Wednesday 5 September 2007

Sony Alpha 700: Breaking News

18:03 BST 5/9/2007
Just noticed that the Alpha 700 has a 16:9 shooting mode, for fitting on HDTVs more easily I guess. Sony claim a 1/2 stop increase in the effectiveness of SSS, especially on tele lenses. I hope that they also fixed the low frequency drift which can sometimes make wide angle long exposures tricky.

17:30 BST 5/9/2007
Looks like there is a british site still open. A few things in english:
3 memories for settings
Manual flash control of inbuilt flash
Shutter 100,000 actuations
Silicon seals
3-layer optical low pass filter for less moire (how this impacts on resolution will be interesting)
Selectable additional High, Medium, Low levels of noise reduction at High EI
DRO optimization for RAW
Striped pixel array 3" 921K dot LCD. AR coated. RGB Histogram
Pentaprism,, L or M interchangeble screens
Supplied remote commander (for HDMI output) doubles as remote release (yay)
11 point AF and 11 lines (?). New AF motor. Macro focus f/2.8 sensor, AF Illunimator (Yay)
17 RAW buffer minimum, 5fps or 3fps selectable
0.9x 95% Pentaprism (not mirror), 25mm eye relief
141.7x104.8x79.7mm, 690g w/o battery
NP-FM500H 11.8Whr 1650mAh 78g

New Lenses:
DT 16-105mm/3.5-5.6 15 elements in 11 groups, 1 ED and 2 Asph elements
DT 18-250mm/3.5-6.3 16 elements in 13 groups
DT 55-200mm/4-5.6 13 elements in 9 groups

17:26 BST 5/9/2007
Looks like the leaks are being plugged. The flash ads are back to the Alpha 100 ones, and the Romanian site is not showing the Alpha 700 details anymore. Guess we'll have to wait till tomorrow for the official official word.

17:05 5/9/2007
A few random thoughts. I think the Alpha 700 will be for me. I don't think the image quality will be much different from the D300 as they both use the same type of sensor, the exception is that Nikon may have specified 14 bit ADCs and implemented live view which should not make a whole lot of difference. The ergonomics are growing on me but I'll have to handle one make sure. The vertical grip seems to be near perfect, I will definitely have to put that on the accessary list. Magnesium construction for body and grip is very good, much better than the VC-7D. The duplication of the controls is great. We'll see about the viewfinder, I will definitely have to have the ML screen installed, just like the one on my 7D. They'll be moaning that it's "only" 5fps compared to the 40D and D300, but it's not an issue for me at all. I don't care much for the HDTV out. It might make a nice feature in studios where yo can instantly show clients fairly hi-res previews of shots. All in all, I think it's a great package which will handle well and won't give an inch on the image quality front.

16:43 BST 5/9/2007
Looking at the Romanian flash site for the Alpha 700, it seems to confirm the more credible rumours: 12.24MP CMOS sensor EI100-3200 (6400 with boost), 3" 921K (dot) LCD, Al-Mg frame, some weather sealing, Interchangeable screens (M or L), Dual CF/MS slot, 11 point AF, 1/8000th top shutter speed, 1/250 or 1/200 flash sync (SSS off/on), 5fps continuous shooting speed, VG-C70AM magnesium vertical grip, InfoLithium battery NP-FM500H.

16:35 BST 5/9/2007
The Romanian Sony site has a flash animation of the new camera.
New features include a 3" hybrid X-Fine LCD. May have OLED technology?

16:22 BST 5/9/2007
It's official, the name of the new Sony DSLR is the Alpha 700. It has appeared on Sony websites. I will update this page as more information is released.

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