause vignetting! Wonder how much of this Sony has considered — and more importantly how much they will actually implement in the Alpha flagship camera. Stick around. it looks like things are going to get really interesting. It looks like its a great time to be a Sony A-mount user!

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Can Sony really make a full-frame dSLR? Not will Sony…but CAN Sony really do it?

Some months back, I wrote that I expected the so-called “flagship” Sony Alpha (possibly named the A900?) to carry a full-frame sensor. I still believe that to be true, however I’m hedging my bets a little. It will be “almost” full-frame or “close” to full-frame. It may not be the actual size of a 35mm negative, however, which is the definition of a full-frame dSLR to most photographers.

It isn’t that Sony lacks the technology to build an actual full-frame sensor. Sony has the ability to build just about any sensor they could wish.

Super Steady Shot doesn’t play well with a full frame sensor

The problem is the Super Steady Shot (anti-shake) system. Not that there is anything wrong with SSS itself, the in-body image stabilization is one of the Sony Alpha dSLR’s major advantages. However, one of the Alpha’s other major advantages is that it can use the extensive line of Minolta A-mount autofocus lenses. And thereby hangs a tale.

Twenty-some years ago, when Minolta engineers were designing the original A mount glass, there were no digital SLRs and no anti-shake systems. Thus, there was no reason to design a lens to cover anything other than the standard 35mm film image.

Thus the AF A mount lenses were designed to project a circle that would encompass a 24 X 36mm area at the camera’s film plane. There was no need to cover a larger film plane, because no Minolta SLR offered a larger negative size.

Maxxum 7D and Antishake: no worries

When Konica Minolta engineers developed the Maxxum 7D, they designed an in-body anti-shake system. The system works by moving the camera’s sensor in relation to camera movement. In essence, if there is camera vibration, the sensor stays in one place, despite the lens and body movement. The same system is used in the Maxxum 5D, the Sony Alpha A100 and the Alpha A700. All of these dSLRs use a 17 X 23mm APS-C sensor.

See the problem? If Sony develops a 24 X 36mm full frame sensor, any lens will need to cover an area larger than 36mm — at least when SSS is turned on. If vibration occurs in an up and down motion, there is room for the sensor to move in relation. If, however, the sensor moves to the left or right, it could move outside of the area covered by the lens. Update: I was in error about room for up and down motion. See these remarks by an optical engineer to understand why the image would be clipped in any direction the sensor moves.

This isn’t an issue with the current Sony/Minolta dSLRs, since the smaller APS-C sensor has plenty of room to move in any direction without moving outside of the lens coverage. When you move up to a full frame sensor, however, there isn’t nearly as much breathing room.

Lens coverage varies

Of course lenses vary. Some of the existing Sony/Minolta lenses may offer enough coverage to allow the SSS system to move — but others would probably exhibit some vignetting if the sensor moves too far to the left or right. Who wants to drop a ton of cash on a professional dSLR when many (most?) of the available lenses might display some vignetting?

How will Sony handle the full frame design?

Sony can tackle this problem in a number of ways. The first could be to drop SSS for the flagship model. That makes little sense, since Sony would then have to develop a line of image stabilized lenses. If they are going to develop an entirely new lens line, they might as well design larger coverage lenses and retain the in-body image stabilization.

Neither of these options are very credible, however. As I said, one of the Sony Alpha’s major selling points is that you can use those millions of Minolta A-mount lenses. Start redesigning the lenses and there is far less reason to choose the Alpha over the competition.

The rumor sites are suggesting that Sony could eliminate any vignetting problem by reducing the sensor size. The sensor could still be much larger than the current 1.5 crop sensor, but not exactly the size of a 35mm film negative. The figure bandied about is 1.1 crop. That would indicate a sensor of something like 21.6 X 32.4mm.

I want my super wide angle lens back!

Loosing 3mm on the width and 2.5mm on the height doesn’t seem like a lot — but it will affect the camera’s ability to display the widest angle of view with current lenses. One of the biggest problems with the APS-C sensor is that most of the original A-mount wide angle lenses aren’t very wide any longer. Cropping a 35mm lens to APS-C size yields something equivalent to the “standard” 50mm lens on a full frame camera. A 24mm lens is now closer to a 35mm. Even a 16mm fisheye is will only show what you would see with a 24mm lens on a full frame camera.

So one of the prime reasons for choosing a full frame camera is to make all those Minolta wide angles truly wide again. A 1.1 crop would be much better than a 1.5 crop in this regard — but is it enough? That 16mm would now be equivalent to 17.6. A 35mm would look like a 38.5 lens.

Those differences seem fairly insignificant, but there are times when you need the widest angle of view you can get. I hate to give up even a millimeter when I am working with an extreme wide angle.

There is one other option that Sony could adopt. Create a full frame 24mm X 36mm sensor and allow the camera to use the full sensor only when SSS is turned off. Turning on the image stabilization would automatically turn off the outer ten percent of the sensor. This would give the best of both worlds. When SSS is engaged, the sensor size is reduced so there is no chance of movement causing vignetting. Turn the image stabilization off and you get the entire full frame area and the ability to shoot at your lenses widest field of view.

Taking a page from Nikon’s book?

This isn’t as far fetched as it seems. Until recently, Nikon didn’t have any full frame cameras in it’s line up, and they sold a ton of APS-C type lenses to go with their 1.5 crop dSLRs. With their all new full-frame D3, Nikon users who owned a bag full of 1.5 crop lenses faced a big problem. “Big N” sidestepped the issue of the APS-C lenses not covering the FF sensor with a switch that reduces the sensor to APS-C size when shooting with a 1.5 crop lens.

Sony could do the exact same thing with their offering, simply reducing the sensor to 90% when SSS is turned on. Of course to be truly useful, there would need to be some way of indicating the crop area in the view finder. This would probably be in the form of engraved lines on the ground-glass to show the crop area.

Would this be worth it? I’m not sure it would be worth the trouble and cost — but it would sure be slick.

If you were on the Sony design team, how would you handle this issue?

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