Just in case you haven't noticed: A850

[douglasf13]

I hate to be the lone voice of decent here, but I prefer the add on F20 option to the built in flash option. The Maxxum 9 had a great VF, but it didn't have to deal with Steady shot, and I can't imagine how big the A900's prism housing would have bee if a built-in flash was present. Heck, even Nikon claims they couldn't use a dust shaker with the D3x because of the 100% VF. Granted, I'm a natural light or strobe kinda guy, without a lot of speedlight use going on, so I can understand that Im in the minority.

Hmm...I hope so, but I hadn't noticed. All the idiots I seem to read on the forums (OTHER forums, I guess. ) seem to still think only neophytes need a pop-up flash. They can all afford an extra shoe flash, and carry it around incessantly...laughing at those of us who don't.

And of course it's ironic that Minolta reportedly got laughed at for putting one on the 9, so Sony decided to take it off their comparable model, lest they get laughed at again.

So, if your statement is true, and the trendy hordes have finally come full circle in their thinking, let's hope Sony gets back to the future sooner rather than later.

It's bad enough hearing some wanna-be on a forum spout rhetoric about "looking like a pro" and showing off his flashless camera...but I swear, if I ever hear anyone say that in real life...I'm probably throwing punches. :argue:

 

[gsking]

I hate to be the lone voice of decent here, but I prefer the add on F20 option to the built in flash option. The Maxxum 9 had a great VF, but it didn't have to deal with Steady shot, and I can't imagine how big the A900's prism housing would have bee if a built-in flash was present. Heck, even Nikon claims they couldn't use a dust shaker with the D3x because of the 100% VF. Granted, I'm a natural light or strobe kinda guy, without a lot of speedlight use going on, so I can understand that Im in the minority.

Douglas,

At least you're acknowledging the reason...you prefer the 100% VF to the flash. That's defensible. Being trendy isn't.

I agree with your logic regarding the technical trade-off, although for the life of me I can't see the importance of 100% VF. With 24mp, I'm sure I could crop a few million off and not even notice.

In any case, it just goes back to my point that it would make sense as an "either/or", with the lower-price (and probably lower MP) camera going with the flash. Putting both features on there, as you noted, with SS would be prohibitively expensive.

Hmm, I wonder if someday they'll have OLED onboard flashes with 50+ GN. It could happen.

Greg

 

[douglasf13]

Good point about the VF, and that's why I'm sure I'm in the minority. I don't think I've ever even used my onboard flash with my other cameras, except to test it. An OLED flash sounds pretty cool :thumbup:

 

[edwardkaraa]

Douglas, I'm totally with you on this one. I loved the 100% finder on the 1Ds series and the one on the A900 is even better. I don't care for built-in flash and the tiny F20 is an excellent substitute.

 

[roweraay]

I'm gonna go ahead and say that the difference that IR is seeing in the A850 and A900 IQ is more than likely attributed to sample variation and IR's less than perfect testing setups, rather than any real difference between the cameras.

IR's testing methods are not fully scientific either. A while back, when they were reporting on the A900's card speed writing performance, they actually did the test with Sandisk Extreme III cards (30MB/Sec max read/write speed).

As we know, the A900 can write to the card faster than any other dSLR on the planet (regardless of pricepoint) and can fully leverage the high speed of a 300x card and thus they were under-equipping the camera with a slow card that was below the capabilities of the camera......when doing a card-write-speed test ! Obviously, such tests are not very confidence inspiring.

 

[roweraay]

Hmm...I hope so, but I hadn't noticed. All the idiots I seem to read on the forums (OTHER forums, I guess. ) seem to still think only neophytes need a pop-up flash. They can all afford an extra shoe flash, and carry it around incessantly...laughing at those of us who don't.
:

I agree that it was a mistake for Sony to introduce the A900 without the built-in flash. Having the 100% viewfinder was no excuse for not including a built-in flash. I am assuming their decision was based on the lack of flash in the rest of the Full-frames in existence in the market at the time of the A900's introduction - and then the Nikon D700 bucked the trend with a built-in.

However, after recently getting the F20AM, I am now fully satisfied, since it is small enough and flat enough (can fit into a front shirt pocket) and light enough (90gms) to be left on the camera - all the time - just like a built-in flash. The only time I take it off is when I need to travel with the camera, at which time I just slide it out of the hotshoe (takes 1 extra second) and put it back on (one more extra second to slide it back into the hotshoe) when I get to my destination. I am okay with the compromise, since the advantage is that the F20AM also has bounce capability that a regular built-in does not have, in addition to not drawing out power from the camera.

Obviously, if it had additional ratio control that would have been an additional plus but I am happy as-is with what the F20AM is providing me, which is to enable fill-flash when needed and trigger off my F58AMs when needed (without ratio control).

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

It's her. I saw the A850 in the shop today. Price in Bangkok: 69,900 baht or $2,000, inclusive 7% VAT, exactly the same as the Nikon D300s. Very tempting, but I have no Sony lenses

 

[edwardkaraa]

It's her. I saw the A850 in the shop today. Price in Bangkok: 69,900 baht or $2,000, inclusive 7% VAT, exactly the same as the Nikon D300s. Very tempting, but I have no Sony lenses

Jorgen,

Someone at DPR bought it from the Emporium branch for 69,900 baht and received a free F20AM (worth about 4500 baht as I bought it 2 weeks ago), a free bag and extra battery, a free 4GB memory card, and 60$ worth of points that you can deduct from your next purchase. This is like getting 250-300$ discount. What are you waiting for?

 

[Jorgen Udvang]

Jorgen,

Someone at DPR bought it from the Emporium branch for 69,900 baht and received a free F20AM (worth about 4500 baht as I bought it 2 weeks ago), a free bag and extra battery, a free 4GB memory card, and 60$ worth of points that you can deduct from your next purchase. This is like getting 250-300$ discount. What are you waiting for?

I spent the entire morning today at the Revenue Office. Need I say more? If you see someone in Bangkok with a Kodak Instamatic and only one flash left on the cube, it's me

 

[Mark K]

Just got mine, understand an A1000 will be in a near future and current A900's price is still 1K above that of A850..
24-70CZ is on her way

 

[edwardkaraa]

Congratulations Mark! Hope to see the photos soon

 

[Mark K]

I will. Just missed one wedding when I wasn't decided yet. I also need to add more members to join my alpha mount collections.