San Diego, CA—The newest addition to Sony’s line of A-mount cameras employing Translucent Mirror technology, the SLT-α57, offers consumers a wider palette of creative options.
The camera’s Translucent Mirror design directs incoming light to the CMOS image sensor and the AF sensor at the same time, allowing full-time continuous AF during still and video shooting. Users can frame, focus and preview shots in real-time on its high-res Tru-Finder electronic viewfinder, which offers a wide viewing angle and 100% field of view.
A successor to Sony’s α55 camera, the α57 is positioned for a wider audience of DSLR users. It can shoot still images at 12 frames per second, capture Full HD video at 60p, 60i or 24p frame rates and has a variety of creative modes, including auto portrait framing.
“Today’s DSLR consumer is looking for a higher level of control and flexibility in their camera,” said Mike Kahn, director of the Alpha camera business group for Sony Electronics. “With the introduction of the new α57, we’re bringing blazing fast response rates, enhanced artistic capabilities and other advanced features to the mainstream DSLR marketplace, offering professional-grade performance at affordable prices.”
With the α57, 12-frames-per-sec shooting is achieved in new tele-zoom continuous advance priority AE mode, which maintains continuous autofocus and autoexposure with fixed aperture. Magnifying the central portion of the sensor’s image by 1.4x, it’s geared for capturing split-second action close-ups with a burst of sharply focused images, even when the subject is moving. In this mode, aperture is fixed at either f/3.5 or the maximum aperture of the lens in use (whichever is smaller), and the image size of photos is about 8.4 megapixels.
Full-time continuous phase-detection autofocus is also available when recording video. Support for the AVCHD V2.0 (progressive) format means that Full HD resolution movies can be captured with 60p frame rate. Shooting in 24p is also available to give footage a cinematic look. Moviemaking options are enhanced with full control over P/A/S/M shooting modes.
The camera’s auto portrait framing, which uses face detection and the compositional rule of thirds, enables the α57 to identify a subject’s position, trimming the scene to create tightly framed, pro-looking pictures in portrait or landscape orientation while maintaining a copy of the original. Saving both the original photo plus the adjusted version allows for easy comparison between the two images.
And to get closer to the subject, 2x Clear Image Zoom digital zoom technology doubles the effective magnification of the lens and is a practical alternative to traveling with a bigger telephoto lens. The camera uses Sony’s By Pixel Super Resolution technology to help ensure that cropped and zoomed images retain full pixel resolution.
Other features include: a 16.1 megapixel Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor; 15-point AF system with three cross sensors for TTL phase-detection autofocus; object tracking AF to keep selected objects in focus even if obscured momentarily by a passing object; in-camera picture effects (11 effects and 15 variations), including pop color, HDR painting and miniature, with results previewed in live view mode on the 3.0-inch LCD screen or in the Tru-Finder electronic viewfinder while shooting video or stills; and a sensitivity range of ISO 100-16,000.
Sony’s SLT-α57 interchangeable-lens camera will be available this month with an 18-55mm zoom lens for $800 (model SLT-A57K) and will also be offered body only for about $700. sony.com
