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a77 vs a900

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Alphoid

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I own an a77 (and an a700). I've never owned a Sony FF. Does anyone who has owned an a900 and an a77 have thoughts on how the two compare, both for image quality and for general handling and usability?

I've been kind of half-thinking about picking up a used a850 or a900 now that the used prices have fallen a bit, with the a99. The a99 is a bit out of my price range, and Sony doesn't seem to be making a D600 competitor for a while.
 
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Both are low ISO kings. The A900 has this gorgeous tonality to the images - hard to describe, they just have this "look" that really stands out. Great RAW files too, tons of detail captured, very easy to work with.




A900+CZ135 was my combo of choice. Now it's the A99, but I still sometimes am tempted to use my old A900 again. ;)
 
In part it depends on what you like to shoot. If it's landscapes or portraits, either of the FF models will do a much better job (there's a different sense of space that comes through, in addition to the exceptional tonal renditions).
 
You will notice much improved high ISO performance (up to 3200, 1600 is totally worry-free), and big bright OVF. You might find A900 lack of live view, video a welcome relief if you are shooting still only. Most importantly you will notice wider view angle. Suddenly 24mm is VERY wide, 28mm is wide enough in everyday shooting, even 35mm is quite workable.
 
The A900 files will look a bit cleaner when pixel peeping, but the difference is hardly noticeable for real life work. At very high ISO the A900 foiles look a little cleaner, but you neeed to print pretty large to take advantage of this. For handheld photography the difference is neglible.

Here is a small side-by-side test with the A77 and A900:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/41918735

I would not have bought the A850/A900 to gain so little in improved image quality. Just increase the A77 exposure 0.5 to 1 stop, and the A77 is the winner!
 
Your test was rather unequal in post, there was considerable discussion about it for those interested in reviewing that old thread.

The A900 is undeniably cleaner at high ISO. The A77 will be sharper at low ISO with the crop differences inherent to APS-C vs FF.
 
Amateur Sony Shooter said:
Amateur Sony Shooter wrote:

You will notice much improved high ISO performance (up to 3200, 1600 is totally worry-free), and big bright OVF. You might find A900 lack of live view, video a welcome relief if you are shooting still only. Most importantly you will notice wider view angle. Suddenly 24mm is VERY wide, 28mm is wide enough in everyday shooting, even 35mm is quite workable.
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I can't agree on the "much improved ISO performance". I've recently got an a850, other than the bigger pixel size on the A850, I don't see any improvement, infact I was used to be able to recover shadows on high ISO images on my A77, A850 is worse in this aspect showing more noise in those areas.
 
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RTIMD said:
RTIMD wrote:
RTIMD said:
Amateur Sony Shooter wrote:

You will notice much improved high ISO performance (up to 3200, 1600 is totally worry-free), and big bright OVF. You might find A900 lack of live view, video a welcome relief if you are shooting still only. Most importantly you will notice wider view angle. Suddenly 24mm is VERY wide, 28mm is wide enough in everyday shooting, even 35mm is quite workable.
Click to expand...
I can't agree on the "much improved ISO performance". I've recently got an a850, other than the bigger pixel size on the A850, I don't see any improvement, infact I was used to be able to recover shadows on high ISO images on my A77, A850 is worse in this aspect showing more noise in those areas.
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Shadow recovery has more to do with sensor DR then noise handling, in this case A77 is better (newer sensor). A900/850 has very basic metering often goes under exposed thus make it even harder too recover dark details. If you compare both cameras on equal exposure A900 should be at lest one full stop cleaner. In my own experience, the noise handling goes like this: A99 > A900 > A57 > A55 > A65/77.
 
This isn't really intended to be just an upgrade from my a77, but a complement. I often shoot with two cameras -- typically my a700 and my a77 (I have an a55, but it's a POS).

Right now, I'm moving up from my collection of cheap lenses to nice lenses (in terms of old lenses, my only really nice one is my Minolta 135mm f/2.8). I have a very nice 85mm f/1.4, and I pre-ordered a 35mm f/1.4. If I take a FF+APS, I would have the equivalent of 35mm, 56mm, 85mm, and 135mm from just those two lenses and bodies. This seems like it would be much more versatile.

My major concerns are the lack of focus zoom (my DOF is extreme at f/1.4 FF), the lower dynamic range and color depth, as well as whether I'm shooting myself in the foot by buying a 4-year-old camera. a900 has ISO 1431 on DxOMark. For comparison, a modern D600 has ISO 2980 -- over a full stop advantage -- and it is selling new for only $500 more than a used a900. I was considering ordering an a88 whenever it came out, but now it looks like that won't be until 2014....

I guess most of those I can answer for myself, but the major question is a subjective one: For folks who have used both the a850/a900 and the a77, which one handles better?
 
Alphoid said:
Alphoid wrote:

This isn't really intended to be just an upgrade from my a77, but a complement. I often shoot with two cameras -- typically my a700 and my a77 (I have an a55, but it's a POS).
...

I guess most of those I can answer for myself, but the major question is a subjective one: For folks who have used both the a850/a900 and the a77, which one handles better?
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For me, the answer to that question is the a77. When the a77 came out a little over a year ago I bought one to compliment my a850 (thinking a850 for wide, a77 for tele, with reduced lens-swapping). However, I enjoyed using the a77 much more, to the extent that the a850 remained capped in the bag whilst I swapped lenses on the a77. That only lasted a few months and I sold the a850 for a second a77.
 
Depends on your needs.

1. If photography is just a hobby I would definitely tell you to go with the a77. Its so fun to use and is much more versatile.

2. If you are making money with photography I would suggest going with the a900. The overall image quality is simply better in my opinion.
 
Alphoid said:
Alphoid wrote:

My major concerns are the lack of focus zoom (my DOF is extreme at f/1.4 FF), the lower dynamic range and color depth, as well as whether I'm shooting myself in the foot by buying a 4-year-old camera. a900 has ISO 1431 on DxOMark.
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Focus peaking and enlarged view (EVF) is extremely helpful when using very bright lenses.

Some of the frustration when using my two A900 cameras was:

- Mirror and shutter cuased vibration at medium shutter speeds, so that I could not fully benefit from the 24 Mp resolution (1/250 sec and slower).

- When using tripod you NEED to activate MLU to get the best sharpness. Troublesome when shooting wildlife and you need to watch the action trough the viewfinder to get the right moment (blocked With MLU and 2 sec delay is worthless for such photography). Also, shutter vibration took some resolution when using telephoto lenses even when MLU was activated.

- Very hard to focus precisely when using bright glass, even when using a 2x loupe finder and tripod! Almost drove me crazy when I was doing astrophotography. Groundglass isn't great for ultra-presice focusing, no matter focal length.
 
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Derbarrett said:
Derbarrett wrote:

2. If you are making money with photography I would suggest going with the a900. The overall image quality is simply better in my opinion.
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Uh?

For most professionals any high end camera has more than needed image quality. What is much more important for us is how the camera handles. I much prefer the A77 over the A900. Actually, when I got my first A77 I sold my A900 cameras immeriately and got another A77. When one of my A77 broke I replaced this with an A99 which ensures much more keepers than I could get with the A900 due to focus/autofocus and other features.
 
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I have owned both the a900 and a77. After I got the a77, I sold the a900 and in retrospect I wish I didn't. In low ISO shooting (say 400 and below) the a900 had a much more pleasing color rendition.

Also, I -- and this is totally a personal observation -- felt more comfortable shooting with the a900 than the a77. It was just "there" when I wanted to take a picture.
 
Member said:
John.Laninga wrote:

I have owned both the a900 and a77. After I got the a77, I sold the a900 and in retrospect I wish I didn't. In low ISO shooting (say 400 and below) the a900 had a much more pleasing color rendition.

Also, I -- and this is totally a personal observation -- felt more comfortable shooting with the a900 than the a77. It was just "there" when I wanted to take a picture.
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Nordstjernen said:
Nordstjernen wrote:
Nordstjernen said:
Derbarrett wrote:

2. If you are making money with photography I would suggest going with the a900. The overall image quality is simply better in my opinion.
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Uh?

For most professionals any high end camera has more than needed image quality. What is much more important for us is how the camera handles. I much prefer the A77 over the A900. Actually, when I got my first A77 I sold my A900 cameras immeriately and got another A77. When one of my A77 broke I replaced this with an A99 which ensures much more keepers than I could get with the A900 due to focus/autofocus and other features.
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To each his own I guess. I also own both cameras and the a850/900 just does a better job of rendering images than the a77 in my opinon. Dont get me wrong.. the a77 takes lovely pics but it just cant duplicate the dreamy/etheral quality that I get from the a850/a900. ps.... I shoot between f1.4 and f4.0 95% of the time, so that probably has a lot to do with my opinion.
 
............... I think your question about which one handles better is irrelevant.

Full frame lenses were designed for full frame cameras. I just picked up a second hand A900 and am having great fun seeing some of my little used full frame lenses suddenly become quite useful. A 50mm lens on an APS camera never struck me as a good portrait lens, nor have I ever had an urge to have an effective 56mm lens.

If one is into birding and other activities requiring high power, then APS cameras are great. But if one wants to take shots like one did back in the days of film, it's hard to go past a nice second hand A900 - regardless of how it handles. You won't get the shots from your 35mm and 85mm lenses with an A77, that you will with an A900.
Regards,
Renato



Alphoid said:
Alphoid wrote:

This isn't really intended to be just an upgrade from my a77, but a complement. I often shoot with two cameras -- typically my a700 and my a77 (I have an a55, but it's a POS).

Right now, I'm moving up from my collection of cheap lenses to nice lenses (in terms of old lenses, my only really nice one is my Minolta 135mm f/2.8). I have a very nice 85mm f/1.4, and I pre-ordered a 35mm f/1.4. If I take a FF+APS, I would have the equivalent of 35mm, 56mm, 85mm, and 135mm from just those two lenses and bodies. This seems like it would be much more versatile.

My major concerns are the lack of focus zoom (my DOF is extreme at f/1.4 FF), the lower dynamic range and color depth, as well as whether I'm shooting myself in the foot by buying a 4-year-old camera. a900 has ISO 1431 on DxOMark. For comparison, a modern D600 has ISO 2980 -- over a full stop advantage -- and it is selling new for only $500 more than a used a900. I was considering ordering an a88 whenever it came out, but now it looks like that won't be until 2014....

I guess most of those I can answer for myself, but the major question is a subjective one: For folks who have used both the a850/a900 and the a77, which one handles better?
Click to expand...
 
The advantage of a full frame sensor camera is not necessarily better image quality and definitively not general handling and usability. Image quality is related to sensor size but improvements in technolgy of the smaller but more technologically advanced APS-C sensor has made possible for the way smaller APS-C sensor to have even the same photoquality (or maybe even being better) than a full frame sensor of the same amount of MP's (example A77 vs A900). Usability has more to do with what you like or you don't like in a camera. Some people (like me) like to have as many buttons as posible to avoid having to look in a menu to change settings. Some people don't like to see to many buttons. Probably because they don't know what to do with them, and may end screwing the camera settings if by mistake they change something they were not supposed to change. Or because they like their cameras free of buttons and they prefer to go into a menu and change the camera settings there. Whatever.. So handling and usability are depending on what YOU like your camera to be, and not necessarily what I want, like or found confortable. For example I used to have an A55 and I get rid of it next day and kept my A700, and if I buy another Sony it will be an A900. Not an A99 no matter the price. I don't want or like it not even if it was $500 due to its EVF. But some people like the EVF so much that for them it is the best thing that exist or their only reason to buy a Sony.
 
Nordstjernen said:
Nordstjernen wrote:

The A900 files will look a bit cleaner when pixel peeping, but the difference is hardly noticeable for real life work. At very high ISO the A900 foiles look a little cleaner, but you neeed to print pretty large to take advantage of this. For handheld photography the difference is neglible.

Here is a small side-by-side test with the A77 and A900:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/41918735


I would not have bought the A850/A900 to gain so little in improved image quality. Just increase the A77 exposure 0.5 to 1 stop, and the A77 is the winner!
Click to expand...
I agree with you, if you are not doing pixel peeping, simply buy a P&S. You will not see any difference with your A77 in real life work and you will save lots of money :) :

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/kidding.shtml


Just use UniWB in the A900 and the image quality will blow the A77 out of the water ;)
 
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