Sony DSC-R1

Point-and-shoot Camera with Professional Quality Image

Sony has just announced a truly revolutionary point-and-shoot camera, capable of image quality reportedly near that of the more expensive digital SLR’s.

The DSC-R1, to be available starting November 2005, is similar in many respects to previous “advance amateur” cameras from Sony, except for one -– four times as much imaging sensor size, which put a point-and-shoot camera into the same class as professinal cameras in terms of image quality for the first time in the history of digital photography. And without much of a price premium, at about $1000.

The one big inescapable difference between professional and consumer-grade digital cameras in the past, has been the size of the imaging sensor. The larger the area, the sharper, the more color-accurate, the more low-light capable, less “grainy”, the camera is. And professional cameras usually have five to twenty times as much imaging sensor area than consumer-grade cameras.

For example, even with the best of the older consumer-grade cameras, you have to shoot a certain picture at ISO50 to obtain a certain image quality, i.e. no “graininess”, color, sharpness, etc. Now with the R1, theoritically you can shoot the same picture at ISO200 or ISO400 and still obtain the same image quality. I say “theoritical” because Sony has yet to release sample images, so that remains to be seen.

However the R1, just like DSLR's, in order to concentrate on producing the finest still photos, do not do video or sound recording. If you want a truly multi-function camera that does both, then the R1 is not for you.

This breakthru camera, would not affect so much the sales of professional digital SLR’s because professional photographers typically want better features like interchangeable lens, but will make nearly all previous high-end point-and-shoot cameras obsolete, overnight, if Sony were to stick to the announced price.

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