Questions for owners of a77,..Can you help me out?

Hello Folks,

I'm just about ready to buy an a77 and sell either my a65 or a57. Some things about the a77 really interest me, such as the memory settings, weather sealing and articulated LCD.

They aren't deal breakers, but I wonder about a couple of things:

1. Do you find the EVF suitable for early morning and evening shooting, normally at ISO 3200? My a65 is not as clear as my a57 under those conditions.

2. Is the lens micro adjust thing complicated? Will it adjust Sigma lenses?

Any other comments welcomed on this fine camera.

Jack

Well I don't know about the micro adjustments I have never tried it but no problems with the EVF and low light unless it is almost dark.

The A65 and the A77 have the same EVF. So why change?

I have no problems in low light, i like the noise eve because i see all things better.

Setter Dog said:

Setter Dog wrote:

1. Do you find the EVF suitable for early morning and evening shooting, normally at ISO 3200? My a65 is not as clear as my a57 under those conditions.

Click to expand...

IMO, the EVF works wonders in low light. In fact, I think it's better in low light situations than in bright outdoor light.

Setter Dog said:

2. Is the lens micro adjust thing complicated? Will it adjust Sigma lenses?

Click to expand...

It will work with Sigma lenses assuming they auto-focus. However, if you are using a Sony lens and the A-77 recognizes the Sigma the same as the Sony lens, you will have to reset the micro adjust whenever you switch between the Sony and Sigma lenses. My A-77 thinks my Bigma is the Sony 300mm f2.8. No problem for me because I don't (and likely never will) won the 300mm f2.8.


It's not necessarily complicated, but unless you have very sharp lenses or lenses that need a pretty significant adjustment, it may not be worth the effort. It really is best for wide aperture lenses shot wide open or nearly so. In these cases, minor adjustment of the very narrow DOF can make a difference. Shooting stopped down it's unlikely that it will matter much.

Setter Dog said:

Any other comments welcomed on this fine camera.

Click to expand...

The A-77 AF is likely better than the A-57 or A-65. I find it worlds better than my old A-100 ;-)

Setter Dog said:

Setter Dog wrote:

Hello Folks,

I'm just about ready to buy an a77 and sell either my a65 or a57. Some things about the a77 really interest me, such as the memory settings, weather sealing and articulated LCD.

They aren't deal breakers, but I wonder about a couple of things:

1. Do you find the EVF suitable for early morning and evening shooting, normally at ISO 3200? My a65 is not as clear as my a57 under those conditions.

Click to expand...

Alledgedly the A65 has the same EVF as the A77,however, I find the exposure simulation very good on my A77 (especially if you use the image preview button), so I can't imagine what issues you are encountering, unless the metering was different? I've tried an A57 a few times, but never noticed it being any different? It has a flatter contrast, but that slightly lower contrast doesn't show up in the final images so I don't know what to say..

Setter Dog said:

2. Is the lens micro adjust thing complicated? Will it adjust Sigma lenses?

Click to expand...

It's easy, just select the micro-adjust in the menu, then adjust from -20 to +20 according to how much back/front focussing you are experiencing..

Setter Dog said:

Any other comments welcomed on this fine camera.

Click to expand...

The triple articulation is a nice improvement, as are all the extra controls (second thumb wheel, more direct buttons, top LCD. I didn't buy the A77 for the OLED EVF or 24MP or high ISO performance, I got it as I prefer the A700/KM7D kind of ergonomics..

Mind you, when you get a tack sharp 24MP image and just keeping zooming in and in, you do start to realise just how much detail you can get out of these things..

Setter Dog said:

Jack

Click to expand...

Don't forget focus peaking... also don't forget to buy the Gary Freedman's ebook... it will take you step by step through the micro adjustment section and will even give you a nice target file to use in the process... that ebook will be the best 26 dollars you will ever spend on that camera. 578 pages of easy to read, magic. Beautiful color illustrations



http://www.friedmanarchives.com/alpha77/index.htm

I was advised by Sony that the A77 does not have weather sealing and that I should not rely on things I have read regarding this. I have no formal statement from them to the contrary after I brought it up with their customer relations people.

Dan C

1DanC said:

1DanC wrote:

I was advised by Sony that the A77 does not have weather sealing and that I should not rely on things I have read regarding this. I have no formal statement from them to the contrary after I brought it up with their customer relations people.

Dan C

Click to expand...

I just copied the following text from the Sony (US) web site:


...all ports, doors and controls are weather-resistant for worry-free shooting, come rain or shine.

It is not clear as to what the difference between "weather sealing" and "weather resistant" is (Sony seems to think that they are not the same thing). But most people, myself included, assume that one needs weather seals (or some kind of sealing from inclement weather) to make something "weather resistant" enough to take photographs in "rain" without having to worry about ones equipment - as insinuated by the blurb on Sony's web site.

The a77 is a beefed up a65, so it has the same sensor and the same EVF. You can see almost literally try the high iso setting of the a77 by trying your a65 (and I have both). Of course that doesn't mean that these two cameras are the same, there is so much "Extras" that were omitted from the a65 that mean that this camera is a much inferior camera to the a77.




As for the micro-adjust, the act of micro-adjusting is very easy, but the main problem is knowing how! there are several methods and some charts that you can buy, the problem with these is that sometimes you can't be too sure.




The camera (a77) can accept micro-adjusting for any lens that is fitted to it, it stores it and reapply it when that lens is fitted again. The main problem with non-sony lenses is the fact that many lenses are identified as being the same on the camera and they might even share the same ID number with a sony lens, so if you have a couple of sigmas you might need to note down the value of micro-adjust and apply it every time you attach one of these to the camera. If it is just one that you have that shouldn't be a concern.




A list of lens ID to check whether your lenses share the same ID or not is below. You can see that for example lens ID 25 is shared between a Minolta lens and 9 other sigmas! if