It’s a good-sized dSLR camera with a sturdy plastic shell over a metal frame. The camera is easy to hold, with a substantial right hand grip, and the important controls are within easy reach of your fingers. The A100 has quite a few buttons and dials, which can be intimidating to new users. Using a Sony Zoom DT 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 Lens, with Optical Image Stabilization, Sony Alpha DSLR-A100 focuses in Single-shot AF (Wide AF area, Spot AF area, Focus area selection), Direct Manual Focus, Continuous AF, Automatic AF and Manual focus mode.
As for the exposure modes, you got Auto, Program, Aperture Priority, Shutter Priority, Full Manual (with EV indicator), Exposure Compensation (+/-2.0 EV in 1/3 EV Steps), AE Lock, AE Bracketing (0.3 or 0.7 EV steps) and the possibility to make exposures as long as 4 hours. White balance control is also flexible: Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash (with custom color temperature adjustments), White balance bracketing. Bad thing about this digital camera is that no date & Time info included in image metadata.
The good thing, however, is the remote control and compatibility with Minolta accessories and dual mode dust reduction system: dust resistant coating over the sensor plus a dust “shake off” when powered on or off. Very good photo quality with a bit of noise at high ISO and fast shooting speed for this Sony.
Technical Data:
• 2.5 inch LCD
• 10.2 Megapixels
• ISO Sensitivity: 100-1600
• Shutter Speed: 30 - 1/4000 seconds
• RAW (.ARW), JPEG (Fine, Standard), RAW + JPEG (Fine)
• Scene Mode: Landscape, Portrait, Night Scene/Night Portrait, Sunset, Sports/Action, Macro
• Flash: Manual Pop-up, Auto, Fill-flash, Rear flash sync
• Redeye reduction and image stabilizer
• CompactFlash (Type I & II)/Microdrive and Memory Stick Duo/Memory Stick PRO Duo media
• NP-FM55 Lithium-ion rechargeable battery
Tags: Sony Alpha A100, DSLR, sony, RAW, image stabilizer, dust reduction, full manual, camera, digital camera, minolta
My Name is Lau, I'm 23 and I'm from Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Nature Photography is my passion, and secondary, Abstract Photography, but other kind of photographic challenges please me as well.
September 21st, 2007 at 9:53 am
[...] Sony DT 11-18mm is actualy the widest angle Sony zoom for Alpha DSLRs (see Sony Alpha A100). In fact, is compatible with both cropped-frame Alpha DSLRs and the earlier Konica Minolta Dynax / [...]