2026-05-06 Sony Alpha A200 Digital SLR

   It isn’t often I spend over $30 for a camera. It took somewhat special circumstances for it to happen with this Sony Alpha A200. I was in the process of waiting for a certain thrift store to lower their price for a Pentax 200. They wanted $75 for it, although one Thursday they had a 50 per cent off sale on everything in the store I could have snapped it up for $37.50. I had more like $20-25 in mind so was waiting for more time to pass. Anyway—as you can see I was already thinking on spending more than my usual amount. Also notice “200” enters into the descriptions of both cameras!
   The second thing that precipitated my decision was the A200 was in the Value Village’s showcase, so I had a clerk—necessary to unlock the case—watching me as I opened the camera bag and raised this gorgeous camera to my exploring fingers. When the clerk said, “We have just put this out,” I was hooked.
   Lucky for me I took it. The Pentax 200 was gone when I went back to the other thrift store.

Notice the A200 has the Minolta flash mount instead of a hotshoe

Sony started into digital single lens cameras in 2006 with the A100. A year later the A700 prosumer model was released. A year after that the A100 was replaced with three cameras. The A350 was for “the feature loving on a budget,” the A200 was for “those whose number one buying criterion is value-for-money” and the A300 for those who fall in between both those cameras.

The A200 improved on a couple of the A100 features—

Larger screen (2.7” instead of 2.5”)
ISO 3200 mode
user controlled High ISO noise reduction
all new raw converter software
Super SteadyShot moves the sensor (may be from the A700 and A350)

The A200 The Sony Alpha A200 was the lowest priced of all the DSLR’s available, from any manufacturer.

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