Sony Unveils 24 MP, Full-Frame DSLR

A camera for the ages, the Sony A900 was released Tuesday after months of speculation and rumors.

While many will still prefer a Canon or Nikon DSLR, the new Sony A900 is not a camera that can be ignored easily. Featuring a full-frame CMOS sensor with a massive resolution of 24.60-megapixels, photos should look crisp and detailed, although memory card sizes today may suddenly seem inadequate. The camera also features a 3.0-inch LCD screen, sensor-shift image stabilization, five frames per second shooting, an ISO of 100 to 6400 and a shutter speed of 30 to 1/8000th of second.

Early reviews of the camera are showing many praises, but the A900 is still not without some faults. The Sony A900 is not the lightest camera to carry around for example, weighing in at 4.17-pounds with the inclusion of the battery, lens and compact flash card, but with the Carl Zeiss 24-70 f/2.8 zoom lens attached it sure does look impressive. The camera also lacks a pop-up flash that some users may find disappointing, but in its place we see the presence of a large pentaprism that helps provide the viewfinder with a spacious 100-percent view of the scene. Lastly, the Sony A900 lacks a Live View mode, a popular new feature among DSLRs, but in substitution Sony has included a near equally useful raw preview mode.

While the camera still does have some other small faults, it does beat its only competition, the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark III, in a couple important ways. First, the Sony A900 is lighter than the competition, but more importantly its priced at just $3,000, $5,000 cheaper than the Canon.