Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"The SLT-A33 and A55 have a unique translucent mirror that allows light to hit both its 16 Megapixel CMOS and autofocus sensors at the same time. That means that you get full-time live view and fast phase detect autofocus for both still and video shooting. And, since the mirror doesn't need to flip out of the way, you can also shoot continuously at up to 10 frames/second, with the camera refocusing between each shot. "

Sony's camera division was pretty much struggling for the last half of the year, especially in the DSLR segment. The SLT-A55 is a camera that brings an old idea with new technology, and to me it does away with all the disadvantages of Sony's previous attempts at live-view, which were the absolutely horrible viewfinder, and the inability to do video. The review is mostly positive, and now it's up to the market to judge the product. Any Minolta/Sony users interested in this?

"Sony's latest interchangeable lens cameras, the SLT Alpha A33 and A55 represent a significant technological milestone - not just for Sony but for the enthusiast camera market as a whole. The company has rejected the traditional DSLR design and instead created a hybrid that, like a compact camera, is from the ground up built around live view, but one that is also capable of offering full-time DSLR-style phase-detection autofocus. The combination means they can offer features such as phase-detection AF during movie recording and extremely fast continuous shooting rates (10 frames per second on the A55), previously unthinkable at this price."

Sony's finally done something interesting and different with the SLT cameras with their pellicle mirrors; instead of having the mirror reflect a minor portion of the light to a optical viewfinder, it instead uses the light for a phase detection autofocus system. This allows Sony to implement a viewfinder that is larger and brightter than that of their previous live view attempts, allows for AF with all lenses in the Alpha lineup, while using the more time-tested phase detect AF system. DPReview liked the camera plenty much, and the new 16.2 megapixel sensor looks good.

We now have three systems on the market for live view AF; Sony's implementation, Panasonic's improvements on the traditional contrast detection system, and Fujifilm's hybrid AF system. It should be interesting to see which method is the more successful one, both technically and commercially.

"Sony is set to introduce shooting speeds of up to 10fps, as well as video, in its latest Alpha DSLR cameras, the Alpha 55 and Alpha 33, by using a new non-moving 'translucent' mirror. Echoing the technology of the pellicle mirror in Canon's EOS RT of 1989, Sony's new semi-transparent mirror allows light to be fed simultaneously to a camera's imaging sensor and AF system, removing the need for a moving mirror and providing the potential for much improved focus tracking as well as active AF in Live View and video modes."

Looks like Amateur Photographer has let out a confirmation of the new Sony DSLRs. These are true SLRs; in place of a standard slivered mirror is a pellicle mirror that lets light to the viewfinder and the sensor at the same time. Canon has used a similar setup before, the last camera being the EOS 1N RS. Back then the main complaint was dust on the mirror affecting the images, but now since digital cameras suffer from the same problem, the inconvenience of cleaning a surface in the imaging path from dust is no longer an extra annoyance. Whether this helps Sony remains to be seen; their DSLR ambitions have been flailing for a while now.