May 26 2011 - Photo Jottings

May 26 2011

5/26/11

Another pro camera bites the dust.

As widely reported, the A850 full frame camera has been discontinued by Sony.  This means Sony has only one pro, and no intermediate level cameras for sale right now, it’s certainly something I would not have believed back in 2007 when I bought the great A700.  Hopefully, Sony will roll out the A700 replacement soon.

Back in 2008 people thought I made a radical, (and stupid) prediction that the A900 would still be one of Sony’s top-line cameras five years after its introduction.  Well, it’s been available almost three
years now, and it doesn’t look like a replacement is in the works until at least 2012, so that’ll be four years as Sony’s top-line camera.  The replacement will probably follow the SLT commitment by Sony and drop the brilliant A900 viewfinder for an inferior electronic type.  For those of you that say it doesn’t matter, try looking through the A900 viewfinder with a fast lens, and then through an SLT with EV, there’s a huge difference, especially in harsh or low light.  Outdoors, I use the A580’s optical finder instead of live view.

So it looks like my 2008 prediction will be a little off, I’d say now that the A900 will have a high value lifespan of far more than five years.  Sure, the coming years will produce better high ISOs, cleaner video, faster shooting speeds and unfortunately even flatter HDR images using dozens of
shots, however, if your goal is pure image quality, the A900 is still the best Sony has to offer.  

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