The Sony Alpha A900 has a whopping 24.6-megapixel resolution from its full-frame Exmor CMOS image sensor — the highest sensor resolution of any 35mm digital SLR yet announced. To handle all the data produced by the high-resolution imager, the Sony DSLR-A900 uses dual Bionz image processors, and this allows for five frames-per-second shooting for up to 11 JPEG or 13 RAW frames.

The sensor is mounted on a moving platter that allows for in-camera image stabilization, branded as SteadyShot Inside. That’s another world’s first for a full-frame digital SLR, and it’s no mean feat when you consider that the sensor shift mechanism has to deal with the extra weight of a full-frame sensor. The various DSLRs seen to date that feature sensor shift stabilization all have significantly smaller 1.6x crop sensors. Sony rose to the challenge by designing a new more powerful sensor shift mechanism, and rates the Alpha DSLR-A900 as good for a 2.5 to 4-stop improvement.

The Sony DSLR-A900’s body is constructed from five main magnesium alloy sections, and includes sealing to reduce ingress of moisture between the body panels, as well as at the various control dials and buttons. The Sony A900 has a Sony Alpha lens mount that also accepts Konica and Konica Minolta glass. A large pentaprism sits above the lens mount, both dictating the camera body’s workmanlike visual aesthetic, and providing a very large and bright TTL optical viewfinder with 0.74x magnification. The rear panel features a large 3-inch LCD display with 921,600 dot resolution, equating to VGA (640 x 480) pixel with three R, G and B dots per pixel. This is used solely for reviewing of images, as well as for menus and status display; the Sony Alpha DSLR-A900 doesn’t offer live view capability. There’s also a small top-panel status LCD which indicates remaining shots and battery life, as well as the basic exposure variables.

The Sony Alpha A900 offers ISO sensitivity from 200 to 3,200 equivalent, but is expandable to ISO 100 to 6,400 equivalent. Shutter speeds range from 30 to 1/8000 second, plus a bulb setting, and x-sync is 1/250 second (or 1/200 second when SteadyShot is enabled). Metering is achieved by a 40-segment honeycomb sensor, and you can also choose from center-weighted or spot metering modes. Focusing is achieved courtesy of a a nine-point phase detection autofocus system with f/2.8 dual center cross sensor, and there are also ten supplemental AF-assist points arranged adjacent to the main AF points. There’s no built-in flash in the Sony A900, with the design instead offering a hot shoe and PC flash sync terminal to cater for external flash strobes and lighting setups.

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Sony’s displaying an updated version at the Photo Imaging Expo in Japan, and reps are apparently now saying that the 24.6 megapixel DSLR will be launched during IFA in August or Photokina in September. Other than that, there’s not much we didn’t already know — which means there’s really not that much at all — but there are some more shots of this nifty clear-bodied display unit at the read link for your ocular delight