Sony Alpha A100

After Sony bought over some major divisions of Konica Minolta, everyone knew that something new would turn up from there. Sure enough, around a year later, Sony launched the Alpha A100, it's first DSLR, along with a range of lenses.

The biggest selling point of the camera during its launch was that it was supposed to be extremely user friendly—a DSLR, simple enough to replace your regular family camera. We put that and a lot more to the test.

Build & Features
The A100 is pretty big and heavy considering it's a starter level camera. Sized at 133x95x71mm, the A100 is quite a handful and at 638 grams its not too light either. Not that any of that should matter much when using an SLR, but considering that many camera manufacturers these days have put their budget D-SLRs on a major diet to make them smaller and lighter; Sony has taken no such step with this one.

One trend I don't much appreciate in these new budget SLRs is the removal of the top status display panel, which really comes in handy when taking those difficult shots. The Alpha A100 puts that information on the camera's LCD display and you obviously get the exposure related information in your viewfinder. Also, I would oh so much prefer to have a separate jog dial for adjusting the aperture instead of the button+jog combo deal that the A100 (and many other D-SLRs) offers.

My whiny nature aside, the A100 looks excellent and feels great to hold. The big-sized body and hand grip make it the right size to fit comfortably in any adult hand. The mix of dull and glossy plastic all over the body adds a great look to an otherwise regular finish.

One of the problem that any new brand would face by launching a D-SLR camera in the market would be lens support, but since the A100 uses the Konica Minolta design, all their lenses are perfectly compatible with this one. Besides, Sony had also launched over 20 lenses along with the camera, so i shouldn't be much of a problem sourcing the lenses for this one.