Alphatracks

The price comparing web site
My Simon has started listing dealers offering the Sony A100 package with the 18-70mm Lens. Naturally, all the pre-order prices range from $999.00 to $999.99. That is to be expected — we won’t see any price reductions until the camera ships and the early adopters have grabbed up their Alphas. What is interesting is that all the stores are listing the camera as unavailable — except Amazon.com. If you click the link, you’ll find that Amazon doesn’t really have the Alpha 100 in stock, but they are listing a firm shipping date of August 1.

This is good news, because the some of the early predictions I heard were that the Asian market would get their shipments first, while the US might have to wait. If Amazon is correct, Sony will be shipping the A100 to the United States by early August.

I seem to remember that on one of the previous Macintosh OSX releases, some of the people who pre-ordered from Amazon got their software before the official release date. They actually got their shipment before anyone else — even the Apple stores. Which doesn’t mean much — I’m sure that Amazon isn’t always the first to ship a product. Still it is encouraging that Amazon feels that they will be in a position to ship the A100 by early August.

By the way, if you need to feed your A100 fantasies while you’re waiting, there is a Flash file on the Amazon page that lets you scroll around and examine the A100 from any angle.

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Food for thought: Is the A100 Sony’s low-end dSLR?

When Sony first announced their intention to offer a dSLR system, almost everyone seemed to think they would start off with a couple of camera bodies — one low-end model and a much more expensive pro body. Even after the full specs of the A100 were announced, many observers counted on Sony quickly adding at least one more dSLR in the near future — at least before the end of 2006.

In an earlier post, I mentioned the quesabesde.com
interview with Samuel Andreo, director of photographic products for Sony Spain. Mr. Andreo states very clearly that the A100 will remain the only Sony dSLR until sometime in 2007. Some hopefulls have suggested this is a Sony ploy to hide the fact that other goodies will be coming soon, but to me, Mr. Andreo’s remarks have a solid ring of truth to them. I don’t expect another Sony dSLR for at least a year from now. After all, the A100 isn’t even shipping yet!

When the A100 was announced, a lot of people seemed to think this was a mid-range offering. It didn’t have the features and specs of the mystical Maxxum 9D that many Minolta lovers were praying for. But with 10MP, anti-shake and anti dust features, the A100 is a step above the feature set of the low-end offerings from Nikon and Canon. Because of this, most people seem to expect Sony to introduce a lower-end cousin to the A100 in the future. Many have even dubbed it the A50 — even though Sony has never said anything about the name of this new offering — or that there would be a lower-end model.

In thinking this over, I’m racking my brain to come up with an idea of what sort of animal the A50 might be. It seems to me that Sony doesn’t have much maneuvering room to offer an A50 — or any other low-end model.

You see, while the A100 has a better feature set than the Nikon D50 or the Canon Digital Rebel, the A100 is actually priced at the same level. Sure, only an idiot would pay full-price for a D50 or a Digital Rebel, but these cameras carry a list price similar to the A100. Everyone expects that after the initial introduction, that the A100 will be trading for about the same amount as the introductory cameras from the other major dSLR makers.

So what is Sony going to do for an encore? Maybe an 8MP model? That, in my mind would be crazy. To be a true low-end model, the A50 would have to sell for at least $200 less than the A100. While Joe Consumer might be conned into thinking that a 10MP dSLR is vastly superior to an 8MP, most true photographers would realize that unless they are making giant prints they could get the great results with the A50 allowing the A50 to cannibalize sales of the A100.

So maybe a 6MP model. Once again this doesn’t make much sense. If you owned a camera company, would you introduce a new 6MP dSLR in 2007? Who would it be aimed at? Last Sunday’s sales flyers included a promo for the local electronics giant. The flyer featured five point and shoot digital cameras — all of which featured at least 6MP and sold for between $200 and $300. The top model featured 7.2MP, image stablization and a 12X zoom — for less than $300.

Now. you don’t have to tell me that a dSLR with a larger sensor, optical through-the-lens viewfinder and interchangable lenses is a far better camera than any point-and-shoot model. Still, when Joe Consumer wanders in to the mega-mall to look at cameras, the only thing he considers is mega-pixels. When the sales-person shows him a 6MP dSLR and tries to explain the benefits, Joe sort of closes his ears after he hears the words six mega-pixels. The $200 fit-the-pocket, auto-everything P and S camera he saw in the store window has 6MP. Heck, he saw online that at least one cell-phone company is introducing a 10MP camera-phone. Why would he spend all that cash on dSLR with only 6MP?

Of course, I’m just another guy on the street — for all I know, Sony may be planning a fleet of 6 and 7 mega-pixel cameras for 2007. Still I doubt it. I will continue this reasoning in my next post. See you then.

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I was browsing images in the Sony Style news web site and noticed that several of the Alpha 100 images were listed as Sony Alpha 100 Black. Hmm… why would Sony need to describe the A100 as black, unless there were other colors available? I also noticed in several places it was labeled as the A100B. Curious, I tried a Google search for A100B. That failed miserably, since there appears to be a Teac SL-A100B turntable and that item filled up the bulk of the first several pages of search results. Even adding the word Sony didn’t help, because there are many sites listed in Google that carry both Sony and Teac electronics components — and these were at the top of the heap.

Undeterred, I searched for the term Sony A100S, figuring silver was the most logical alternative to black for a digital camera. Sure enough, I got a number of results — almost all in Japanese. Almost at the very top, I found this page at http://store.yahoo.co.jp/kitamura/4905524339611.html showing both a silver and black A100 sitting side by side. There is also a image of the A100 where the body looks dark gray. That image is probably the silver A100 photographed under poor lighting conditions — although it is just possible that Sony could also offer a gray A100.

I can’t read Japanese, so I have no idea what it says on the page. It is apparent, however, that in Japan you will have the opportunity to purchase the A100 in either silver or black finish. I have no idea if the silver model will be offered in the US. Actually, in most of the pre-release photos, the body of the A100 looks dark gray. Almost black, but not the rich black of past Minolta SLRs or of the Nikon and Canon offerings. So possibly there will be gray, silver and black options.

The Canon Digital Rebel is available in both silver and black, so maybe Sony intends to follow Canon’s lead and give users the option of choosing a finish.

My first SLR was a Minolta SRT102, and like the vast majority of these cameras the finish was silver, with black on the film door and body grip area. I also bought a used SR-7, which is finished in the same fashion. All the rest of my film SLRs were “Pro” black — not sure why a pro camera has to be black, but that is the term often used to describe black finish on the camera.

My XE-7 is full black, while its cousin the XE-5 was offered in silver and black. Mikko Niskanen’s XE series web site offers a number of photos of the Minolta XE series in various two-tone finishs. Of course Minolta offered several silver-plastic bodied film SLRs near the end of the Maxxum line. My Dimage 5 and it’s big brother the Dimage 7 were silver only, but they were followed by the Dimage 7I series, the A1, A2 and the A200 — all in black.

Of course the Maxxum 5D and 7D dSLRs were only finished in black — at least as far as I know.

So, if a silver A100 was offered in the US would you buy one? Or would you prefer black? Or gray?

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Sony has announced the Alpha 100 with a list price of 999.00. ($899 in body only configuration) Not bad for a 10MP dSLR, especially when you consider that less than a decade ago, you would have had to spend about 25 grand for a dSLR. And that camera would have less than 1MP resolution. Oh yeah. It would also only shoot in black & white. So Sony has really done well, breaking the 1000 dollar mark with a 10MP camera. But suggested prices are just that — suggested. How long do you figure the A100 will actually command that sum?

The same week Sony introduced the A100, I caught some of the fliers for the local electronics sales outlets. You could grab a Nikon D50 for $699.00, while the Canon Digital Rebel was available for $850.00. A week later the Rebel was reducedeven further to 800.00. Granted, both of these cameras are about to be replaced with newer models, but those prices indicate that the A100 might be facing some stiff price competition. All right, show of hands. How many expect to pre-order an A100 at $999.00? How many expect that the street price will be dramatically lower in a very short while?

It is a fact of life — digital cameras rarely sell for the MSRP. It is so competitive in this sector, that retailers often slash their margins to get sales, hoping to make up the difference on volume and accessories.

Which leaves prospective buyers with the choice of jumping in with both feet — or waiting to see if and when the price may fall. While the price will undoubtedly fall — those who wait for the ultimate deal often never get around to buying the product — they are always looking for a lower price. Or they hear a rumor that something better might be coming soon, so they wait. And they wait. And they never actually get the item they want.

So what will happen to the price of the A100? Sony missed the big father’s day push — either because they didn’t consider it important or (more likely) because the A100 simply wasn’t ready. Father’s day was the reason that the Nikon and Canon prices were reduced, and you might see the prices rise again slightly — but only slightly now that the electronic stores have completed their father’s day promotions.

Actually Sony did have some dSLRs out there in time for father’s day — they are called the Maxxum 7D and Maxxum 5D. Sony probably didn’t get any revenue from the close-out of the old Konica-Minolta dSLRs, but every one sold paves the way for future Sony lens purchases as well as future Sony bodies and accessories. At the same time, every Canon or Nikon dSLR sold to a first time buyer probably eliminates that buyer as a future Sony dSLR customer — permanently. So it was important to have those Maxxums out their carrying the flame for Sony.

But the inventory of new Maxxum cameras is quickly drying up as retailers close them out in preparation for the A100. Soon the only A-mount dSLR that will be available for purchase will be the A100.

This is where is gets interesting. With no low-price dSLRs under the A100, Sony’s new camera may start to look very overpriced. Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Samsung, and others will offer dSLRs that sell for far less than $999.00. Obviously, Sony will have to cut the price in someway — either by lowering margins to dealers or offering a rebate to consumers.

Even more troubling is a recent interview withSamuel Andreo, director of photographic products for Sony Spain. Andreo says Sony has no plans to offer another dSLR until 2007. If that is true, then what are Sony’s plans for the Christmas selling season? True it is almost six months a way, but by then there probably won’t be any new Maxxums left to provide a low-cost A-mount option. Everyone one else will have some sort of low cost option — at least well shy of $999.00. There will also be more competitors in the medium high-end space that the A100 will be selling in.

Once again. every non A-mount body sold represents a permanent loss for Sony. The only way to prevent the A100 from losing market share will be to reduce the price in some way. So just how much will the A100 be selling for a six months?

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In my last post, I lamented the lack of a tethered shooting option on the new Sony A100. I promised to follow that up with some comments on the “wow factor” of tethered shooting.

I am convinced that a tethered photo shoot is an excellent way to impress (and keep!) clients. In my earlier post I explained some of the ways tethered shooting improved a product photo shoot I was part of. While that should be enough to convince most people that they need a camera that offers a tethered option, there is also the undeniable “wow factor” that comes when your clients see your tethered setup.

Several years ago, I discovered that for many of my clients — possibly the majority — I am just a button-pusher. In their eyes, it is my equipment that makes the photos — they totally overlook the skill and training I have accumulated.

If you are a real photographer, you know this is a totally false premise. Ken Rockwell has written an excellent web article entitled Why your camera does not matter that illustrates how a photographer’s skill is much more important then the equipment he uses. Rockwell even has link to this Flikr Gallery of
archangel_raphael, a photographer in the Philippines who shoots incredible images with a Palm-Zire camera phone.

While I agree with Rockwell, most of my clients don’t understand this point. In their minds, it is the camera and associated equipment that makes the difference.

In addition to photography, I offer web-design and graphic-design to my clients. many of these clients are small businessmen who have started and build their business from the ground up. These “self-made” men seem to have an almost pathological fear of being taken advantage of. They will shell out large sums of money for dinners, limos, company airplanes and the like. When it comes to design and photography, however, they have a deep belief that design and photography are luxuries that they probably don’t need.

When the subject of photography for a new project comes up, you can read their minds. “Hmm…Joe in shipping got a new digital camera for Christmas last year. He could probably take the pictures we need.”

Happens all the time. Joe might be able to take great snap-shots of his wife and family at the beach, but you can bet he probably knows nothing about product photography. When I receive the images, there are harsh shadows, blown highlights, glare from the flash, etc. The images are junk, but hey, the business owner saved money by not hiring me — or some other professional photographer.

The funny thing is, these men don’t even understand that the images they supply me with are horrible. Joe took them with a “good” camera — therefore the images must be good. They don’t save all that much money — since I will now have to retouch all the images in Photoshop.

So what does this have to do with tethered shooting? Joe may have a good camera, but he probably doesn’t have one that can be tethered to a laptop. Heck, Joe doesn’t even own a laptop. So if you show up with a tethered camera arrangement, the small business owner is happy. You’ve got better equipment then Joe — so it was worth hiring you. Once again, he isn’t afraid of spending money — he just doesn’t want to be taken advantage of. If your equipment is better than the photo equipment owned by his company, his employees, his son or daughter, then you are a better photographer. The fact that your photos are superior to those he gets from those other sources is irrelevant. It is the camera and associated equipment that matters.

I realize that Sony started with the Maxxum 5D when they created the A100, so they probably would have had to redesign the camera’s circuits to include a tethered option. But it really feels like deja vu all over again. Minolta made us wait forever for a dSLR. We waited almost as long for an upgrade to the Maxxum 7D — which never came. Then we waited to see what Sony would offer us. Now if you want a tethered option, you will have to wait again — or buy a Canon, Nikon or a medium format digital SLR. Will the next Sony dSLR — which probably won’t be available for another year — have a tethered option? Who knows? A better question is “can I wait until then to find out?”

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I have been very excited about the A100 — it seemed to have most of the features I was looking for. Everything looked right — until I read this Interview with Mark Weir on the Digital Camera Info web site. While the entire interview was interesting, (once I got past the crummy overlapping ads) the part of the piece that really grabbed my attention was this:

DCI:
Can you shoot tethered with any software accompanying?
Mark Weir:
Unfortunately not.

Oh-oh. No tethered option for the A100? Major splash of ice water in the face. I could understand how camera companies such as Pentax or Olympus might not have the electronic resources to develop something like this. But we’re talking electronic powerhouse Sony here. If any company has the electronic know-how to incorporate tethered shooting into a dSLR workflow, it ought to be Sony. To top it off, Sony is also a computer maker, something the other major camera players can’t say. If any company ought to be introducing a camera that could interface with a computer — it should be Sony.

While some people might feel this is no big deal, for me it is a major — and I mean MAJOR disappointment. The promise of tethered shooting is one of the main things that attracted me to digital cameras in the first place. Sure, I can appreciate all the other advantages of a dSLR over film, but for me, the ability to shoot tethered — or even better — wirelessly tethered, is the ultimate nail the coffin of the film camera.

To add insult to injury, on the same day that Sony announced the A100, Nikon demonstrated that it would no go quietly into the night by announcing the latest upgrade to it’s Nikon Capture Software.

So what’s the big deal over tethered shooting? I’ve seen it used in portrait studios for years, giving clients a near instant ability to choose the prints they want. But I really got excited when I was art director on a series of photo shoots for one of my clients. The products were large and bulky and were to be shot in a studio setting. We shot about a dozen products over three days, taking a couple of hours to set up the lighting and composition of each shot. The photographer quietly unpacked a 17″ Mac Powerbook and tethered it to his Nikon with a USB cable. (Since then he has been able to ditch the cable for a wireless connection.)

Everyone was involved with the shoot: the company CEO, the product manager, the marketing director, the photographer and myself. Thanks to the images on the Powerbook screen, everyone had a voice in the final look of the images.

For the some of the images, the camera was mounted ten feet in the air, while others the tripod was lowered to place the camera about 12 inches off the floor.
You don’t expect a CEO to crawl on the floor to peer through a viewfinder, and you don’t ask a women in a skirt to climb a ladder to view the layout. Fortunately, we didn’t have to. We could all gather around the Powerbook and collaborate on the image as a team. The Nikon software also saved dozens of trips up and down the ladder for the photographer. Once the shot was composed, he could do everything on the ground using the Powerbook. Change exposure, adjust depth of field, bracket exposures — everything was done from the computer. Make a minor correction the lighting, fire the camera from the computer and wait about thirty seconds for the preview image to appear on the screen.

There is no comparison to seeing the image on a laptop screen versus the LCD screen. On this project, my role was the image retoucher. From the Powerbook’s screen I could tell instantly whether the shot would work or not. Shadows and highlights that wouldn’t be visible on a 2″ LCD screen were there in all their glory. I could zoom-in to study fine details to be sure the image was everything I needed. I could even do some basic Photoshop retouching to see how the image looked after a minor color correction.

Meanwhile everyone had a chance to give their input. I’ve noticed when there are several people lined up to look through the viewfinder (or small LCD screen) on a shoot, people tend to hurry so the next person can have a turn. With the exception of the photographer, no one want to “hog” the viewfinder. Because of this, small details are often overlooked or forgotten.

On this shoot, however, everyone could take as long as they wanted to study the image, because the laptop screen was large enough for everyone to view the results. This produced some excellent images, making the final brochure and web site images superior to anything the company had offered in the past.

There is another aspect of tethered shooting that I call the “wow factor” which I will discuss in my next post. For now, however, color me disappointed that Sony left tethered shooting off the A100’s feature list.

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If you are an amateur Canadian shooter, Sony of Canada Ltd. has announced it first annual Alpha photo contest. The contest, designed for non-professional digital camera users, is open to photos from any brand of digital camera (there is a 3.1 megapixel minimum), not just the Sony Alpha. Good thing, since most people won’t be able to lay their hands on a A100 until after the contest ends on July 21.
Three photographers will be selected to win a complete Sony Alpha A100 system — not too shabby a prize. The theme of the contest is Family Fun. You can read the Sony of Canada announcement here. The registration form and details are available on the Sony Style Canada web page.

Even if you’re not Canadian, it is great to see Sony reaching out to the photo community in this way. If they continue to sponsor events such as this, I think it will go a long way to erase the stigma of Sony being “an electronics company that bought a camera company.”

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Although I am not a big fan of Walmart, I was more than a little interested to see that they are offering a father’s day special on the Minolta 7D digital SLR. If you’ve always wanted a 7D but were put off by the high price tag, you can snap one up for a mere $699.00 — and that price includes the standard 18-70mm lens.

Save on Minolta 7D

If appears that if you live in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, you can pick the 7D up at the store to save the shipping costs. Otherwise it is an online promotion…not sure you can walk into any Walmart and get this deal.

Hmm…A new 7D for $700…or wait a couple of months and spend 300 bucks more for the A100.

Decisions, decisions.

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Since there was nothing on either the Sony or the Tamron websites about any merger or takeover, I wrote to Tamron asking for clarification of the Sony buyout rumors.

The response was quick and clear:
Dear Mr. Bonner,

There is no truth to the rumors that Sony has purchased Tamron.

Thanks.

Stacie Errera
Chief Marketing Officer
Tamron USA, Inc.

It’s always best to hear it from the horse’s mouth!

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According to a web site called Hypersensory Sony is said to have purchased lens maker Tamron.

There is nothing on the
Tamron site about this, so I would consider this just an unfounded rumor.

Then I found a mention on the Gizmodo site.

Hmm… It seems like this is just a rumor, but where there is smoke…

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