Sony a77 - My point of view
After the LCD screen on my 4 year a300 cracked and died, I realised I have no other option but to jump on to the a77 bandwagon, which was released at the end of 2011. I waited until the firmware was update to version 1.05 before finally deciding to pull the trigger as I did not want to be let down by the tiny glitches in the previous firmware.
I have had the a77 for about 2 weeks now and have taken about 600 shots, though most of them are pointless shots as I enjoy the sound produced by the shutter at 12 frames per second, hence I decided to put my thoughts in words now. I will not make it too technical as there are already tonnes of proper a77 reviews out there in the market.
I transitioned from the a300 with the crappy OVF (optical view finder) to the a77's amazing EVF (electronic view finder) without much ease. I really like the what you see is what you get experience, and nailing the correctly exposed shot is much easier than ever now! Another thing that I enjoyed was the DMF (direct manual focus) function. It's much easier to get more accurate focusing, even more so with the help of peaking. Sony also has brought the tilt screen to a new level with more ways of tilting the screen. With that I can shoot at much more difficult and weird angles without much hassle. Not forgetting with full time phase detection autofocus, the live view works seamlessly compared to the offerings with Canon and Nikon with laughable live view systems (who needs live view anyway, says the pros). And of course, autofocus is so much more better now with 11 cross sensors and AF assist light!!
I also loved the high ISO performance that this machine is able to provide, compared to the a300 where shots pass ISO800 are really unusable for me. But now I am not afraid to push it to ISO6400. Yes you do lose details at ISOs this high (bear in mind this is also not a full frame sensored camera), but at web view it's much more than enough for me. With Multi frame noise reduction, it only gets even better in reducing noise and improving details.
Another great feature is of course the Face Detection. With this feature, the camera is able to detect people's faces and continuously track and meter their faces. This helps A LOT in nailing focus and getting the perfect exposure. Even in higher end cameras like the Nikon D4 and 5Dm3 this feature is being implemented, though I believe it works better on an EVF since you can gauge the exposure in real time.
One controversial design about the a77 was the inclusion of a 24 megapixel sensor. People were complaining about cramming too much pixels into a small sensor and this will cause more noise to the images as well as eating up hard disc space at a very fast rate. This is quite irrelevant to me as I only shoot JPEGs most of the time and at 12 megapixels, though I must admit the file sizes increased from 3MB to about 15MB now per file compared to the previous 10 megapixels a300 (though so called professionals will disagree with me). In fact, I find the 24 megapixel is very useful in terms of cropping!
1/80s . f/3.5 . ISO 1000 . 45 mm
I transitioned from the a300 with the crappy OVF (optical view finder) to the a77's amazing EVF (electronic view finder) without much ease. I really like the what you see is what you get experience, and nailing the correctly exposed shot is much easier than ever now! Another thing that I enjoyed was the DMF (direct manual focus) function. It's much easier to get more accurate focusing, even more so with the help of peaking. Sony also has brought the tilt screen to a new level with more ways of tilting the screen. With that I can shoot at much more difficult and weird angles without much hassle. Not forgetting with full time phase detection autofocus, the live view works seamlessly compared to the offerings with Canon and Nikon with laughable live view systems (who needs live view anyway, says the pros). And of course, autofocus is so much more better now with 11 cross sensors and AF assist light!!
1/25s . f/4.5 . ISO 6400 . 22 mm
Another great feature is of course the Face Detection. With this feature, the camera is able to detect people's faces and continuously track and meter their faces. This helps A LOT in nailing focus and getting the perfect exposure. Even in higher end cameras like the Nikon D4 and 5Dm3 this feature is being implemented, though I believe it works better on an EVF since you can gauge the exposure in real time.
Face detection works here as well ;)
One controversial design about the a77 was the inclusion of a 24 megapixel sensor. People were complaining about cramming too much pixels into a small sensor and this will cause more noise to the images as well as eating up hard disc space at a very fast rate. This is quite irrelevant to me as I only shoot JPEGs most of the time and at 12 megapixels, though I must admit the file sizes increased from 3MB to about 15MB now per file compared to the previous 10 megapixels a300 (though so called professionals will disagree with me). In fact, I find the 24 megapixel is very useful in terms of cropping!
This was shot on the 3rd floor of One Utama shopping centre and I had zoomed my Tamron all the to 50mm. However with the Smart Teleconverter function (which effectively crops your images in camera, while still allowing you to get autofocus and being to compose the picture properly), I managed to get the shot below:
As you can see the details that is able to be picked up from a 24 megapixel sensor is indeed amazing. The feathers on the wings can still be seen clearly and not smudged away. I have yet to test the capabilities of the dynamic range of the sensor but I believe the time will come soon. :D
The a77 also has its fair shares of gimmicks with the inclusion of several 'picture styles' in camera. Some are quite interesting, whereas some I may never use at all.
Retro mode
Partial Green
High Contrast Monochrome
The a77 is not perfect though. Sometimes I wish I can customise the minimum shutter speed in Aperture priority mode, or fix the aperture in Shutter priority mode, like the D7000. But if you know the limitations of the camera and work with it, you will still be able to get great results. After all the camera is only a tool.
All in all I really enjoy this camera a lot! My only hope that it doesn't break down for the next 4 years as I certainly can't afford another upgrade anymore :/ Having said that, I've also bought a 2 year extended warranty to be safe, already learned my lesson with the a300. =X
All in all I really enjoy this camera a lot! My only hope that it doesn't break down for the next 4 years as I certainly can't afford another upgrade anymore :/ Having said that, I've also bought a 2 year extended warranty to be safe, already learned my lesson with the a300. =X
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