Sony Alpha A900

Front
The front of the Alpha 900 has a strip of rubberized plastic running across the entire length of the camera. The left side of the face is taken up by the substantial grip. Due to the large weight of the camera (almost two pounds without battery or lens) a big grip is absolutely necessary, but it may be a little difficult to hold if you have small fingers. At the bottom right of the lens is a small dial that chooses between Single Shot Auto Focus, Continuous Auto Focus and Direct Manual Focus. Directly to the right of the lens mount is the lens release button, and above this is a flash sync contact, which is usually covered by a rubber plug. On the left side, just before the grip is the very large auto focus assist lamp. Near this on the hand grip, in the depression for your first finger, lies a remote sensor for use with remote controls.

The Alpha 900 has a substantial grip

Back
The rear of the camera has the large LCD in its center. This screen is 3' diagonally with 921,000 pixels, and is bright and clear. Along the left of the LCD is a column of four buttons: Menu, Display, Playback and Delete. On the top left corner of the camera's back is the off/on switch. Directly above the LCD is the large viewfinder with 100% coverage, and a detector which turns off the LCD when your face gets close to it. At the top right of the LCD is a small button surrounded by a switch. The switch controls metering, between 40-section honeycomb, center-weighted and spot. The button is AE lock while shooting, and index during playback. Above and to the right of the AE lock is the auto focus/manual focus button, which zooms in playback mode. Finally, in the uppermost corner, is the rear control dial. While many SLRs use a four-way pad to navigate menus, the Alpha 900 uses a joystick, sealed under a rubber protective layer. Okaying a selection involves pressing the joystick inwards. When not navigating menus, moving the joystick alters the focus area. Below this are two buttons, marked C and Fn. C is custom, and can be set to a number of features, while the latter lets you navigate the settings shown on the LCD screen. Both serve different functions in playback, where C displays a histogram and Fn rotates the image.

While there are a lot of buttons, they're logically laid out.

The three sets of ports.

The right side is almost completely bare. There is the memory card cover on the rear of this section, and the grip material on the fore.

Many of the most commonly altered settings have
buttons on the top

Bottom
The underneath of the camera is fairly standard, with the tripod mount centered on the lens, and the door to the battery. The mount is heavily reinforced, and will survive many a tripod attachment.

The reinforced tripod mount looks like it will survive repeated, heavy use