Monday, March 22, 2010

Bye Bye Sony, Bye Bye!

Back in the days of “BD” Before Digital, I was a Minolta SLR film shooter. When Sony purchased the Minolta photography division and released the Alpha 100 DLSR I jumped on board. I’ve been using the A100 ever since and it has been an affordable and adequate workhorse for me ever since. However, it is now getting ‘long-in-the-tooth’ as is my older Minolta glass. The biggest drawback to the A100 is noise. Using any ISO over 400 is just not feasible due to the amount and quality of the noise produced. My other requirement is capture speed, and for my youth sports shooting the 3 fps rate just isn’t cutting it anymore, especially with the slower focusing Minolta 70-210mm F4 lens. I’ve been ready to upgrade for some time now, and since timing is everything, I can’t help but laugh and cringe when Sony decided to discontinue their excellent Alpha 700 DLSR right around the time I was prepared to purchase a new DSLR. They are now very hard to find, and to be honest I’m not sure I want one anymore.

With the recent release of the 500 series DSLR’s from Sony the choices have expanded, but in my case, still fall short. While the Live View is impressive, these cameras are still entry to mid-level models and don’t have enough key points for me to settle for them. While Sony did recently display a couple of mockup bodies at recent trade shows that seem to be the next generation A700 (A750 or 600 Series?) but I can’t buy a mockup. Instead they announced the Alpha 450, yet another entry/mid-level model.

Since Sony has chosen to drag its feet to fill the big gap between the A550 and A850 I’ve opted to jump ship. While a full frame 25MP Alpha 850 is temping, the price and slower fps capture speed leave me cold, and as mentioned the under-$1000 A500/A550 just don’t have enough important features and build quality for me to purchase new. Canon timed it right and with the release of their new EOS 7D flagship for its APS-C DSLR line, they’ve added one more Canonite to the fold.

What doesn’t this camera have? With an 18MP CMOS sensor, 8 fps capture speed, ISO up to 12800, improved AI Servo II Auto Focus and 100% viewfinder make it a logical choice. The current instant rebate from Canon doesn’t hurt either.  I lose the in-camera anti-shake that the Sony DLSR line provides, but I really only use three lenses (wide-angle zoom, fixed length for portraits, and tele-zoom for sports), so the loss of this feature isn't a deal breaker. While there is some additional investment in Canon lenses with IS, the economical pain is brief. I’m looking forward to new possibilities.

 

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