I'm hoping there might be a Photoshop ninja out there who is actually competent to do this—I've tried, but I made a hash of it. I was wondering how we could tell how big the Sony A900 is just from the pictures, and it occurred to me that if one were to take the frontal picture of the transparent flagship camera at Masterchong (fifth picture down) and superimpose it on a frontal image of the A700 (or perhaps just their outlines), matching the lensmount rings in size, you could tell the relative sizes of the two cameras. Anybody up for this? Anybody got both the skills and the time to waste? I know this is camerasturbation, but I'm curious, for one.
I tried, but succeeded in making a ridiculous mess. (As I'm fond of saying, what I don't know about Photoshop could fill a book—and, in fact, does.)
_____________________
Mike
LINKS:
Here's Michael W.'s superimposed version
Terry Lawhon's side-by-side comparison
Keep in mind that the A700 is a mid-sized camera—about the size of the 40D, not as big as the D300 and certainly a good deal more compact than the "big dogs" like the 1D Mk. III and the D3. Bear in mind that the hands holding the A900 in masterchong's pictures look to be a woman's, which would make the camera look bigger, and that the frontal photo of the transparent A900 is taken just slightly from above rather than dead straight on. I dunno, looks to me like the A900 is going to be pretty close to the size of the Nikon D200/D300/Fuji S5. Of course it could also be "thicker," i.e., deeper.
There's a more straight-on picture of the transparent prototype here. (Thanks to Carsten K.)
If anybody else tried it, send 'em along. I'll post them. My email is in the right-hand column, where it says "email me." Thanks to Michael and Terry. —MJ
James K.'s outline version (click to see larger):
Antonis Ricos's shadowed version:
Andreas Weber (above): "The new straight-on view makes the fit about perfect; just look at the lensmounts."
Kevin McLoughlin (above): "I used the image of the A900 from dpreview which is more square on in view. Matching exactly the lens plates and their screw holes indicates that the A900 is not that much bigger than the A700."
CODA: Thanks to everyone who participated and contributed here. I think we've done this up proud, so I probably won't be posting any more of these. But this has been very educational; I don't care for huge cameras, and it looks like the A900 is going to be well within my comfort zone. Good to know. Thanks again. —MJ
I just tried it. Yes it was messy. It appears the A900 is a little wider, but really not very much. Same height pretty much, except when that GRIP is on it.
Posted by: Mark | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 02:22 PM
The guys and gals from CSI could do that with a single mouse click. Give 'em a call.
Posted by: Guy Batey | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 02:35 PM
The following image from dpreview (taken at PMA - the Masterchong news actually isn't news at all) might be better suited for a comparison: http://a.img-dpreview.com/news/0801/sonypma/DSC00191.jpg
Cheers
Carsten
Posted by: Carsten | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 02:54 PM
Are Sony in the making the ugliest camera business
Posted by: Paul Mc Cann | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 04:43 PM
Why don't you just use a ruler to measure each opening and do a little math. Then, go to http://www.sizeasy.com/ to compare the results.
Posted by: John Skillman | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 05:11 PM
Can the reference dimension be the internal diameter of the lens mount?
That should be the same for each camera with the same mount, one of those engineering constants. From that you can dimension the rest of the camera, IMHO.
Cheers
Victor
Posted by: Victor | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 05:53 PM
"Are Sony in the making the ugliest camera business"
What? Actually, I think the A700 is quite handsome. Saw one last night.
Mike J.
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 06:02 PM
Who cares if its ugly? All SLR's (especially mounted with zooms) are ugly compared to rangefinders but form follows function. Has Porsche designed a camera?
Posted by: Bob Dales | Tuesday, 25 March 2008 at 10:30 PM
Didn't your Mom tell you anything about curiosity? ;-)
Here it goes:
Assuming that the lens mount opening has a diameter of 1.0 unit (that's the opening size, not taking into account the bayonet fingers),
- the body has a width of 2.95 units,
- the body extends 1.75 units on the grip side (from the lens center),
- the grip is 0.65 units wide,
- the height of the rectangular section is 1.70 units,
- the viewfinder "hump" adds 0.60 unit to this,
- the "hump" is 1.10 unit wide at its base.
Now, if you can find out what the diameter of that big hole is, all you have to do is multiply the above numbers by the said diameter. Anyone has a Sony?
Thanks to Carsten for his link, Masterchong's image is not quite a frontal shot and yielded somewhat different results height-wise.
Btw, Photoshop is the wrong tool for this. Having placed the image as a background in Illustrator, all you have to do is draw circles & rectangles over the image and compare their respective sizes. ;-)
Posted by: Bert | Wednesday, 26 March 2008 at 12:59 AM
"Has Porsche designed a camera?"
Bob,
Yes, Porsche Design (related to, but not identical to, the car company) designed the Contaxes for Yashica/Kyocera starting in the '70s. Its masterpiece was probably the Contax ST.
"Red slash" Nikons are designed by Italdesign Guigiaro, which also designs automobiles for many companies.
Mike J.
Posted by: Mike Johnston | Wednesday, 26 March 2008 at 10:23 AM