christian carneiro
Forum Enthusiast
Having come from the World of Minolta, this is probably the best camera I had in my life until now. I use it together with my XK Motor almost every day.
The camera's response is excellent. and the body was shrunk in respect to the original A99. A flaw, if you can call it so, is the lack of support for the UHS-II card standard....that I believe, is unforgivable at this point.
AF in general focus well...in fact much faster than I myself can track things..so I must admit I've never set the camera on continuous drive...as I myself only shoot landscapes and on low ISO ( Folks know me as the PKM25 dude..those that know what I'm talking about know a fast speed using PKM25 is 1/30 sec.). In this sense the tripod socket is well positioned and it doesn't look fragile.
I'm more of a two dial user...referring to the times of my A700, and still if some functions are welcome, I do feel so many buttons on the body and grip may confuse those that are not willing to read Friedman's 1000+ page Bible on this camera, so I'd have preferred something with less cosmetics, such as the Fuji and the Leicas for the daily use.
That said, one of the things that still is missing there...is the intervalometer. Before you could buy the Minolta Program cards for the intervalometer..now you need to trow in an external intervalometer..not cool!
Almost an year after its launch...still no new firmware. Could it be that this camera was born so perfect that it doesn't need a firmware update?
I've seen some folks yacking about the menu of the camera being complex... I do not find it confusing at all. Of course...it doesn't have that LCD touch interface some Canons do..but it is OK. It DOES, however, require the photographer operating the camera to know what he's doing, because I've seem some rather advanced controls there...so I do not believe the younger folks might find it easy to use, if they lack that required technical background needed to understand the functions.
Battery is OK, nothing outstanding, but I do believe this camera deserves an external battery pack like that of the A9. That said..in a day of work I never used more than 3 batteries, so the grip is more than fine for me.
To sum up, I think a real flaw in the A99 was the lack of a built in intervalometer, much more than the omission of the GPS (which the A99MKI had), and the omitting of at least one UHS-II port and a USB 3.1 circuitry....that meant they were cutting costs...
The camera's response is excellent. and the body was shrunk in respect to the original A99. A flaw, if you can call it so, is the lack of support for the UHS-II card standard....that I believe, is unforgivable at this point.
AF in general focus well...in fact much faster than I myself can track things..so I must admit I've never set the camera on continuous drive...as I myself only shoot landscapes and on low ISO ( Folks know me as the PKM25 dude..those that know what I'm talking about know a fast speed using PKM25 is 1/30 sec.). In this sense the tripod socket is well positioned and it doesn't look fragile.
I'm more of a two dial user...referring to the times of my A700, and still if some functions are welcome, I do feel so many buttons on the body and grip may confuse those that are not willing to read Friedman's 1000+ page Bible on this camera, so I'd have preferred something with less cosmetics, such as the Fuji and the Leicas for the daily use.
That said, one of the things that still is missing there...is the intervalometer. Before you could buy the Minolta Program cards for the intervalometer..now you need to trow in an external intervalometer..not cool!
Almost an year after its launch...still no new firmware. Could it be that this camera was born so perfect that it doesn't need a firmware update?
I've seen some folks yacking about the menu of the camera being complex... I do not find it confusing at all. Of course...it doesn't have that LCD touch interface some Canons do..but it is OK. It DOES, however, require the photographer operating the camera to know what he's doing, because I've seem some rather advanced controls there...so I do not believe the younger folks might find it easy to use, if they lack that required technical background needed to understand the functions.
Battery is OK, nothing outstanding, but I do believe this camera deserves an external battery pack like that of the A9. That said..in a day of work I never used more than 3 batteries, so the grip is more than fine for me.
To sum up, I think a real flaw in the A99 was the lack of a built in intervalometer, much more than the omission of the GPS (which the A99MKI had), and the omitting of at least one UHS-II port and a USB 3.1 circuitry....that meant they were cutting costs...