(something to drool upon, I particularly dig the electronic viewfinder as differentiated from an optical viewfinder commonly used in DLSRs by Nikon, Canon and others)
It’s been almost four years since Sony released its first full-frame DSLR – the A900. It would be hard for anything to exemplify the subsequent developments in camera technology as effectively as its replacement, the A99 does. Whereas the A900 was a defiantly conventional camera that would have been immediately familiar to Konica Minolta film-camera users, the A99 is something of a technological tour-de-force.
The A900 eschewed futuristic fripperies, such as movie shooting and even live view, that became commonplace not long after its launch. The contrast to the all-live-view, movie optimized A99 couldn’t be more stark. And yet, despite the A99′s radically different approach, it’s a camera that A900 users could pick up and immediately start using (and perhaps even enjoying), thanks to its similar button layout.
Sony SLT-A99 key specifications:
- 24MP full-frame CMOS Sensor with on-chip phase detection AF
- Fixed-mirror design SLT
- 2.4M dot OLED electronic viewfinder
- 14-bit Raw output
- ISO 100-25,600
- Up to 6 frame-per-second continuous shooting with AF
- ISO-compatible flash hotshoe with ‘multi interface’ expansion connector
- Pull-out three-hinge tilt/swivel 1.23m dot RGBW LCD screen
- Top panel LCD
- Microphone and headphone sockets
- Built-in GPS
- AF Micro Adjust
The A99 is based around Sony’s SLT design – a variant on the DSLR concept that uses an electronic viewfinder, rather than an optical one. Instead of having a mirror that has to flip out of the way to to take a photo, it uses a fixed semi-transparent mirror that constantly means light is redirected to a DSLR-style phase-detection autofocus sensor. This means live view and autofocus are always active.
[source: http://www.dpreview.com/previews/sony-alpha-slt-a99]