I guess Olympus should be lucky that they could get Sony to make the sensor for their OM-D. It is quite amazing (especially considering that it's smaller). I guess Sony can't be accused of selling its rivals inferior sensors...

Broccoli taste "outscores" that of castor oil...It doesn't make it "golden" though...

The A57 outscores the Canon EOS Rebel T4i by, exactly, 1%.

...but the Canon got a Silver Award, which feels just about right, whereas a Golden Award here just does not articulate with the review own findings.

It is hard enough to be a reviewer. They shouldn't shoot themselves in their congruency feet, making things even harder.

Also, they should have always present that manufacturers love these "awards" to stamp them in their ads pages. Any "why, ifs or buts" that might be a factor don't make it there.

I'm convinced that dpreview is a sony fansite sometimes...but I could be wrong. I wouldn't place too much worry into their retarded scoring system. Go to dxo and look at some sensor stats for the slt-a55 and that's probably all you need to know. Its a great sensor, but I'm not a fan of the slt design personally. There is obvious loss of detail and resolution due to the design as well as loss of light. It seems like a high tech hack with too many compromises when you have mirrorless solutions that do the same basic task but without any of those compromises. I'll stick to the cameras with real mirrors thank you very much. I'm more than ok with the compromises they have. Seriously. I don't get these slt cameras at all. Why compromise IQ for a hybrid view finder?

@PhotoKhan , Zos Xavius
You forget that the A57 is overall superior to the competition in many ways much bigger viewfinder,superior AF in videos,very good sensor,good battery life,tilt screen,focus peaking,12fps for a bargain price and top it with good image quality.
if you can't digest the fact it got a gold award cry home to your mommy.

What has the canon t4i got poor AF in videos,inferior FPS,inferior video,inferior image quality,inferior battery life.higher price,a much smaller dim OVF.
It however does have a touch screen.

@aim120: the k-30 has nice 100% pentaprism viewfinder weather sealing, the same sensor essentially, focus peaking, 7fps, battery life for about 1000 shots.... It costs about the same. Its AF is the same as the k-5 which, I think only sports shooters would find lacking. I could care less about video personally, but the k-30 does 1080p/30 at least with full manual control. The k-5 isn't so awful in the video department either to be honest. Just no shutter control. I don't think the t4i is a good camera at all personally and I certainly am not a fan of any of nikon's crippled entry level bodies.

aim120, the unnecessary meta-insult is border line, under my standards. Still, I will reply, for now:

The review own findings, themselves, contradict the final Golden Award.

Is this succinct and to-the-point enough for you?

PK

PhotoKhan
Please provide the review own finding .
If you are talking about jpeg,see the studio comparison shots in dpreview and imagingresource.com compared to the competition from canon and nikon its better.

Even the gold award winning canon 5Dmk3 has the following cons
"Destructive noise reduction results in mushy JPEGs, even at base ISO"
"Visible sharpening artifacts at default settings"
"Heavy-handed noise reduction leads to lack of low-contrast detail at higher ISOs."

The A57 may only receive a marginally higher score than the T4i, but you have to consider that it costs ~20% less too. In DPR's words, "the A57 is an excellent camera at a compelling price, and as such it earns our top honor, the Gold Award."

There is so many comments on the Gold award of A57
But do you notice that A57 is classified into entry level under DPR
In this class, A57 surely has a superior performance over others
I think that is why A57 got a gold award, and i do agree with DPR that A57 is a very good entry level camera

When compared the test photo in DPR, it is easily found that the RAW, Hi ISO, performance of A57 is even in a very good quality in Mid level,

So, according to its pricing, it deserve the gold award

Diehard troll

I never realized there was so much Sony hate on this site.

Reviews are *subjective* by nature. If the scores were time agnostic, every couple of years you will have cameras that go well above 100%. This isn't dxomark.

Problem is when it's not a criticism but rather blind repeating of slight issues and making a dragon from the mouse. Not even saying about simple blind hate towards camera and looking for issues in strong points of it or totally forgetting that other manufacturers in similar price tag do much worse.

Dino I know you are a Pentax fanboy with a long history of leaving sarcastic comments on all non Pentax cameras. I have seen you around. A57 got gold. K01 got nothing. Both well deserved

Well you forget its a SLT camera the ISO is boosted to compensate for 1/3 stop disadvantage of translucent mirror

Look at the NEX5n it has the same sensor its better then the A57 in higher ISO,the same applies to the pentax K30.

But the SLT has other advantages faster FPS,fast PDAF when using live view in lcd and video ,these are the advantages which outweigh the disadvantage.

Since K30 (Like all Penrax cameras) use RAW noise reduction, I will ignore that. Yes, 5N is exactly 1/2 stop better but this is trade off. A57 offers more lens option and better AF tracking for sports/kids etc.

The pentax raw nr only kicks in @ 3200. Most manufacturers are cooking raws @ high isos. Troll away! The k-5 has cleaner iso 1600 than this camera with no raw nr being applied. Draw your own conclusions.

Cause they are from Nikon. And this is Sony. Sony is worse then Nikon, period.
Lol :D

cgarrard is completely right, of course.

Being pretentious doesn't make you right, RedFox88, although many people who comment on this website seem to think it does.

Who says 'the majority of A57 users will be shooting JPG'..? Anyone buying a camera like this who isn't at least passing familiar with RAW processing is throwing money away. I own an A57 and while I don't think the JPEGs are bad at all (look at the comparisons), I shoot mostly RAW. Having come from most recently from an NX200 and T2i, I think I can safely say this camera has solid IQ performance.

Sounds to me like someone was just looking for a reason to criticize the A57 getting Gold.

Since RedFox is a Canon fanboy, three of the cons on 5D Matk III were

* Destructive noise reduction results in mushy JPEGs, even at base ISO
* Visible sharpening artifacts at default settings
* Heavy-handed noise reduction leads to lack of low-contrast detail at higher ISOs

I wonder why he wasn't protesting the Gold award for 5D Mark III

RedFox
You still haven't answered to ET2 above post on 5dmk3.

Boy, oh boy, if one lives long enough. Since when is an AVCHD codec that everybody else under the Sun also uses "better" in a Sony A57 than in any other AVCHD codec camera, marike6?

I guess there is no reason to be even a little bit factual here, hmmm?'

I was under the impression that Sony was selling decent cameras at great prices, but ever since they decided to price out their Alpha 99 at $2,800 versus the Nikon D600's $2,100 price, I am no longer sure.

Why is that? A99 is by far better camera then D600, it's a competition for Canon 5D mk3 - and it's priced accordingly. D600 might be a competition for A89 if it ever gets released.

Here is D7000 AF during video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1FdFkhg8e0

D600 would be similar.

Compare that to DPR's A57 video samples . It's not even close. D600 AF during video will be junk ..

@Francis Carver: Nobody is saying that a $670 camera is superior to a $2,100 camera. What people ARE saying is that having phase detect autofocus during live view and video mode (in program mode) is superior to DSLRs with contrast detection.

And in my experience, DSLRs with contrast detection, even expensive ones, somehow can't do it as fast as even point and shoot cameras, also with contrast detection.

As phase detection moves to sensors, we can see an improvement, but I will tell you the truth...live view autofocus and video autofocus on this $670 camera ARE better than on a $2,100 camera.

I did not say A55 has better AF. I said A55 has better AF in video mode. Only an idiot like you would deny that fact. You mentioned F3.5 limitation. That applies only in video mode. Neither A99 nor A55 has any such limitation in still mode, so you obviously were referring to AF in video mode. Nikon's AF is not usable in video mode. Period.

Care to provide actual proof of that?

But you where the one who was talking about jpegs straight out of the camera which if you look at studio shots is clearly better then the nikon and canon competition.

If you compare the Jpeg its still better then competition from nikon and canon.It is inferior to the Sony NEX-5n .
You can also compare it in imaging resource
http://www.imaging-resource.com/IMCOMP/COMPS01.HTM
http://216.18.212.226/PRODS/sony-a57/FULLRES/AA57hSLI00100.JPG
http://216.18.212.226/PRODS/canon-t4i/FULLRES/T4IhSLI00100NR2D.JPG

"The only JPEG shooters I know off use entry level cameras or P&S cameras. This is a $899 camera and a definite step up from entry level."

On the contrary, Alpha 57 can be had now for only US$670, so for people who are not living on Skid Row, that is pretty much an "entry level" price for a digital camera, you know.

No clue where you got your "$899" price for this camera, Friend. it was never that. Why, is that how much you had paid for it?

I've had an A57 since a week after release and I've NEVER shot in anything but RAW.

Shaffer: as I said in my post a few minutes ago, those posting on here are not the majority of dSLR users. There are many, most actually, that are parents and maybe out of college kids who don't spend the time and don't have the time to spend hours developing RAW files. RAW is essentially an "advanced" seting and MANY dSLR users are not advanced users.

The Jpegs are only "sub par" if you are too lazy to go into the menus and customize them for the way you'd like them to look. Same as the Panasonic GH2. Not everything needs to be served up like baby food.

@R Butler:
> The fact is it's a good camera.

I wish there were some way for people to have a say what is a good camera.

Reviews give some cameras a sale push what makes them in retrospect "good." But some of the cameras remains sitting on the fringes, never getting even a decent preview, remaining dark horses.

Practically speaking. E.g. a popular vote/poll by the users of the site to nominate a piece of photo gear for a review (excluding the stuff which is on your list already). One poll/vote - one review slot - every 6 month could be a good start.

Butler: a good camera with mediocre mushy JPGs? Come on! Digital cameras are ALL about the quality of the images and JPG is important! I've often read that many sports and PJ shooters only do JPG and send them off to editors.

I have never understood why some people don't use their cameras to their full capability. If I am dropping a grand towards a set up, I am shooting it at it's highest potential. Perhaps for those who buy a dslr only to shoot JPEG, a P&S would have been a better choice.

Right... first spend 100 pounds on 50 f/1.8 and then shoot JPGs?
Seen that - and always laughed from it.

SLT/SLR cameras aren't for JPEG shooters. If you never intend to touch RAW, then you're throwing your money away on something that just gives the impression of knowing what you're doing.

As for their comment, I can see slight softer focus in the front of the image vs. others, but it doesn't seem to me to be any worse than the others. In fact I think it does better that the T4i above 1600 and employs less smoothing than the K-30.

Still better then most competition Jpeg.

Not a matter of learning. I shoot RAW almost all the time, but when my Epl2 can crush the Sony at jpeg with a higher selling price I then have reservations. To attack a persons choice to shoot jpeg and expect quality is idiotic

Plastek: many people buy a camera for the CAMERA to give the images not require the camera user to do all the work! What percentage of film SLR shooters developed their own color photographs? Very small percentage. Why should they be forced to do it now?

Hyperbole like 'crush' paints you as a fanboy, brent. And your posting history is extremely combative and brand-biased.

I've owned two E-PL1s. They do excellent low ISO JPEG. The A57 takes the IQ bragging rights in every other aspect - including high ISO JPEG, overall DR, RAW, resolution, you name it. Not to mention it's blazing fast.

What's idiotic is to whine incessantly as though the gold award for the A57 is somehow undeserved or 'unfair'. Like a child throwing a tantrum, actually.

You have 'zero bias' but find the time to troll this Sony review and aggressively chime in your uninformed views on A57 JPEG performance and how most people buying it will be shooting JPEG? Interesting.

Your E-PL2 doesn't 'beat' the A57 at anything. It has comparable JPEG at base ISO but lacks DR and clips highlights. It also has lower MP, produces red dot flares... To say nothing of other relevant performance like AF, buffer, optional VF, etc.

I cut my enthusiast teeth on Olympus and also owned Nikon, Canon, Samsung and Panasonic in recent years so I can spot brand bashers a mile away. Or did someone else just use your computer to post the several other comments under your name in this section? RedFox: You're also a veteran brand bashing troll. Both your posting histories speak far louder on the subject that I could.

Care to remind me if there's a successor or any competition that would smash this camera out of the sky? No? Then great - thanks dPr for a review!

A new review of the "old" a57 at least gives one some perspective on the "new" FF devices being rolled out. The oldie gives one perhaps 85% of the bang for 25% of the buck. The 15% performance difference won't be tangible in most cases. The 75% price difference sets you back perhaps the equivalent of 3 lenses or the better part of one month's rent.

When I'm looking to buy a new camera, I research all the alternatives currently available in the market, not just those recently released. Therefore this review is useful at least until the A57 is replaced.

So, to sum it all up - don't put too much pressure into reading raw numbers. They can be very misleading.

It's not a con. It's a pro - you get MUCH better handling with this body.

@ Roman Stedronsky & Rooru S
Isn't that how Nikon F3 became D4? "I want bigger body and direct everything". Damn those people that worries about ergonomics and ease of carrying.

EVIL/mirrorless is taking off for a reason and it is time to abandon those full-size-SUV way of thinking.