α Bash

So I was randomly surfing around, and realized that Sony launched three brand (actually, not so) new DSLRS: the α230, α330, and α380.


Sony markets their DSLR line-up under the name "Alpha", and the Greek alphabet "α" is heavily used (along with that lovely orange colour) throughout the packagaing and the actual products themselves.

Each model, differentiated by a triple digit, was suffixed with a capital "a". I have always wondered why. Why not α300 or α100? Why A200?

pfft.

The three new cameras are descendants of the α200, α300 and α350 respectively. So, what are the most notable changes?

New, ugly casings. The α380 gets a new higher resolution sensor.

What hasn't changed? The tiny little flash. 40 segment honeycomb shaped exposure metering (btw all entry-level Nikon DSLRs have 420-segment RGB sensors for metering, the results of which are combined with the distance-to-subject information and compared against a database of 30,000 pictures).


When Sony launched the α350, they equipped it with a live view implementation like.no.other. It wasn't as clumsy as the other DLSRs were when it came to focusing in live view mode. But what Sony never bothered to mention was the optical viewfinder which was also like.no.other before it: its one of the smallest on the market today, solely to make the α350's live view the best.

Question: how many DLSR users you know use live view ONLY? I know of two α350 users, both of them use their tiny optical viewfinders almost exclusively. I'll chuckle in an evil manner now, if you don't mind me.

Also making headlines in the feature list is the new built-in help guide, which can be accessed through the LCD when the camera is on.



Can you see the help button on the camera body and on the display?




And when the button is held down:




Newsflash: this is a camera that was launched in late 2006.


I have an unsettling fear that the Alpha series would dominate the market in a few years time. DSLRs are being made fashion accessories, and are no longer proper tools for photographers. As the mass market of consumers who know nothing of photography (nor have a care for it) 'upgrade' themselves to 'nice looking cameras' with TONS of 'features', you can bet one company will be there for them.