Sony Alpha DSLR-A900 Preview

In the cut-throat digital camera market it's increasingly unusual for products to be shown in prototype form or announced more than a matter of weeks before they hit the stores. There's several reasons for the manufacturers' habit of playing their cards so close to their chests, not least that they can't afford to harm sales of the models they've already released. Sony, the newest 'new kid' on the DLSR block, has no such worries, this being its first proper 'high end' DSLR. In fact, if anything the pressure was on the company to show it was committed to becoming a major SLR system player and that it wasn't going to squander Minolta's long legacy in this market after picking up the assets Konica Minolta shed when it pulled out of the photography market. Thus we saw the first prototype of the Alpha 900 - Sony's flagship full frame digital SLR - back in early 2007 (it appeared behind glass at trade shows such as PMA in March 07), and information has been trickling out ever since; most significantly with the announcement in January of this year of a 35mm full frame CMOS sensor.

And so when Sony finally showed the finished Alpha 900 to us a month or so ago there were few surprises at the basic specification or the appearance of the camera. As we started to dig a little deeper, pore over the fine print and actually use the Alpha 900 we were, however, increasingly surprised - and almost always pleasantly so - at some of the decisions made by Sony's engineers when designing its flagship SLR.

The success of the Alpha 900 amongst the Minolta, Konica Minolta and Sony faithful seems assured; at a launch price of just shy of $3000 it offers a lot of 'bang for your buck' and there is undoubtedly a significant number of Minolta film SLR users who've been waiting years for a full frame digital body on which to use their existing lenses. The challenge for Sony, however, is to generate some interest from people without an existing investment in the Minolta (or subsequent Alpha) system. And on paper the Alpha 900 looks promising - and we're already impressed with the build, handling and viewfinder; we'll find out more about how well it actually performs when we finish our full review. For now enjoy this in-depth preview of the latest addition to the small but growing, exclusive full frame DSLR club.

Simon Joinson

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