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| Photo by Jack Howard |
| A large crowd gathered around the Sony booth at PMA to catch a glimpse of the promised 24.81-megapixel digital SLR due later this year. |
LAS VEGAS--At the PMA 2008 trade show in Las Vegas, NV, Sony announced that it will introduce a new flagship SLR in late 2008. The camera will use Sony's new full-frame 24.81-megapixel Exmor CMOS sensor , which was announced earlier this week. The sensor has the same imaging area as a frame of 35mm film. Sony displayed a model of the new camera on the show floor, along with models of six new lenses and a new flagship flash unit.
The new camera will be a compact SLR with a separate vertical grip. The prototype model shown looked very similar to Sony's Alpha A700 in terms of body design, size, and control layout. Its LCD appeared to be a 3-inch screen, and the size of the optical viewfinder area indicated a large pentaprism. Among the few details about the camera that Sony has released is its inclusion of the company's Super Steadyshot optical image stabilization system.
There were no focal-length or aperture markings on the lens models shown, but their sizes indicated premium optics, and they were labeled as follows:
• Large-aperture wide-angle zoom
• Large aperture wide-angle prime
• Wide-angle prime
• Telephoto prime
• Super telephoto zoom
• Super telephoto prime
The two super telephoto lens models have white barrels and are about the size we'd expect from optics in the range of 200 to 300mm and 600mm.
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