Review of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 Digital Camera

The Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 has the following features: a compact, ten mega pixel (CCD) digital SLR with a (Konica) Minolta lens mount, Anti-Shake and a definite crossbreed appearance. It is considerate to say that while this camera may share some components with previous Konica Minolta digital SLR's Sony's involvement has brought external styling, build quality and finish up to a higher standard. The lens mount is to be called the 'Alpha mount' and Sony has announced no less than 19 lenses that will carry the Sony Alpha branding.

Key features and technologies of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
Sony Alpha lens mount identical to the Minolta A-type bayonet mount, enabling the use of a large back catalogue of existing Minolta and third party lenses as well as avoiding the development of a whole new system. Interestingly only four of the new lenses introduced are designed for an APS imaging circle. 10-mega pixels APS-C CCD: Interestingly Sony has gone for CCD rather than CMOS with this camera, so it's not the same sensor as used in the DSC-R1.

Image Processor of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
Canon can be thanked for the trend of branding the image processor used in the camera, Sony clearly realize the value of this but unfortunately haven't exactly picked a very dynamic name. Their new 'Bionz' image processor is said to be a significant improvement over anything used in previous KM digital SLR's, it also enables one of the A100's unique features; Dynamic Range Optimization. Sony claim this will be the fastest such system as it is designed in at a hardware level.

Eye Start AF isn't anything-new to previous Minolta SLR owners but Sony is obviously keen to continue its use. On the A100 Eye Start AF does exactly what it says, when the sensor detects the proximity of your eye to the eyepiece it begins to auto focus and remains in 'continuous' auto focus until the shutter release is half-pressed or you put the camera down. In reality this means that the camera is likely to have an approximate focus on the subject before shutter release.

Continuous shooting until media full
The A100 allows you to shoot continuously at three frames per second at any image quality setting until the storage card is full. 40 segment honeycomb pattern metering
The Konica Minolta 7D and 5D both featured 14 segment honeycomb pattern metering sensors; the A100 advances this with its 40 segment sensor.

2.5" 230,000 pixel 'Clear Photo LCD Plus' monitors
The large high-resolution LCD monitor appears to provide a very good image and has good viewing angles (better from above, left and right than from below).
Lithium-Ion battery
The A100 takes a new NP-FM55H battery that while not carrying the Info-Lithium name is apparently compatible with any other Sony DSC that used the NP-FM50, however the A100 doesn't have the Info-Lithium readout. You can't use standard NP-FM50 batteries in the A100.

Body material Plastic of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 body material consist of Sensor, 23.6 x 15.8 mm CCD sensor, RGB Color Filter Array, Interline interlaced CCD, Built-in fixed low-pass filter, 10.8 million total pixels, 10.2 million effective pixels, 12-bit ADC

Image sizes of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
The A100 image sizes are: 3872 x 2592 (L), 2896 x 1936 (M), and 1920 x 1280 (S).

LCD monitor of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
The DSLR-A100 LCD Monitor: 2.5" TFT LCD ('Clear Photo LCD Plus')
230,000 pixels, Anti-reflective coating, Auto dimmed by viewfinder eye sensor
Flash, Built-in pop-up flash.

Flash modes of the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
The Flash in this camera are: Auto, Fill Flash, Red-eye Reduction (pre-flash), Wireless/Remote Off-camera Flash, Rear Flash Sync, High Speed Sync, Slow Sync with AE Lock

With Sony you get guarantee for every purchases you make. Give the Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 a try.