Sony interchangeable lens and Alpha concepts: 2008 called, wants its ideas back

Sony has been playing with its crayons and doodled up a couple of concept cameras. It's showing off a potential entry to the interchangeable lens compact camera market at photography show PMA this week, alongside a possible new Alpha dSLR.

The lens-swapping system system packs an Exmor APS-C CMOS sensor and... er, one's blue and one's red. The camera is an early concept mockup, y'see. It doesn't even have a name yet.

Sony is also showing off a concept version of a budget Alpha dSLR that will replace the Alpha A700. It apparently also packs an Exmor APS-C CMOS sensor and will shoot high-definition video, but that's all Sony has to say on the matter.

Lawks-a-lordy and other such utterances. An interchangeable lens compact and a video-shooting dSLR? Hey Sony, two years ago called: it wants its cameras back. Canon and Nikon have, between them, six video dSLRs already in snappers' hands, and Olympus and Panasonic have, between them, six Micro Four Thirds cameras on the market. Sony is even later to the party than the underwhelming Samsung NX10, and like the NX10 the Sony system looks essentially the same as the Micro Four Thirds format.

We know we shouldn't expect groundbreaking photographic wonderments from Sony, but trailing that far behind the market it could have come up with something a little more innovative. Heck, if all you need to grab headlines is show up with a pretty model and a blank spec sheet, next year we're rocking up with an 'early concept' made of Lego and Plasticine and a spec sheet claiming it runs on Vimto, shoots 360-degree video and comes with a free unicorn.

For more lens on/lens off action, check out our reviews of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1, GF1 and GH1, or the Olympus E-P1, E-P2 and E-PL1.

For some video SLR action, try the Nikon D90, D5000, and D300S or the Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 500D and 7D.