Digital Home Thoughts: Sony Alpha A100 Review

"The Sony A100 has built-in "Super SteadyShot" image stabilization. Sensors in the camera detect motion and move the digital imaging CCD sensor in order to compensate for camera motion and so keep the image in a fixed position on the digital sensor. This method of stabilization was pioneered by Minolta in the Maxxum 7D and a similar in-body stabilization scheme is used by Pentax. There has been debate about the relative effectiveness of sensor-based stabilization vs. Nikon and Canon's lens-based stabilization. To get some idea of their relative performance, I tested the Sony A100 with a 16-80mm zoom set to 80mm and a Canon EOS 20D with an EF-S 17-85IS lens also set to 80mm. Shooting handheld, I obtained a number of images with each camera at shutter speeds from 1/80s to 1/8s. The standard rule of thumb is that an average photographer would need to shoot at a shutter speed of 1/125s or faster in order to have a high probability of getting sharp images."

I remember posting on the Sony A700 some time ago and how Sony was clearly making big investments in the area of DSLRs. The A100, reviewed here, is the competitor to the low end prosumer DSLRs like the Canon 30D or the Nikon D70 and is pretty well priced at around $600. Unfortunately, unless you decided to go with Sigma lenses, the number of lenses, and overall accessories, are relatively limited. The camera itself appears to perform quite well except for high noise levels but the built in image-stabilization appears to compensate for some of that.