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jdonalds

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I was one of the first to receive an A55 in 2010. Today it died and I've selected an A65 as my upgrade. This wasn't a happy day or an easy decision.

Just weeks after I purchased the A55 the wrist strap slipped out of the serpentine clasp and the camera fell from my wrist to a concrete floor, hitting on the edge of the SAL-18-250 lens. It was with a sigh of relief that the camera worked. But I've had three problems now and each time I wonder if that drop to the floor could have been involved.

The first failure was the camera wouldn't go out of the internal stabilization mode. This wasn't a big deal because the only lens I had at the time was not stabilized. I did send the camera into Sony repair under warranty and that problem was fixed (five weeks later).

Next, after 1,000s of photos and about 18 months, the 18-250 wouldn't focus and was making funny noises. So I then sent the lens to KEH camera who repaired the lens. This, of course, could have been directly related to the camera drop.

Finally, today, the shutter stuck closed and the camera displayed "Camera Error". Now it won't turn on at all. I've read that a number of people have had this problem and it seems the cost to repair is about $300-350.

So my plan is to buy an A65 first. Then I'll have some repair shop give me an estimate. If the cost to repair is about $300 I'll have it fixed and keep it as a second body. I don't think I can sell it for enough on eBay to cover the repair cost and it seems like having a spare body isn't such a bad deal. If the cost to repair it is over $400 it will be a brick in my closet until I find the courage to dump it.

Now the decision to buy the A65.

I looked at the range of available translucent cameras from Sony (I have money in Sony lenses) and find there are a few Alphas with less features than the A55 and a few with equal or more features. The A99 is way out of my price range, the A77 is tempting mostly for the weather sealing. While it would be nice to have the upgraded features of the A77 I can't justify the $300 price difference and I can live without those upgrades. So the A65 seemed the best fit for me. However...

Pros of the A65 for me:

- I really want the new OLED view finder.

- It would be nice to have better battery life (but I haven't had too much to complain about wth the A55 battery life).

- It would be nice to have the higher resolution so I can crop more and still have good image quality.

- It would be nice to have the longer video capability before an overheat condition occurs. I don't take too much video but I live in the very hot (110 degree summer days) Northern California city of Redding and I have had the overheat condition interfere with my video taking adventures.

- Object tracking looks pretty neat and I'm sure I'd use it.

- The A65 will correct for my Sony 18-50 f/2.8 wonderful lens.

- Better grip. The A55 grip was always too small for me.

- A programmable button. Yea! I'm not sure today how I would use it but I'm sure it will be great.

Cons of the A65 for me:

- Larger and heavier than the A55 but I can live with it. One of the many attractions of the A55 was the small size and light weight, but I've found the lenses can alter that condition handily. My Sigma 70-200 f2.8 is 3 pounds and dwarfs the camera body.

- New battery type means I have to buy a new spare battery.

- Larger file sizes. I'm not too concerned about filling SD cards but I am concerned about larger files on my computer. I've already upgraded my hard disks because I have so many photo files. Also if I want to upload files to the web they will take longer. This is the downside of the higher megapixel cameras.

- Start up delay of 2.8 seconds on the A65 vs 0.9 seconds on the A55. This will likely bother me as I carry the camera on a wrist strap, usually with my hand on the grip and ready to shoot. I typically have the camera turned off and it isn't unusual for me to flip it on to catch something that requires quick start up of the camera. I know this isn't careful planning but that's the kind of photographer I am (if I can use that term for myself). Really that is 3X slower!

- I'm concerned that the A65 came out 17 months ago and as soon as I buy one Sony will come out with something better in this price range.

- High noise at higher ISO settings. This is a very big concern and disappointment for me. I do a mix of shooting but a lot of it is in lower light conditions. If I didn't own 3 expensive Sony A mount lenses this would have me off looking at other manufacturer's camera bodies. I have read many reviews today, and user comments, and it seems the A65 is about equal to the A55 in terms of noise. If that is the case I'll be okay with it. Some say the noise in the A55 is less than the A65.

I'm not sure if I'm looking for any comments. I'm just ranting because I'm miffed about Sony reliably and not to thrilled with having to spend $700 plus as a surprise today. I'm retired and not made of money but I do enjoy taking photos and seldom leave the house without the camera if we are going anywhere that a camera might be useful.

I have not yet hit the Buy button on the A65 but plan to do so in the next 24 hours.

--
John
 
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Just a thought, but the A57 is still available from a few dealers. The A57 would tick off quite a few of your negatives regarding the A65, and loses only the OLED viewfinder in the positives. There have been some clearance prices lately on A57 bodies for $400, so that should help with saving for something else down the road.

I actually prefer the A57 LCD viewfinder LCD to the first generation OLED viewfinder. It's not as striking, but more useful to see some detail in deep shadows as opposed to going black so abruptly. I think it looks more like the A55 viewfinder did (but better), and believe it helps with battery life in some conditions.
 
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Consider as well the A57 (great fire sale prices right now, <$500 with 18-55mm, as they clearance them to make room for the in-many-ways-inferior upcoming A58). I went from the A33 (very similar to the A55) to the A57 and it feels like a truly meaningful upgrade. It shares the same exact body as the A65. Improved 16mp sensor with zero overheating issues. You won't mind the extra heft really, it carries and balances well, and is a nice compromise between the smaller form factor A55 and the much larger A77. Also a lot of the concerns you mentioned are somewhat mitigated on the A57 (larger file sizes & higher ISO noise). I actually prefer the larger battery; they're not expensive ($43) and are a big improvement over the underpowered A55 battery, so much so that start up delay isn't a factor because I can leave the camera on all the time without worrying about battery life when I'm out and about with it.

I only cried a little bit about no OLED EVF, but honestly I got over it. Even though they're technically the same size, the A57 EVF is an improvement anyways because it allows you to view standard magnification (same as the A33/A55) or maximum magnification (which presents a larger EVF image that uses the entire display [not an option on the older models]).

Curious to know what brand wrist strap you use that failed on you.

B&H Photo - Sony A57 with kit zoom $500
 
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Thanks for your input whitebird. I took a look at the A57. Much to my surprise I deselected it because of the lack of a GPS.

I haven't used the GPS in my A55 much at all. In fact it is turned off (well the camera is DEAD today but you know what I mean). One reason is I found that unless I give it enough time to find satellites it actually records the wrong location in the files. However...

Aside from my snapshot photography habits I have been doing a LOT of family tree work lately. I'm blessed to have thousands of old family photos (grew up in Rochester NY, home of Kodak), some dating back to the late 1800's. While doing this family tree work with photos three things have become important to me. 1) Who is in the photo. 2) What date was the photo taken. 3) Where was it taken. All too often those facts are not recorded anywhere so I have to discover them. I realized a GPS location would go a long way to answering #3.

So I just recently decided to enable the GPS on my A55 and let it do it's job to the best of it's ability. That way if future generations are doing genealogy work using my photos they will at least have that information. So when researching Alpha cameras today I decided I needed the new camera to have the GPS feature too.

I suppose a lot of people these days have also found that having WiFi is pretty handy. We are raising our 3 year old grandson and I very often post photos and videos of him on Facebook or Youtube so his parents, who are not local, can see him. When I use my iPod Touch to snap a few photos or videos I can upload them directly from the iPod. But with the camera it is a multi-step process. I wish the A65 had WiFi but perhaps Sony will take some time to catch up to that demand - sort of like cup holders in cars. Once the manufacturers caught on the number of cup holders has become a big selling point. Perhaps WiFi features will hit the Sony prosumer cameras too.
 
jdonalds said:
jdonalds wrote:

Thanks for your input whitebird. I took a look at the A57. Much to my surprise I deselected it because of the lack of a GPS.

I haven't used the GPS in my A55 much at all. In fact it is turned off (well the camera is DEAD today but you know what I mean). One reason is I found that unless I give it enough time to find satellites it actually records the wrong location in the files. However...

Aside from my snapshot photography habits I have been doing a LOT of family tree work lately. I'm blessed to have thousands of old family photos (grew up in Rochester NY, home of Kodak), some dating back to the late 1800's. While doing this family tree work with photos three things have become important to me. 1) Who is in the photo. 2) What date was the photo taken. 3) Where was it taken. All too often those facts are not recorded anywhere so I have to discover them. I realized a GPS location would go a long way to answering #3.

So I just recently decided to enable the GPS on my A55 and let it do it's job to the best of it's ability. That way if future generations are doing genealogy work using my photos they will at least have that information. So when researching Alpha cameras today I decided I needed the new camera to have the GPS feature too.

I suppose a lot of people these days have also found that having WiFi is pretty handy. We are raising our 3 year old grandson and I very often post photos and videos of him on Facebook or Youtube so his parents, who are not local, can see him. When I use my iPod Touch to snap a few photos or videos I can upload them directly from the iPod. But with the camera it is a multi-step process. I wish the A65 had WiFi but perhaps Sony will take some time to catch up to that demand - sort of like cup holders in cars. Once the manufacturers caught on the number of cup holders has become a big selling point. Perhaps WiFi features will hit the Sony prosumer cameras too.
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I went from an A55 ( 200,00 clicks and still going...) to an A57.

The A57 viewfinder is 'bigger' than the A55

GPS is something I never used once I found that it was usually inaccurate and drained the battery.

The larger size of the A57 I quickly got used to - I have a NEX when I want "small 'n light"

Being able to prevent the stoooopid accidental use of the video button in the A57 software menu is brilliant!

Focus peaking and manual focus zoom are good.

The 12fps mode is handy.

Battery life is much better than the A55 and the A55 batteries still fit my NEX camera so that was an added bonus.

I have to say I think the A57 is probably 'too good' and that is why Sony have repositioned the A58 a bit 'further away' from the A65.

What ever you buy. A65, A57, A58 they are all good cameras.

Enjoy!
 
Well I am sorry for your lose but congrats on the new camera. You seem to know exactly what you want and that's good. I hope you find the a65 fills all of your needs.
 
jdonalds said:
jdonalds wrote:

I'm not sure if I'm looking for any comments. I'm just ranting because I'm miffed about Sony reliably and not to thrilled with having to spend $700 plus as a surprise today. I'm retired and not made of money but I do enjoy taking photos and seldom leave the house without the camera if we are going anywhere that a camera might be useful.
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Frankly I do not understand that you are miffed at Sony reliability. I think it did pretty well for a serious fall. Just my opinion.
 
I can understand how convenient the GPS feature could be. Sometimes I wish the 500-series cameras would have included that feature. On the other hand, I've read mixed reviews about accuracy and battery drain.

It's certainly not as convenient, but if you carry a smartphone there's the option to use a geo-tag "app" to track location and merge the locations into the photos when back at the computer.

I've been thinking about WiFi capability myself, and might look into the "EyeFi" memory cards sometime.

Good luck with the decision, and of course the repair attempt on the A55.
 
I use the camera with the gps on all the time.

I find it amazingly accurate, where I normally shoot, which is not in a downtown concrete jungle.

I call tell if a photo is taken in front or in back of my house.

I don't have a battery problem with the a99. Settings are critical but I don't use powersave mode at all.
And although I have 4 batteries and often 2 bodies (a77 too), I never have to swap them out. 600 shots and all is grand.

Just for the record. The gps is accurate. And the a99 and the a77 do not eat batteries.

My a100 sits here too, and with the gps on, and travelling through Europe, I used the spare battery ONCE. After 800 shots. Memory cards are more of an issue.
 
+1

also, my A77 is ready to shoot in way less than 2.8 seconds - I would say ~1s. As It's always been on the latest firmware it could be that you are looking at old reviews & that updates improved on startup time.
 
Thanks for relating a positive experience with the GPS feature. Good to know. A shame the GPS feature is not included in all the Alpha bodies. Probably adds very little to cost of manufacture, so just a model "separator" I suppose.
 
jdonalds said:
jdonalds wrote:

- Start up delay of 2.8 seconds on the A65 vs 0.9 seconds on the A55. This will likely bother me as I carry the camera on a wrist strap, usually with my hand on the grip and ready to shoot. I typically have the camera turned off and it isn't unusual for me to flip it on to catch something that requires quick start up of the camera. I know this isn't careful planning but that's the kind of photographer I am (if I can use that term for myself). Really that is 3X slower!
Click to expand...
I see that you grabbed that data from another site. The A65 starts up faster than that when using current firmware. The 2.8 seconds was with older firmware, that test was with 1.03. With 1.06 or higher you should see startup times closer to what the A55 was getting , which is around the .8 to 1 second range.

Same goes for the shutdown times. With the initial release firmware, it could take several seconds. But with the current firmware, expect much short shutdown times.
 
The a37 ad a57 are at bargain prices now if you can find one and wish to spare a dollar or two. The a37 will give you the same form factor as the a55.

In fact, you could probably buy an a37 and a57 for roughly the same price as an a65, especially if you dont bother repairing the a55.
 
busch said:
busch wrote:
busch said:
jdonalds wrote:

I'm not sure if I'm looking for any comments. I'm just ranting because I'm miffed about Sony reliably and not to thrilled with having to spend $700 plus as a surprise today. I'm retired and not made of money but I do enjoy taking photos and seldom leave the house without the camera if we are going anywhere that a camera might be useful.
Click to expand...
Frankly I do not understand that you are miffed at Sony reliability. I think it did pretty well for a serious fall. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...
 
VirtualMirage said:
VirtualMirage wrote:
VirtualMirage said:
jdonalds wrote:

- Start up delay of 2.8 seconds on the A65 vs 0.9 seconds on the A55. This will likely bother me as I carry the camera on a wrist strap, usually with my hand on the grip and ready to shoot. I typically have the camera turned off and it isn't unusual for me to flip it on to catch something that requires quick start up of the camera. I know this isn't careful planning but that's the kind of photographer I am (if I can use that term for myself). Really that is 3X slower!
Click to expand...
I see that you grabbed that data from another site. The A65 starts up faster than that when using current firmware. The 2.8 seconds was with older firmware, that test was with 1.03. With 1.06 or higher you should see startup times closer to what the A55 was getting , which is around the .8 to 1 second range.

Same goes for the shutdown times. With the initial release firmware, it could take several seconds. But with the current firmware, expect much short shutdown times.
Click to expand...
 
Just a note on my GPS experience.

My son and I were driving along the Normandy coast in France. We would stop, take in the sights and snap a few photos, then drive on. On those short stops the GPS rarely had a chance to re-sync and record an accurate fix. Of course other times the GPS works fine under more normal conditions when I'm not rapidly moving from one place to the next.

I never noticed too much additional drain on the battery due to having the GPS turned on. Overall my battery life experience with the A55 wasn't bad at all. I usually carry a second battery but rarely had to change batteries. This is over the course of a day. I always charged the battery in the evening to prepare for the next day. Most days in France I'd take from 100 to 400 photos.

--
John
 
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I have received the A65. Here are my first impressions compared to the A55.

1) Expecting a lot from the OLED viewfinder it didn't jump out at me. I'll have to wait until the A55 comes back from repair and compare the two. It does look larger but if I didn't know there was a published big difference I might not have noticed. I am quite pleased with both the A55 and A65 EVFs.

2) The first shots I took blew me away. Having the extra megapixels is a much bigger deal than I thought it would be. I really like to use the SAL 15-50 f2.8 lens because it is so sharp but it has limited zoom. The 24 megapixel images allow me to crop more on the computer and still have very nice images.

3) Sony did move some buttons around a bit and for the most part I like the changes. The Video, AEL and tele-converter buttons are moved off the top a bit more and are easier to access.

4) I see Sony decided to put a dedicated ISO button by the shutter button, but they removed the D-Range button. This is a big disappointment to me. It may be more sophisticated shooters play with ISO a lot but I don't do it often enough for a dedicated button on the top of the camera. On the other hand I did use the D-Range button a lot. I find a lot of high contrast shots are better handled by the Auto HDR feature. Gratefully I was able to reprogram the ISO button to activate D-Range but now my D-Range button is labeled ISO!

5) The extra weight of the A65 over the A55 is noticable. I've carried the A55 a lot and for over 2 years so every time I pick the A65 up I do feel the difference in weight. I'll get over it.

6) The grip on the A65 is much better than the A55. That was one of my few complaints about the A55 as the grip was too small for me.

7) I'm so glad the stereo microphone is colored black rather than the silver shown in many photos. Is that a change from when the camera was first released?

8) The A55 has an infrared focus assist while the A65 uses the flash. I don't know which has better performance but I really like the infrared action over the flash. It is much more subtle.

9) The On/Off button on the A55 has a nice crisp snap to it whereas the A65 feels soft and mushy.

10) Placement of the Access Lamp (used to show when files are accessed on the SD card) is better on the A65. The A55 was too low and small. No big deal either way though.

11) I REALLY like the shutter sound. The camera comes with the Front Curtain Shutter ON. This means there is only one shutter sound per shutter release. The camera has a nice crisp sound for each photo. A big bonus is the shutter will have 1/2 the operations this way which should extend the life of the shutter. It was a fail of the shutter on the A55 which has it in the repair shop now.

12) When the A65 processes the Auto HDR images it takes longer than on the A55. I suppose this is due to the larger image size. It is quite noticeable to me.

13) I may be wrong about this but when reviewing images on the A55 holding the Zoom In button would automatically step through zooms until it reached the limit. On the A65 I have to manually push the button several times to effect the same result. I'll double check this when the A55 comes back from the repair shop (assuming they do fix it!).

All in all I'm pleased with the A65.
 
clockwork247 said:
clockwork247 wrote:
clockwork247 said:
what about another A55? i saw a used body at B&H 2-3 days ago for 300... honestly speaking, i was thinking about picking it up. I like smaller bodies camera. the A65 is too big for my taste.
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I thought about that but I have two main reasons for wanting to upgrade to the A65.

1) The overheat video limit.

2) Am a bit miffed with Sony and the A55 after having these two body failures. I can't get away from Sony because of my three lenses that tie me to the Alpha line. I also really do like the translucent mirror technology and all it brings to the party. But the A55 is the first camera I've ever had fail after 40 years of shooting.

I see on the Sony website that the A55 is no longer available, it has been taken off the market. I know they are available elsewhere. But it is interesting to see them pull it after only two years.
 
VirtualMirage said:
VirtualMirage wrote:

I see that you grabbed that data from another site. The A65 starts up faster than that when using current firmware. The 2.8 seconds was with older firmware, that test was with 1.03. With 1.06 or higher you should see startup times closer to what the A55 was getting , which is around the .8 to 1 second range.

Same goes for the shutdown times. With the initial release firmware, it could take several seconds. But with the current firmware, expect much short shutdown times.
Click to expand...
 
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