[Mike McCarty]

If you still believe that Sony is the one and ony here is a new offering in the 10 mp range.

It appears that the new under a $1000 benchmark for horsepower has jumped from 6 mp to ten mega pixel. For this new Sony camera this will produce a 3872 x 2592 image. This would seem to be a blisteringly good image. It makes you wonder just how much farther they need go. My guess is that photographers are no different than bass fishermen. I think they'll level off somewhere around 150 mp.

Stores are now taking orders for future delivery of the new Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, a 10.2 effective mp DSLR selling for $899 body only.

The announcement read:

In July 2005 Konica Minolta and Sony made an announcement that they were to jointly develop digital SLR cameras. This agreement hinted at shared technology between the two companies such as auto focus, metering and Anti-Shake coming from Konica Minolta and sensors, electronics and batteries from Sony. Some six months later Konica Minolta dropped a bomb on the camera market by announcing that they were withdrawing from the camera business and had transferred certain camera assets including the Maxxum/Dynax lens mount and related SLR technologies to Sony.

Almost a year on since that first announcement we have the new Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, a compact, ten megapixel (CCD) digital SLR with a (Konica) Minolta lens mount, Anti-Shake (now Super SteadyShot) and a definite cross-breed appearance. It's fair to say that while this camera may share some components with previous Konica Minolta digital SLR's Sony's involvement has brought external styling, build quality and finish up to a higher standard. The lens mount is to be called the 'Alpha mount' and Sony has announced no less than 22 lenses which will carry the Sony Alpha branding (although many are based on existing Minolta lenses).