SONY Alpha launch in S'pore

[sean_buerger]

Folks,

went to Marina Square last Saturday and stumbled over the Sony Alpha launch. They had a booth with a 'professional' photographer quizzing the audience on 'creative' effects, he'd done on pix that apparently were taken with the Alpha. Furthermore two lady models were positioned in front of backgrounds to have photos taken. Amongst a nice lens display, cut open models of the Alpha were displayed, as well as a demonstration model of the 'super steady shot' mechanism.

How is it in your hands? Camera built quality feels good enough. The handgrip could be softer for my taste - feels a bit cheapy plastic like. The camera has nice size for most people, I assume. For my rather big hands it's too small. I didn't like the shutter release button's location. It's too far back for my taste. I always hit the aperture wheel, rather than the trigger.

I am new to this Sony, Konica Minolta experience. My last Minolta in my hands was a Dynax 5000, if I'm not wrong. I didn't quite like the controls on that old one and the new Sony didn't warm up with me either. Again a matter of taste. The menu overwhelmed my intuition rather.

It had a standard zoom on it. So I put the camera on 100 ASA (took me a while to figure out) and stopped down to '8'. The shutter speed was down to 1/6 sec. Good test for the super steady shot. So I shot a picture and it turned out quite ok. It was a bit soft, but couldn't tell wether motion blur, camera resolution or the standard lens. It really looked quite ok.

The camera that I played with, claimed to be made in Malaysia.

Cheerio. Sean.

[BaghdadAR]

Thanks for the first hand account. People have started to receive their cameras here in the States if they preordered them when the announcements were made. Since you're new to Konica-Minolta, the Alpha is based on the KM 5D, which was the bargain, entry-level camera. The next step up, the 7D, has a much better layout for the buttons and dispenses with most menu functions that annoyed you.

I haven't seen the Alpha yet, but I'm looking forward to, even if I can't upgrade for awhile yet.