Digital Trends

Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 June 20th, 2006 | by David Elrich

As noted, the new Sony has a very Maxxum look, minus Konica Minolta logos. There are some variations, of course, including silver-finished knobs and a nice dash of accent finish near the shutter. The body has a built-in comfortable hand grip that places your fingers in position to hit the shutter and to adjust the scroll wheel used to navigate through the menus and to make adjustments.

The rear of the camera is very straightforward. One of the biggest differences between the alpha and the Maxxum 5D is the quality of the LCD screen. Here it's a 2.5-inch screen rated 230K pixels; the 5D was only 115K pixels. The screen is used to check your settings and to review your shots. Convenient zoom keys on the back let you see if you properly focused your subject. As is the case with every D-SLR other than the Olympus E-330 and Panasonic DMC-L1 the screen is for playback; you cannot frame your photos. In the case of the Sony you have a fixed eye-level viewfinder offering a 95 percent field of view. The viewfinder has another holdover feature from the Maxxum series—Eye Start. The moment you put your eye to the viewfinder the camera starts to focus making it easier to grab a quick shot. Focus still locks in when you depress the shutter halfway. Eye Start can be defeated if you'd like to do it all yourself. The rear of the camera has all of the usual keys (menu, display, delete, playback) and a four-way controller to move through menus or zero in on a portion of the image. The Super SteadyShot on/off button is here as well. We kept it on at all times.

The top of the camera offers a ton of adjustments that'll keep almost every level of photographer happy. On the right-hand side is the main mode dial that locks into place with a solid click when you turn it. There's a setting for point-and-shoot Auto as well as typical scene modes such as Night Scene/Night Portrait, Sunset, Sports, Macro, Landscape and Portrait. You can also choose Aperture- and Shutter-Priority, full Manual and Program. Next to it is the continuous shooting/self timer adjustment. The Sony can blast through three frames per second in full JPEG mode for the limit of the memory card. It can also do six RAW or three RAW+JPEG files before giving up the ghost. We found this burst mode to be a lot of fun as the camera fired away. Note the Sony DSLR-A100 accepts the popular and affordable CompactFlash media. No card is supplied but a CompactFlash/Memory Stick Duo adapter is so you can use those proprietary Sony cards if you'd like. We used the camera with a 2GB Pro Duo card.

Also on the top is a second dial offering even more options. You can adjust the type of metering, flash mode, focus setting, ISO (100-1600), white balance, color such as Vivid or B&W and D-Range Optimizer. This last setting is similar to Nikon's D-Lighting that automatically adjusts the gradation in an image so detail isn't lost in the shadows. The Sony does this in real-time with the hardware rather than Nikon's approach which is with software in-camera after you've taken a shot. You'll also find the pop-up flash (manually operated) and a hot shoe.

The camera will be supplied with a typical bundle of accessories: strap, cables, battery/recharger, CF/Memory Stick Duo adapter, manual and software on CD ROM. The battery is rated for 750 shots, more than enough for a day's shooting.

Image Courtesy of Sony