Sony released a $1000, 10 megapixel camera, the DSC-R1. It has a fixed 24-120mm (equivalent) lens and an APS-C size sensor. Very interesting for three reasons: 1) that is a good price for 10 MP, if the quality is OK and 2) that is a big sensor for an all-in-one consumer camera, and 3) 10MP on an APS-C sensor is really dense. I wonder if this is a Sony sensor, or if they bought it from Nikon.

The DSC-R1 (great name, by the way), doesn't have an optical viewfinder; rather than a prism, it has an electronic viewfinder linked to the sensor. Normally these EVFs stink, but we won't know until the camera is released. The DSC-R1, though, has some nice stuff in the viewfinder: all the normal stuff (ISO, shutter speed, aperture, and EV), plus white balance, image size, a live histogram (luminance only, though; RGB histograms are available in playback mode), clipping indicator, and gridlines (!). I'd like to see shutter lag numbers.

At $1000, I'll be interested to see who buys this camera. For the same price, you could buy either Nikon's D70 or Canon's 350D as a kit with a lens. The Sony's Zeiss lens should be somewhat higher quality than the kit lenses, but not too much. The digital SLRs are pushing aggressively down-market, while Sony is doing the opposite.