Sony pokes it’s head into the professional DSLR game every once in a while, most notably with the A900 full frame DSLR. This camera gave Sony and Nikon a run for their money in the full frame market with a camera that ran about half the cost of the D3x and 5D MKII. Looks like they might be up to it again with the SLT-A55V.
While I haven’t gotten to play with this camera and the Ikelite housing set up on paper it looks great. The SLT-A55V has a feature set that would be of interest to underwater photographers.
The big advance that makes this camera a threat is Sony’s new Translucent Mirror Technology. apparently, this lets the camera focus and shoot simultaneously. Unlike other DSLRs, the mirror in these cameras never moves. This eliminates the time needed to raise and lower the mirror. The benefit is speeds of up to 10 fps. What’s more interesting to me is the fact that there is no optical viewfinder on the camera. Instead it boasts an electronic viewfinder that Sony claims is WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get.) This gives you an approximation of the white balance and exposure before you take the shot. I can envision a bright LED viewfinder with 100% coverage that I can see under a dense kelp canopy or down deep on a wreck.
The camera also shoots 1080p HD video in the easy-to-edit H264 AVCHD format. The nice thing about this is the autofocus uses phase detection which can be much faster than traditional autofocus for fast underwater subjects like sea lions.
The APS-C sized sensor is a bummer, but to be expected as a competitor to the APS-C Canon and Nikon lines. A smaller sensor contains denser packed photo sites than a full frame camera which can produce more noise. Low light performance also suffers. However, Sony touts their Sony Exmor™ APS HD CMOS technology as achieving phenomenal resolution with no penalty in low-light sensitivity or sensor noise. The sensor is a CMOS versus a CCD so it remains to be seen how Sony addressed the wobbly ”jello cam” effect that plagues Nikon’s APS-C sized sensors.
Another problematic area is the camera uses the Sony A lens mount. Sony optics are nothing to balk at but, let’s face facts here, Canon and Nikon make better DSLR glass. You are also a little limited in your lens A mount choices too. You can opt for a camera lens package that includes a 18mm fixed lens that equates to about a 28mm on a full frame sensor.
Bottom line here is that for a camera and housing package that comes in at under $2,500, it’s worth a serious look. If you get one in your hot little hands shoot us a review in the comments and let us know how you like it.
