Professional photographer and journalist, founder and editor of magazines PHOTOpro, Photon, Freelance Photographer, f2 and Cameracraft. For 25 years director of the Minolta Club. Fellow of the BIPP and Hon. Fellow of the MPA.

Cashback deal extended, prices cut

SONY Alpha prices are now the lowest of any competing DSLR system – for current-model bodies – on the UK market. Dealers are now selling the Alpha 200 body for as little as £229.99 and even the Alpha 350 has dropped to under £400 body-only. £100 cashback on the Alpha 700 body, £150 on any Alpha 700 body+lens kit, has been extended to September 30th.

A typical specialist Sony ACE dealer advertisement from London Camera Exchange, about to be printed in Photoworld, reveals the latest price deals:

Click on the ad to view a full size copy. If you call LCE be sure to ask about their deals offering one year’s FREE membership of Photoclubalpha with four issues of our full colour quarterly Photoworld magazine.


Alpha Live View in the studio – solved!

One of the problems with the Alpha 350/300 is that the Live View is linked to the settings when you use Manual exposure. It provides a form of metering, a relatively accurate preview of under or over exposure. This makes it impossible to use Manual with studio flash (AC mains strobe) setups. Currently, there is no menu setting to turn off ‘exposure preview with manual’ and enable ‘auto LV gain with manual’. But there is a solution.
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Win a Sony Alpha Lenses hardback book

London Camera Exchange Colchester manager David Jenner has two of these hardback books, which showcase the Alpha lens range as it was in 2007-8 and feature photography from round the world plus technical data and diagrams for both Sony G and Carl Zeiss designs.

He has agreed to give them away to two UK-based Photoclubalpha readers, and you can find the link and instructions hiding in our Forum now. Happy hunting! Just click the Forum link, register with the forum, and locate today’s new post about the lens book giveaway. It closes end of July 31st. By entering this draw you agree to allow LCE to email you with any appropriate news of Sony Alpha system offers in future.

Sorry, it is only open to UK addresses. Drawn winners will be asked for their postal address by email.

– David

Field Guide for Alpha 700

Alan Hess is the author of a new field guide to using the Sony Alpha 700, published by Wileys, with 281 pages and the usual contents covering basic photographic techniques as well as the camera’s operation.

The cost of the guide is 16 Euros by mail order from Research & Markets of Dublin website; the title is ‘Sony Alpha DSLR A700 Digital Field Guide‘.


Nikon launch today – Sony sensors?

Nikon is holding a launch today (June 30th) in London, and presumably worldwide. Richard Kilpatrick is attending for Icon Publications Ltd. As at 1.30am Monday, no press release has been received from Nikon, so we can assume an embargo will be in place but news may be released around 10.30am Monday 30th (GMT).

The launch is expected to reveal a low-cost 12 megapixel ‘full frame D300’ based on the sensor used in the D3, with a D100-type body like the D300. It may also preview the D3X, a full frame 24.x megapixel D3-type body using the new Sony high resolution full frame sensor.

We had early information that Sony would launch new products in June, which now has one day to go. The 58 flashgun may have been the only launch for June. A possible clue to imminent roll-outs may be that new Sony point of sale cabinets have space for products which the dealers don’t yet have! The 24-105mm f/4 G SSM has already been leaked but we can expect two more key lenses in the wide angle and medium tele zoom ranges. Rumours of a June 30th launch may apply to the Nikon conferences, not Sony.

My bet is that the first we may actually see of some new items for sale will be in the window of Foto Gregor, Cologne, around September 23rd. We shall be at photokina from the press day on September 22nd – watch this space!

– David

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