Digital Trends

Call this the season of the 10-megapixel digital single lens reflex camera. By the time Santa appears in the Thanksgiving Day parade, enthusiasts will have four 10MP D-SLRs to choose from. In this quartet are the Sony alpha DSLR-A100, the Nikon D80, the Pentax K10D and the Canon Digital Rebel XTi. Three of the cameras are available now; the K10D is due in November. That said, we decided to review the new Canon and compare it to the Sony since they are so similarly priced. The Nikon is a bit loftier and will set you back $999 for the body alone, $1,299 for a kit with an 18-135mm DX Nikkor zoom lens. By comparison, the Sony is $999 for the camera and an 18-70mm zoom (list price not real world which is more like $899). That’s 400 clams more for the “honor” of using a Nikon in the case of the Sony and the newest Rebel. That’s a lot of green, no matter how you look at it even if they’re not quite red apples-to-apples comparisons. Let’s charge the Sony and the Canon and see how they perform.