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Panasonic releases its DMC-L1 DSLR
Always looking to one-up its long-standing Japanese rival, Panasonic has gone and beaten Sony's first digital SLR -- the Alpha A100 -- to market with its own premiere DSLR -- the DMC-L1 -- which just became available today. As you'll probably recall, this 7.5 megapixel "Live MOS"-equipped shooter was developed in conjunction with Olympus, thus including that live preview 2.5-inch LCD that got us so jazzed up about the E-330, and ships with an optically-stabilized 14-50-millimeter Leica D Vario-Elmarit lens. And at $1,999, the Panasonic had better throw in a few extras if it wants to remain competitive, because the Sony, while not arriving with a lens in the box, will sport a higher-resolution 10.3 megapixel sensor at half the price of the L1.
Possible Sony Alpha DSLR specs revealed
Australia's Digital Photography Blog is reporting that an anonymous source has emailed them detailed specs of Sony's upcoming DSLR, which -- if accurate -- show that the company's first foray into this product category will sport a 10.2 megapixel CCD and go by the name Alpha 100. As we already knew, this model will be compatible with existing Konica Minolta lenses as well as some 20 new lenses that Sony plans to release over the next year, but the information revealed today would seem to flesh out all of the remaining details concerning features, pricing, and availability that had previously been unknown. DPB's tipster claims that the 100 will rock an anti-reflective 2.5-inch, 230,000 pixel LCD, in-body Super SteadyShot image stabilization, maximum ISO of 1600, nine-point auto focus, CompactFlash support (but oddly enough, your MemoryStick Duo cards will only work with the included adapter), a reported 750-shot battery, and about a million different shooting modes and scene settings. If we are to believe what this mystery "insider" says, you'll be able to pick up your very own Alpha next month for around $1,000, sans lens.[Via Let's Go Digital, thanks Pascal V.]
Nikon tweaks D2X DSLR with new D2Xs
Never one to rest on its laurels, Nikon has taken the already highly-rated 12.4 megapixel D2X digital SLR and tweaked several features that are probably very important to professional photographers (but mean little to the rest of us) to come up with the new D2Xs. The major enhancements to this model include an improved 2.5-inch display, longer-life battery, the addition of a black and white mode, Adobe RGB support in all color modes, and better viewfinder performance; other, less exciting improvements are a new menu color scheme, extra 1/3 stop ISO settings, more Custom Curve options, and electronic viewfinder masking in High Speed Crop mode -- we can't even tell you how long we've been waiting for this last option. Making the best even better usually doesn't come cheap, though, but the D2Xs will only set you back a pretty reasonable $4,700 when it's released next month.
Pentax *ist DL 6.1 megapixel DSLR reviewed
If you're looking for a relatively cheap way to enter the world of digital SLR photography, the UK's DigiCam Review thinks you could do a lot worse than the Pentax *ist DL, which despite its unpronouncable name, came out a clear winner in their testing. Successor cheaper alternative to the company's *ist DS, the 6.1 megapixel DL impresses on many fronts, including image quality, response times, ergonomics, and, perhaps most importantly to a DSLR newbie, ease-of-use. Specifically, the DL -- which was tested with the optional 15-55mm Pentax DA lens -- captured pictures with good contrast, detail and color, low noise except at the highest ISO setting, and a general lack of purple-fringing or red-eye, while providing a lot of features, such as RAW support, auto ISO, and a 2.5-inch display, for its $740 price tag. The only real knocks here seem to be the lack of image stabilization or CF card support -- meaning storage is limited to the most capacious SD card available -- but since this model is certainly not targeted at pros, those issues may not even matter to most.
