Sony planning A100 successor, two other DSLRs for 2008?

Unfortunately, details are still thin on this one, but apparently Sony is looking to introduce not one, but three new DSLRs next year. At a recent press event at Sonimagfoto in Barcelona, Spain, it was reported that the firm is hoping to crank out an all new flagship model, a true A100 successor and another flavor that's likely to hit at a lower price point than its higher-end Alpha siblings. Additionally, it's looking to increase its lens collection from around 24 to 40 within the next two years, many of which will be new designs from Carl Zeiss. Beyond that, we're simply left to speculate, so be our guests in comments, would ya?

[Thanks, Jakob G.]

[Michael @ Oct 13th 2007 2:12PM]

Well that's fine by me. Even though I'm a Canon shooter I'm all for more choice.
Are these Alpha cameras pretty much all Carl Zeiss lenses these days?
I used to shoot with a Contax and while the Zeiss was nice I didn't find the premium price tag all that worth it compared to a good Nikon or Canon lens.

My understanding is that the Alpha uses old Minolta glass correct? But obviously Minolta no longer exists so it's not making new glass, so is it all Zeiss now or does Sony make their own glass as well?

[Geir E @ Oct 14th 2007 8:32AM]

"I used to shoot with a Contax and while the Zeiss was nice I didn't find the premium price tag all that worth it compared to a good Nikon or Canon lens."

Well, each one has its own limits to where price and the little extra in quality seperates. The Carl Zeiss lenses available for Sony is however extremly good. But that comes with a price tag. Carl Zeiss lenses are also available to Pentax and Nikon - but in manual focus.

"My understanding is that the Alpha uses old Minolta glass correct? But obviously Minolta no longer exists so it's not making new glass, so is it all Zeiss now or does Sony make their own glass as well?"

Sony has three levels of lenses.

First it is the consumer line, which is either Minolta designs or Tamron designs (Sony owns a large share in Tamron). Second it is the G lenses, the top series from Minolta and Sony). Then there are the Carl Zeiss lenses that is the highest quality.

And all lenses from the first Minolta lense in the AF bajonet is compatible with the sony. I have 11, so that should put me in the entusiast section.

[Robin @ Oct 13th 2007 2:23PM]

Sony owns some of former Minolta resources.

Some of the lenses are interchangeable I think.

[Tony @ Oct 13th 2007 2:48PM]

Heres the facts-
Sony bought out Konica-Minolta a while back. Then when sony finally put out a dSLR, they made it compatible with all minolta autofocus lenses. Sony also makes lenses now, and has a fair selection for being relatively new to the SLR business. Some of the lenses are zeiss, but by far, not all. The problem i see so far in sony's business model though, is that they charge too much for pretty much everything. A Sony 70-200mm f2.8 sells for $1899 while the same lens made by canon sells for $1,140. its the same story with a lot of accessories as well. There are companies such as Sigma who make lenses for the sony/minolta mount but they usually arent as high quality as stuff made by the camera maker and they dont have thier full selection available in that mount. The A700 has a similar feature set to the canon 40d. 2 more megapixels than the 40d, in body stabilization, no live-view, and they're charging more than the 40d. In order to compete, sony needs to compete in prices as well as features and quality.

[Hello Moto @ Oct 14th 2007 12:44PM]

I'd agree that almost everything Sony makes is overpriced, but as a business model it does work because profit margins are much higher. You can look at every product they make and find that you pay more for the name then you would another company’s product for the same features.

Play station 3 (to some extent), Point and Shoot cameras, memory cards, computers, cell phones, music players, etc. I personally often find the increase to be worth it, but not always. Since they aren’t trying to become as large as cannon or Nikon they really don't have any reason to reduce prices if they are currently profiting.

P.S. While Sony's lenses and DSRL are extensive, I find them to be create products and if I was in the market I would be very tempted to shell out the extra cash to pick one up over its competitors. You can look at other premium brands (Apple anyone?) They charge far more for their products then competitors yet they are growing at a disturbing rate. Sony uses the same system and when the economy is up, it works, when its down, sometimes it doesn’t.

[Tony @ Oct 14th 2007 1:03PM]

yeah, i suppose i agree with that, but it seems like sony WANTS to be a big player in the dSLR market by the number of cameras they have out/are planning on making in the next year or two, but the problem is, even though i went with the sony alpha, (partially becasue i had some minolta lenses laying around) i always feel like i maybe should have gone with canon because of their prices, and the fact that the alpha a100's noise levels are on the brink of unacceptable at high ISOs. I think you could probably get a camera of equal or better quality if you bought canon over sony, and you'd end up saving some money in the process. I love my camera but theres always the second guessing that happens after you pay THAT much for something...

[celeritas @ Oct 13th 2007 5:20PM]

I hope that "all new flagship model" packs a full frame sensor. I read some rumors on cnet that Nikon is planning to release a full frame model similar to the Canon 5D next year as well. Like the guy in the first post said, I'm all for more choice. More competition means better products for the consumer.

[Willen @ Oct 13th 2007 10:05PM]

I think the speculation is that the flagship model will be slightly less than full frame due to the fact that the image stabilizer system needs the edges of the sensor to function. So even if the sensor is full frame, the edges are reserved for use by the IS system so the actual effective frame size is less unless they use a larger than full frame sensor (which is doubtful).

[Rafael Ortega @ Oct 13th 2007 5:36PM]

Please these photos are mine!

put in contact with me to be able to use them!

[Matías F. Picó @ Oct 13th 2007 6:11PM]

The text and photographs are of Rafael Ortega, It's published at www.minoltaspain.com

Why are here?

[Paris @ Oct 13th 2007 8:51PM]

Are you his lawyer or something? I believe he made his point himself.

[Matías F. Picó @ Oct 14th 2007 2:29AM]

Reply to Paris:

Not, I am not his lawyer, only say what I see that it is true, and Engadget has copied text and photos from MinoltaSpain without any report, and you Paris, you cannot defend the indefensible thing.

[Paris @ Oct 14th 2007 8:18AM]

I did not defend anyone. I just said he made his point by himself. Twice actually.

[jpef @ Oct 14th 2007 8:34AM]

These article and pics are extraed of www.minoltaspain.com.

IF NOT MENTION THE ORIGINAL SOURCE OF THIS ARTICLE DELETE IT. THIS COPIED WITHOUT PERMISSION.

jpef (Admin of Minoltaspain.com)

[sk @ Oct 14th 2007 9:06AM]

Why should he delete the story? He is referring and linking the pictures to your site. What's wrong with this? It gets you more exposure for free.

[jpef @ Oct 14th 2007 9:57AM]

The photographs used in this site are property of Roffman and have been extracted from minoltaspain.com and published without the author's permission. OK?

[sk @ Oct 14th 2007 10:03AM]

Those are not the full res real pictures it just shows a pic or compressed jpg. If you wanna see the original pictures you get linked to minoltaspain.com
This is not a violation of the copyright. Otherwise they would have to complain about every search engine on the net. For example type in at images.google.com "minoltaspain.com" and you can find 1000's of pictures from this site. OK

[m @ Oct 14th 2007 7:35PM]

He is not just linking. He is using the pictures which he is not allowed to use.
Is engadget.com always working like this? Stealing the content from other sites?

[Rafael Ortega @ Oct 17th 2007 3:44AM]

Please these photos are mine!

agradeceria put in contact with me to be able to use them!