Sony Alpha DSLR-A100K review

The A100 makes a grand entrance as Sony's first digital SLR camera.

It's a 10-megapixel camera with a 4x zoom lens, optical image stabilisation built into the CCD and a 21/2", 230,000-pixel screen. It bears a strong resemblance to Konica Minolta's Dynax 5D (What's New, Shopper February 2006), which is unsurprising considering Sony's recently acquisition of Konica Minolta's photographic wing. This means the A100 is compatible with all A-type lenses, although Sony has already launched 21 of its own, rebranding it Alpha Mount. The camera is also available as body-only for £513 including VAT, or with 18-70mm and 75-300mm lenses for £800 including VAT.

There's no passive LCD, so settings are displayed on the 21/2" screen. This consumes more power, but battery life isn't a concern as the camera lasted for 743 shots in our test, which is one of the best results we've seen. The display rotates when shooting in portrait mode and switches off when the camera is brought up to your eye. Changing common settings isn't as straightforward as we'd like, requiring a combination of a dial, function button and navigation keys to adjust ISO, white balance or metering modes. Performance is up to scratch, with a little over a second between shots when using manual focus and a 2.7fps continuous mode, but startup isn't instantaneous. As with Nikon's D50, autofocus can get confused in low light. The flash is used for focus assistance, but you can't use it to help with non-flash photography.

Comparing directly with Panasonic's 10-megapixel FZ50 (opposite), Sony's images were smoother and cleaner, though not as sharp. Comparing the Alpha's output to the shots we took with Canon's 8-megapixel 350D a few months ago, the EOS 350D often looked sharper. As the A100K's results weren't consistent, we're tempted to put this down to less-than-perfect focus rather than an inherent limitation of the CCD. The optical image stabilisation proved its worth, letting us achieve sharp handheld shots at shutter speeds of 1/20 seconds. However, noise began to be a problem at ISO 800. Colour accuracy gave us less cause for concern, with balanced, flattering tones in a wide range of environments and superb colours under the flash. However, it didn't cope so well with artificial light, requiring us to use manual white balance to achieve high-quality results.

The A100 is a well-conceived camera that performs well and is attractively priced. However, its advantages over Canon's EOS 350D - bigger zoom range and image stabilisation - come at the expense of noisier pictures at high ISO speeds. If you have the money for the A100K, we'd recommend you hold out for our review of Canon's 400D, the 10-megapixel successor to the 350D.