Phil's A100 review up - Highly Recommended!

[Barry Fitzgerald]

With regards colour...having seen imatest results..they are as follows:

A100



KM5D:



Note better red accuracy for the A100, but less for blues, also magenta is a different shift, hence cooler looking images. Green/brown is slightly closer to real on the 5D.

In terms of saturation KM5D is more restrained, and in this respect more accurate.

IMO though nothing major here...the 5D/7D hues should have been kept as were...or with the red change only.
--

 

[jpp188636]

A whole different approach.
Here in Portugal, “official” prices are as follows:

· Sony a100 with 18-70 kit lens 1000 euros
· Olympus E500 body only 750 euros
· Olympus E330 body only 1069 euros
· Pentax *ist DL body only 820 euros
· Nikon D50 body only 764 euros
· Nikon D70 with 18-70 kit lens 1365 euros
· Nikon D200 body only 1809 euros
· Canon EOS 350 body only 955 euros
· Canon 30D body only 1309 euros
· Canon EOS 5D body only 3850 euros
· Sony R1 999 euros

Which makes the Sony a very competitive camera price wise, and probably the best “quality for money” offer.

Comparing it to the Canon 5D like I saw in one review is simply ridiculous, but very flattering indeed.
Comparing to the Canon 30D and Nikon D200 is also weird price wise.

So, it looks like the value of a review is vastly different according to the country you live in when prices are taken into consideration!

 

[Timothy S Broadley]

The times that i have trieda window mount with my 300 and TCs, there has alwaysa little vibration from the engine running or because i have to twist my body to get into the right postion thus stressing the mount.

A window mount allows you to get both hands on the camera body while providing a pivot point for the lens. Yes there will be some stabilization bu there also will be some vibrations

Tim

 

[tom sugnet]

I am sorry to say, but for some people IQ is more improtant than 'features'. If I wanted a full featured dSLR, I would be taking a look at Olympus E-500 (or 330) which is as noisy as Sony A100;, Olympus is a fair company, they put IS0800 and ISO1600 settings available 'with boost' only. Sony should have done the same.

jonny1976 wrote:
but that the same people try to convince the world that

d50 is better than alpha 100, that has the same image quality of
d200 and a bunch of feature the d50 hasn't, that's only a lack of
objectivenees.

 

[AMomcil]

I think that most people would agree, that in general Canon AF is
faster and quiter. In-body AF works great with lenses like 50mm
prime, but with some lenses its pain and its loud. Minolta lenses
are also not cheaper or noticeably smaller, no hsm from sigma etc.
Would you mind, if all Sony lenses were ssm's?

True, Canon USM lenses are faster. Quiter too, but I don't care.

True again, you'd expect that lenses without AF motors are to be less expensive, but Sigmas/Tamrons for Canon & Minolta are of the same price.
I'd prefer to have Canons lens line-up.

But, I'd prefer much more if only Sigma would finally put HSM in Minolta/Sony mount lenses.

--
Greetings, Aleksandar

 

[Phil Askey]

Which is why it's so difficult for us to always evaluate price in our conclusion.

Which makes the Sony a very competitive camera price wise, and
probably the best “quality for money” offer.
Comparing it to the Canon 5D like I saw in one review is simply
ridiculous, but very flattering indeed.
Comparing to the Canon 30D and Nikon D200 is also weird price wise.
So, it looks like the value of a review is vastly different
according to the country you live in when prices are taken into
consideration!

--
Phil Askey
Editor / Owner, dpreview.com

 

[jpp188636]

Indeed...

 

[santoguapo]

I like the Minolta (and now Sony) proprietary hotshoe. The way that the flash attaches/detaches is so quick/positive. I definitely am glad that it didn't go away for Sony.

That said, I will sometimes use wireless strobe triggers and none of those support the Minolta flash shoe. In an ideal world, the Sony brand of DSLR will become so prevalent that companies such as Pocket Wizard will take notice. I know I can use an adaptor, but that makes the whole assembly on my camera rather tall. That is the only way in which I can see that the Minolta flash mount might be considered a "con".

--
Cheerio...
Rich

 

[hwaykiong]

The times that i have trieda window mount with my 300 and TCs,
there has alwaysa little vibration from the engine running or
because i have to twist my body to get into the right postion thus
stressing the mount.

A window mount allows you to get both hands on the camera body
while providing a pivot point for the lens. Yes there will be some
stabilization bu there also will be some vibrations

Not having used a window mount myself, this may sound stupid, but
why not turn off the engine when taking pictures?

The problem I see with all the "look at this photo taken with AS/SSS, it
works" type of reply is that here is no control. For all I know, the photog
may be able to handhold up to 3 stops below 1/focal length without any
help from stabilization. Without knowing the baseline, they really say
nothing about the effectiveness of AS/SSS. That is why I like the method
Phil used -- he provided a comparision between what he can do with

and without stabilization, thus (attempting) to isolate the effect of stabilization.
Sure, his method is still very much subjective (e.g. the judgement of
sharpness), but it is way ahead of anything else I have seen so far.

lhk

 

[Dennis]

No, Phil, in reality the Minolta hot shoe is a strong PLUS. Use
it for a while and you'll agree.

The design may be fine, in much the same way Beta was superior to VHS, but I for one would rather own a VHS player today As a 15-year Maxxum user, I'd love a standard hotshoe to use AT flash units on my camera with no adapter; or ubiquitous hot shoe levels without an adapter.

• Dennis

--
Gallery at http://kingofthebeasts.smugmug.com

 

[Daemeon]

Page 28:

"As well as shooting our studio test scene at each camera's lowest sensitivity we also shot it at ISO 800 and 1600. As you can see the approach taken by Canon (clean data in, less need for noise reduction) really pays off at ISO 800 and 1600 where it demonstrates far more detail and less visible noise than any other camera here.
--
--The artist formerly known as The Krakken

 

[Daemeon]

You are dreaming.
--
--The artist formerly known as The Krakken

 

[Timothy S Broadley]

In some cases, you can turn off the engine! and that certainly is preferable. Some cases you simply don't have the time to do that. You always have to have the window up part way to get the mount on. It will not retract with the mount. Now you have a mounted object on a surface in a vehicle that will respond to your movements (after all it does have a suspension), plus if there is wind blowing it may cause the window surface itself to move

All of that said, I was not trying to show a test. There seems to be this urban myth in my opinion about how Optical systems are superior to CCD shifting with very long focal lenths. So I merely wanted to show an example of SSS on with a very long focal length. I have shot the moon with a 800rf, adapter, and a 2x converter (2600mm equivalent )with passable results with a/s mounted on a tripod. Very diffcult to aim

 

[Henry Richardson]

You can do pretty well with the A100 ISO 1600 images. Take a look at this:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1037&message=19415931

Here are some samples:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1037&message=19421613

--
Henry Richardson
http://www.hrich.com
http://www.printroom.com/pro/intrepid

 

[Adrian Harris]

I thought the wholen idea of the DRO was that it helped cope with the narrow dynamic range of the JPG picture format. Could that be why it isnt used - as it isnt necessarily needed for for RAW - which has a far wider dynamic capability anyway?

--
http://www.t1000.co.uk
http://www.ashgemsoftware.co.uk

 

[celltech161]

No, Phil, in reality the Minolta hot shoe is a strong PLUS. Use
it for a while and you'll agree.

The design may be fine, in much the same way Beta was superior to
VHS, but I for one would rather own a VHS player today

That's not thinking outside the box again. I'd much rather own a DVD recorder than a VHS or Beta!

 

[hwaykiong]

In some cases, you can turn off the engine! and that certainly is
preferable. Some cases you simply don't have the time to do that.
You always have to have the window up part way to get the mount
on. It will not retract with the mount. Now you have a mounted
object on a surface in a vehicle that will respond to your
movements (after all it does have a suspension), plus if there is
wind blowing it may cause the window surface itself to move

Sure a car responds to your movement, but so does a tripod. Given the
immensely greater mass of the car, I don't see how such a support can be
less stable than all but the best of tripods.

All of that said, I was not trying to show a test. There seems to
be this urban myth in my opinion about how Optical systems are
superior to CCD shifting with very long focal lenths. So I merely
wanted to show an example of SSS on with a very long focal length.

The thing is, there are credible theoretical arguments for its inferiority.
Hence my search for practical tests that either verify or debunk such
arguments. To me, it seems clear theoretically that the same mechanism
working on the imager cannot be equally effective at all focal lengths. For
instance, is it possible that the effectiveness is the same at, say, 20mm and
200mm? So to simply say that AS/SSS allows X stops slower shutter speed
without any mention of focal length is not being entirely candid, at best.

I have shot the moon with a 800rf, adapter, and a 2x converter
(2600mm equivalent )with passable results with a/s mounted on a
tripod. Very diffcult to aim

I've "only" done a moon shot with the Canon 20D at 800mm (1280mm
equiv), and I it was hard.

lhk

 

[sonyphotobug]

I never take pictures above 200 ISO, so 800/1600 ISO no big deal for me.

My next camera and last camera will be the A100.

I have the Sony 707 and 828.

I also have 3 or 4 Monilta Lens that I love: 50mm, 28mm, 35mm, 105mm

 

[Eric28757]

Sadly Though we've tried to conact them on many occasions, Sony has opted to not communicate with us.

We should have our A100 here shorlty and support for it in bibble will come soon therafter.

If you'd like to help, we can use some good well lit and compsed sample imanges shot under differing conditions. Youc an send us a couple via http://www.bibblelabs.com/upload

If you send us some we'll try and get you a beta version to play with as soon as we have it working.

Eric
http://www.bibblelabs.com

 

[Amolmd]

If I am correct, Mr. Phil didn't comment or compare A100 with 5D or 7D at all. I was interested in knowing any subtle improvements regarding AF speed/accuracy & that 'lazy flash' syndrome [I used to read frequently]. So thought may be I could use help of our pros on forum like Aarif, David K. Any thoughts about that? Thanks ahead.
--
http://www.flickr.com/photos/amolmd