sonyalpharumors

With the current trend in the numbering system being multiples of fifty as in the Alpha 450, Alpha 500, Alpha 550, Alpha 850 and Alpha 900 (not to mention the rumoured Alpha 750, Alpha 800 and Alpha 950), wouldn’t this be more likely to be designated the Alpha 250?

This would still leave room for Alpha 600 and Alpha 650 should they be required (as top end APS-C cameras if a full frame Alpha 750 is released), before moving over to a new numbering range (in a similar way to when Minolta moved from Dynax 700si and 800si to Dynax 7 and 9).

As long as they come up with a decent successor for the A700…I’d rather like them to let the video out, as well in entry-level as in higher end models. Making the A750 a full-frame (yet another full-frame…oh dear) would be a mistake in my opinion.

Even the Canon APS-C flagship mode, the 7D, can’t AF during video. How silly is that for a € 1300 APS-C camera which ought to be on par with the best APS-C’s available! And the AF is still ridiculously slow… They (Sony) would be better off by showing how good their Live View works.

I just hope they don’t come up with a camera like an A750, as so called A700 successor, and three months later launch a A760 model or so, simply with video! I’m in the market to upgrade from an A350 to an A550 or the A750, but guess I’ll have to wait till PMA or so, or even Photokina, by which time my loyal A350 will be about two years old…

I know a number of guys who have bought an A550 during the first days after it became available because of it’s high ISO performance…and now with the A450 released, basically a A550 without Live View and the A500′s LCD, if it wasn’t for the Live View and better screen they could have spent a bit less money on their new camera…

They really need to clearly define each model’s or series target group; entry-level (A2/3xx), medium experienced, faster models (A4/5xx), APS-C flagship users, who want speed and more options but wish to remain in the APS-C range (A7xx), budget full-frame users (A850), high-end full-frame users (A900).

Perhaps the rumoured A950 will be something like a D3S although I highly doubt Sony could grab a piece of the D3S’ market share.

7xx number is reserved for breakthrough cameras (A700 was first high-end Sony DSLR) as it was since Minolta times (eg. Minolta 7000 – first AF SLR)
So A700 successor won’t be A7xx – it’ll be A6xx as it was rumored while ago.

“They really need to clearly define each model’s or series target group;” – it is defined now. A2xx/3xx for most basic models. A4xx/5xx for more advanced but still entry level, A6xx/A7xx for high-end/special, A8xx/A9xx for FullFrame (most expensive). It ain’t Nikon where you have such a mess that even Nikon old-timers cannot figure it out, lol.