In July 2005 Konica Minolta and Sony made an announcement that they were to jointly develop digital SLR cameras. This agreement hinted at shared technology between the two companies such as auto focus, metering and Anti-Shake coming from Konica Minolta and sensors, electronics and batteries from Sony. Some six months later Konica Minolta dropped a bomb on the camera market by announcing that they were withdrawing from the camera business and had transferred certain camera assets including the Maxxum/Dynax lens mount and related SLR technologies to Sony.

Almost a year on since that first announcement we have the new Sony Alpha DSLR-A100, a compact, ten megapixel (CCD) digital SLR with a (Konica) Minolta lens mount, Anti-Shake (now Super SteadyShot) and a definite cross-breed appearance. It’s fair to say that while this camera may share some components with previous Konica Minolta digital SLR’s Sony’s involvement has brought external styling, build quality and finish up to a higher standard. The lens mount is to be called the ‘Alpha mount’ and Sony has announced no less than 19 lenses which will carry the Sony Alpha branding (although many are based on existing Minolta lenses).

When it’s time to recharge the battery, just pop it into the included external charger. It takes about 175 minutes for a normal charge, and 235 minutes for a full charge. This isn’t one of those handy “plug it right into the wall” chargers — you must use a power cable.

Much to my dismay, Sony will not be offering a battery grip for the A100.

Okay, now let’s talk about accessories, starting with lenses. If a lens worked on the Maxxum 5D or 7D then it’ll work here too. If you have an older Minolta lens then you’ll want to check with Sony support to see if it works. Sony will be offering 19 lenses with the A100 initially, including three with the Carl Zeiss label. If there’s a type of lens you want, it probably exists. And, since the A100 has CCD-based image stabilization, there’s no need to buy special lenses to get this useful feature.

Next up are flashes. Like the Maxxum cameras, the hot shoe on the A100 is proprietary, so you can’t just attach any old external flash. Sony will be offering two flashes, the HVL-F36AM ($250) and the HVL-F56AM ($350), and I assume that other Minolta flashes will work too. There is also an off-shoe adapter which uses a proprietary flash sync cable.

In overall styling the Alpha ?100 resembles, not surprisingly, the Konica Minolta 5D, however it is far from being merely a re-badged Minolta. In order to be taken seriously in the highly competitive DSLR field, Sony has had to come up with something unique and special, and in my opinion it has succeeded admirably. The ?100 is crammed full of advanced technology designed to make taking good pictures easier, addressing most of the major problems that can ruin your pictures.