Sony Alpha a55 and a33 DSLRs Revealed

[Lee Yuan Sheng]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/news/New_Sony_Alpha_55_and_Alpha_33_EVF_DSLRs_to_feature_fixed_Translucent_Mirror_news_301246.html' target='_blank'>http://www.amateurphotographer.co.u...ews_301246.html</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"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."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1282655229.usr15670.jpg" style="border: 0;" /></p><p>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.</p>

[ptyork]

I guess dpreview got this camera quite early, because they already have full review, not just a preview.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonyslta55/

Definitely interesting. I'm somewhat surprised that the translucent mirror doesn't much affect low-light photography. Logically, it would seem that it must. Perhaps the over-zealous noise reduction at ISO 400+ (as reported by dpreview) is a byproduct of this issue.

I'll be interested to see how this compares to the G2 in terms of real-world performance. It seems that the only real difference here is the contrast detect AF, so it'd better be better there. I guess you're also getting a slightly larger sensor, as well as a much wider selection of lenses. In exchange of course for size. Interesting, for sure.