WWords Katrina T. Rivere
After years of churning out stylish compact digital cameras from their Cyber-shot line, Sony has finally thrown its hat into the ring with the big boys: the newly announced a (alpha) DSLR-A100 marks the company's debut into the digital SLR market with a new Alpha brand.
Any new arrival in the highly competitive budget dSLR market needs to be an impressive proposition-and on paper, thus far, the A100 delivers. Sony's first dSLR is born from a collaboration with Konica Minolta that leverages on the latter's two-decade-old Maxxum/Dynax line. Though Konica Minolta this year pulled out of camera manufacturing altogether, the collaboration continued with Sony taking over the Alpha name and the lens and accessory lineup.
This 10.2-megapixel camera is powered by the company's breakthrough Bionz high-speed image-processing engine, which allows you to capture pictures at lightning speed. This new technology offers high-speed burst shooting at up to three frames per second continuously and performs intelligent power management.
In addition, the A100, with its high speed DDR-SDRAM, is capable of capturing 750 photos in one charge. Unlike other dSLRs that have limited buffer memory, the A100 writes high pixel data instantly onto the memory card for immediate capture to allow unlimited advancement in continuous shooting in JPEG format. Moreover, Sony's Dynamic Range Optimizer (DRO) analyzes the captured image data and instantly determines the best exposure and color tonality before JPEG compression.
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For full stories, grab a copy of Speed's SEPTEMBER 2006 issue in bookstores and newsstands near you.
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