With a Thursday announcement about a flagship SLR due later this year, Sony has become the third manufacturer to bet on the full-frame camera market.(Credit: Stephen Shankland/CNET Networks)
LAS VEGAS--The heyday of 35mm film SLR cameras is long past, but one foundation of the technology is staging something of a comeback with new help from Sony.
The vast majority of digital single-lens reflex cameras today use an image sensor that's smaller than a full frame of 35mm film, which means lenses behave somewhat differently than on a film camera. For years, only Canon sold SLRs with a full-frame sensor, but Nikon entered the market with its top-end D3 late in 2007. At the Photo Marketing Association trade show Thursday, Sony announced its forthcoming "flagship" Alpha-branded SLR will follow suit.
"We will commercialize this model by the end of this year," said Toru Katsumoto, senior general manager of Sony's digital imaging business group. "This model uses a full-frame size, 24.6 megapixel, CMOS censor with Exmor technology"--specifically, Sony's 24.8-megapixel full-frame sensor, he said.
Sony hopes the company's flagship SLR will appeal to professional photographers, but Katsumoto said in an interview that's not the main thrust for the camera.
"It's not for the real professional," Katsumoto said of the flagship model. "We'd like to make this camera of course for professionals, but also for enthusiasts and high-end amateurs."
Sony's move helps the full-frame remain relevant and perhaps spread it a bit more widely. But don't expect the full-frame format to dominate the way it did in the 35mm film era.
FULL-FRAME ECONOMICS
It's much more expensive to manufacture larger image sensors. Other SLR makers--Olympus, Pentax, Panasonic, Leica, and Samsung--use smaller sensors only, and Nikon and Canon say their small-sensor camera lines are here to stay. Camera makers also have been selling lenses that are geared specifically for small sensors and that sometimes don't work on full-frame models.
Smaller-sensor SLRs are a much larger market. Of the 2007 SLR market, fully 23 percent cost $600 or less, according to data released Thursday by NPD Group. For comparison, the cheapest full-frame model today, Canon's 5D, costs about $2,100 with no lens.
And chip-manufacturing improvements that could lower the cost of full-frame sensors help with smaller sensors.
"Any advance...would apply to both large- and small-format sensors. If CMOS suddenly got less expensive, then small-format would have an even smaller cost per sensor," said Mike DeLuca, a market segment manager for Eastman Kodak's professional and applied imaging group, which designs both small and very large image sensors.
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