Sony Alpha 900

Many French-speaking lovers of the Sony (ex-Minolta) photo cameras know about the excellent web site of Alpha Numérique which is providing a wealth of varied informations (often appearing in the link lists I publish monthly in relation with photo software programs).

Eiffel Tower, by night – Copyright (C) Yves Roumazeilles

Now, I would like to underline the quality of a full series of posts, published by Patrick Moll on Alpha Numérique, and dedicated to comparing as precisely as possible the various offers now on the market to develop and improve as much as possible the pictures that -sometimes- we must shoot using very high levels of ISO sensitivity (with the troubling levels of digital noise that come with big ISO levels).

The list of the software programs taken into account is quite respectable:

• Image Data Converter 3
• Lightroom 3 / Camera Raw 6
• DxO Optics Pro 6
• Aperture 3
• Bibble Pro 5
• Capture One Pro 5
• ACDSee Pro 3
• Silkypix 4
• Lightzone 3
• Raw Developer 1 (dcraw)

Not bad, eh!

Even if the comparisons done here are not only for Sony photo cameras, Patrick Moll applied its tests to a quite appreciable list of cameras too:

• A100
• A550
• A700
• A900
• A330 (not ready yet when I published this post)

Even if you are not reading French, I highly recommend checking these (most of the posts are made of image comparisons using the yellow buttons to select the software program results you want to see). Even if you are equipped with Pentax, Canon or Nikon gear, the lessons you will draw from this are applicable on all the photo camera brands, concerning strengths and weaknesses of each of these software tools.

To understand the review process and the methodology, I would recommend the reading of (here, all in French):

• Introduction
• Réduction du bruit et accentuation

With the tests, body by body, you will immediately recognize the excellent results of Lightroom 3/Camera Raw 6 (these two Adobe software programs share a single common RAW file management core). Just behind, comes DxO Optics Pro 6 which is a bit more violent (or more accentuation prone) and the (not famous enough) Bibble Pro 5.

From this point, you will always be able to get the best from the photos you were forced into shooting in poor lighting conditions which required big ISO figures.

2010 is decidedly a critical year for Sony: Nearly all the photography product portfolio is going to be renewed and many innovations are coming to sustain this. Even better, at the end of September, the Photokina fair in Köln, Germany, will allow Sony to announce and present several key products defining this rebirth, this jump ahead.

First, and this is very easy to predict, Sony is ready to add to its NEX range of photo cameras. Already noticed because of the originality of its concept (a very dense point-and-shoot-like body, very simple but able to hold not only the new lenses of the new NEX range, but also compatible with the existing Alpha lenses, to bring light onto an APS-C CMOS digital photo sensor brought in the Alpha SLR range). While NEX was received with an obvious interest, it still needs to prove that it fills the needs of a real public. And this may be easier when a few days before the Photokina show (in September) we will be able to see the new photo camera of the NEX range: The NEX-7, which should capture 1080p video up to 60 frames/s. This should bring it in direct competition with the Panasonic GH2 which is still the best digital video offer among the compact photo cameras.

On top of it, we already know that Sony just presented it NEX-VG10 video camera, which is the pure video solution in the NEX range (again with the same CMOS 14.2 MP digital sensor that Sony seems decided to apply to as many NEX and Alpha cameras as marketingly possible). Available in September (in parallel with the door opening of the Photokina), it will be sold around $2000 (probably a little less than 2000€ on the old E continent).

Of course, Sony will also present (and possibly make immediately available) some new NEX lenses. The one whose name is most often repeated, since the Yodobashi leak in May, is the Sony NEX 18-200mm f3.5-6.3 OSS.

Then, there is no need of a crystal ball to announce that Sony will speak a lot about 3D on the Photokina floor. All the company divisions (video games, movies, video, photography) have been committed to bring active product support to this technology defined as a key target for Sony.

But, will you say, where are the D-SLR here? I kept the finest morsel for this part of the meal I offer you. Sony is preparing a full overhaul of its Alpha range. The A290 and A390 are already here with a 14.2 MP sensor (but only in a-little-outdated CCD technology), here comes the flood. There’s no doubt that the successor of the Sony Alpha 700 is ready. It was nearly official in PMA 2010 (at the beginning of 2010):

I dream of having reliable information about its photo sensor, but it is nearly certain that it won’t be the ubiquitous 14MP CMOS sensor of NEX and A500 series. It will be an APS-C sensor capable of 1080p video capture at 30 fps (at least). Since Sony always repeated that they would never bring a photo camera with a half-thought video section (like some of the competition, they murmur), it will be worth looking into its detailed features. Moreover, I would bet a tidy sum that the camera will be named Alpha 750, even if it appears that A790 was a possibility during the design stage.

The Sony press photo for PMA2010 (above) also gave us an important bit of information: The Sony Alpha 750 will have a little brother also video capable (probably with a resolution limited to 14 MP). The rumor says –curiously enough– that it would be named Alpha 33, and I find this utterly surprising. We’ll see, but in the meantime, you could listen to what the Spanish DSLRmagazine has to say about its supposed semi-transparent mirror used to assist a good autofocus in LiveView mode (traduction française, English translation).

Sony Alpha 950?

But there is another possibility to take into account. According to Réponses Photo, the French magazine, “Sony give [us] a rendezvous in September for other SLR news, but this time in the expert and pro ranges…” (emphasis is mine). It looks a lot like a leak out of a magazine already informed but held tight by the signing of an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). It would seem very surprising that anybody knowledgeable would place the Sony Alpha 750 in the “pro” range, it is the “expert” announcement. But, the, here is the last event: A pro camera! The Sony Alpha 900 (and its little brother A850) would prepare itself for a new offspring in the use of an Alpha 950 (no certainty about the name, of course)! And that could be thunderous if they announced (availability in early 2011?) the new 32 MP Full Frame CMOS sensor in association with a new quad-core BIONZ processor (aka Quattro Bionz).

The other option in this part of the product lien would be the arrival of an Alpha 820 (this name is heard in several mouths right now) which would be a new effort to popularize the Alpha 900 after the sub-2000€ Alpha 850. Credibility: Very low in my (not so) humble opinion.

You will have noticed that I did not go heavy on the conditional tense despite the long list of news. Be prepraed to see a Sony showroom of enormous size and density in Köln, next September for the Photokina. Alpha, NEX, 3D, video, Sony is alive and kicking.

photo credit: Javier Paredes

You have to admit that you would like to know if the first Sony SLR camera supposed to be a pro photo camera, the Sony Alpha 900, is really up to the real-life constraints of a pro camera. Some people would really test it: Michael Reichmann from Luminous Landscape, simply took a Sony Alpha 900, a Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G tele-zoom and 5 other lenses, for two weeks of photo travel in the Southernmost countries of this world. Result: A rather positive opinion, no real issue after submitting the photo camera to low temperatures and high humidity that were out of its normal operating range.

He also noted the incidents other cameras suffered around him (no less than 77 other photographers!). For example, the Canon EOS 5D MkII which did not survive in cold rain.

The Sony A900 test in Antartica.

We are waiting impatiently for the launch of new SLR photo cameras from Sony, but here is the weirdest rumour seen in China about this.

Improbable : Sony Alpha 707 & Sony Alpha 900SH

A Sony Alpha 707 with HD video capture and ISO 12.800 sensitivity and a Sony Alpha 900SH with HD video.

Seriously! I can’t believe it for a moment… It’s so strange that I will not even create the Sony Alpha 7007 and Sony Alpha 900SH categories for the YLovePhoto menus.

Thanks to Mash for the link to PR. These guys are ready for any kind of rumour…

Gizmodo, the gadget blog, sometimes has a few interesting posts about digital photography. Today, this is the case with their “Canon 5D Mark II vs. Nikon D700 Review Shoot-Out” which turned out to face the two digital cameras in real-life conditions of night photo (of course, they wanted to compare high-ISO pictures and noise).

I am quite impressed, I keep receiving more and more reviews for the Full Frame SLR cameras of this winter. It seems that the interest is very high. Currently:

• Nikon D3x: 15 reviews
• Canon EOS 5D Mk II: 21 reviews
• Sony Alpha 900: 21 reviews
• Nikon D700: 16 reviews

A lot of reading for those who are either ready to shell several grands on a Full Frame SLR camera or are still waiting to get a new camera in a few years from now.

With the arrival of all these new digital photo cameras with a large sensor (Full Frame) in 2008, like the Sony Alpha 900 or the Canon EOS 5D MkII, it became difficult to find your own path. The more because their main advantage of these is photo cameras is to offer images of ultra-high quality at very high sensitivity. But how do you want to know this? The best is probably to compare. Many web sites published such comparisons, let’s try to find the best ones:

Master Chong presents a direct comparison of these two recent cameras, with 100% cropped images.

dPhotoExpert makes something similar, but much simpler, with a single comparison at 1600 ISO.

Unfortunately, there is no information about which software/firmware version is used (I expect that the results may change with future upgrades).

Sony Alpha 900

Comparing two SLR cameras with very very different prices is realy a tough task. So tough that it is often useless. In the Online Photographer, Michael Johnston still tries this daunting task of comparing the Sony Alpha 900 and the Nikon D3.

These are two cameras that are mostly linked by the fact that they have a 35mm Full Frame sensor. Their prices are not even in the same ballpark and the Sony is brand new, while the Nikon is on the market for more than a year now. However, I think that the comparison is quite interesting. To the point, that I invite you to read it from top to bottom.

There is no mere conclusion, but interesting comments that could be summarized by a few items:

1. The D3 is much faster in nearly all aspects; It’s also bigger and heavier.
2. Michael Johnston prefers the digital noise quality of higher ISOs from the Sony (but I think this is very subjective).
3. From the photos shown, I would say that the Sony Alpha 900 is helped by a better dynamic lighting optimization, but the added pixels are helping a lot images that need to be enlarged (or cropped) somewhat. Photoshop and DxO and other Raw file developers may compensate this, but shooting nearly right from the beginning is important.

Nikon D700

This kind of comparison is also quite interesting because it emphasizes the important differences that we can find between high-pixel count Full Frame cameras and high-ISO (low-pixel count) Full Frame cameras. If you stay at relatively small images sizes (or printouts up to A4/Letter size) the Nikon D3 and its sibbling Nikon D700 are very powerful beasts that will run to the darkest place a camera can shoot. And this can be amazingly dark.

But if you start shooting large images (or print more than A4/Letter-size, or intend to significantly crop your images; like for large panoramic photos), a larger pixel-count may become quite critical. Then, you start looking at the Sony Alpha 900 or the Canon EOS 5D MkII. It really depends on the kind of use you have.

The comments from Michael Johnston about the “shoot-to-carry ratio” (ratio between shooting time and effort, and carrying time and stress) are also quite interesting and a very urgent reminder for all people who may be tempted to follow the Full Frame madness. If you go from a relatively light-weight camera to one of the heavier models, you should really think about the impact on your photographic behaviour. If you keep the camera to the eye and/or shoot a lot, a heavy camera is not a critical issue (that’s for pros), but if you carry the camera around and shoot only sparsely the mere weight may become a burden (that’s for many amateurs, even enthusiasts).

Digital noise, this eternal ennemy of the photographer, is going to find a real opponent at its level: The 35mm Full Frame sensors of the new FF dSLR that just arrived on the market (or were there for a relatively longer time):

• Canon EOS 1Ds Mark III
• Canon EOS 5D
• Canon EOS 5D MkII
• Nikon D3
• Nikon D700
• Sony Alpha 900

As a matter of fact, this is a considerable advantage of the big/large sensors which can make use of pixels whose size is proportionnelly bigger and so apter to capture light without using the ammplification devices (usually generating or increasing noise image defects).

This is a good reason to find it interesting to go and check the images présented by DPreview in its Sony Alpha 900 test. They compare some of these cameras at sensitivity settings between 50 and 6400 ISO.

Think about what any other SLR camera would do at the same settings (ISO 3200, no less!): More or less colored blurred blotches.

Sony Alpha 900

If you want to get the user manual of the Sony Alpha 900, you just have to look here:

• In English
• En français

When a dSLR is presented as if it was a Hollywood movie.

You wanted to see it under all angles, you’ll be satisfied: Photography Bay made a post with all the photos they could find of the Sony Alpha 900. The only thing better than that would be to have it in hand.

Thanks to Roumazeilles.net presentation of the Sony Alpha 900.

Sony Alpha 900 - viewfinder

Sony Alpha-900 in China

This can be translated into roughly $2900.