Sony’s consumer triplets–the A230, A330, and A380–all received notice of a new firmware today. It purportedly (that’s a good word, isn’t it? Purportedly. Makes me feel fancy.) fixes exposure lock on the focuses subject in center-weighted and spot metering modes. If that just made sense to you, you’ll appreciate this firmware.
For Windows here
For Mac here
The fine people at Lensbaby were kind enough to loan some of their new line to us during the months of September and October. I know I walked around with the 4/3 Composer for a few weeks and if you trundle over to our YouTube channel, you’ll see me fumbling with Derek’s E3, a Composer, and swappable optics.
More about the babies, and some pics, after the jump…
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Kicking off a veritable slew of Sony announcements today we have two new lenses. The first is their consumer-grade, and it specs out as a 30mm macro with a maximum aperture of f2.8. It’s “SAM”, which means it has the ‘smooth action motor’. In real-people terms, it means it uses a built-in ring-type motor for faster and quiet auto-focus over the older SAL designated lenses. I’m pretty sure the “DT” designation on this means that it’s for crop-frame sensors (A100, A200, A230, A300, A330, A350, A380, A500, A550, A700).
The other, and arguably more exciting, lens is the new 28-75mm f2.8 constant full-frame lens, adding to their full-frame line-up (as well as the other item announced today that I’ll be covering). This lens is also a SAM, so there we go. Things are indicating it will be available in November, should you desire to pre-order one just give us a call at 1-800-726-5544 and you can be right up there on our waitlist.
The new Sony digital camera models are now in stock. The Sony A330 and A230 are now available for purchase. The Sony A380 will be coming in soon.
There are some major overhauls to the new models. They all shoot to both SD memory cards and to Sony Memory Sticks. They all have mini HDMI video outputs that can support HD playback of images in 1080i. They are all substantially smaller models because of the smaller card slots. Overall, the layout of the controls are much more refined and easier to use. The LCD monitors give speed and aperture setting info in very easy to understand graphics. They also seem to focus a bit faster than their predecessors with the new Sony lenses that ship with the camera kits.
As with the previous models, Sony has the live view figured out like no other manufacturer at this point. The nine point auto focus system is prominently displayed so you can easily see the focus lock in live view. They loose very little speed when in live view mode.
Some nice improvements to an already impressive lineup!
Sony, Sony, Sony. I gotta say, whatever animosity I hold against Sony after their RIAA-inspired DRM nonsense and their dissolution of Aiwa right before the sexiest executive bookshelf stereo ever was going to come out, well, it’s mostly all forgiven with their DSLR line.
A330
While I was lounging around my apartment this weekend with the girlfriend they were busy announcing three new consumer DSLRs, doing an across-the-board upgrade to their consumer line (kinda the opposite of the ‘last-years-top-is-this-year’s-bottom approach Canon has traditionally taken in this segment). So, out go the A200, A300, and A350. In come the A230, A330, and A380. All three seem to slot in the same way as their predecessors” The A230 is lower rez and lacks live view, the A330 is similar but adds live view, and the A380 takes all that and jacks the rez up to boot. The upgrades are pretty benign, almost painfully incremental, and you can read about them best over at DCResource, so I’ll skip them for now and talk about the truly exciting bits.
One: Sony’s recent announcement about regretting a closed system in their music market seems to be splashing over to other divisions as well, as these new Sony’s embrace the increasingly ubiquitous SD format. OK, they still take their proprietary MemoryStick format, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But, SD is a good move. Good for them! Hey Oly, I love you, but nudge nudge already.
Two: Sony appears to be on a mission to find the bottom of the market. The new A230? Reportedly MSRP will be about $550 with a lens. Now that’s cheap. Real cheap. Like the budgie cheap. And, all three are available with a second lens for a clean 200 buck upgrade. Not bad.
Three: In a refreshing move, Sony hasn’t complied with the “Black! Make it black! It must be black all other colors are cheap!” chant you hear on the forums, and these cameras have a nice, techy two-tone look, like that gunmetal and carbon-fiber look of the A330 there. And I’ve seen pictures of it in eye-rending bronze, too. But, they aren’t your norm, and I applaud that. Go on, buck the system, Sony. And keep doing it, I’m behind you if nothing else.
Oh yeah, there some lenses and a flashannounced to. One of them is a 50mm f1.8 prime, for you prime fanatics out there (and there do seem to be more and more of you these days). More on those as I get it myself, but they look to be all in the lower-end of the line-up.
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