Review of A77

Dr_O

Dr_O

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Not mine- you know how much I dislike Sony;):lol:

However, plenty of fans here so worth sharing and it is interesting. Think more user feedback required before any real conclusions can be drawn. Graphs and tests while representative don't always reflect the real world outcome.

Review here :)
 
Interesting, but I'm still on the fence with this one!

Its 24mp sensor seems noisy, but my main worry (i'm getting over the EVF now!) is the light drop off inherent in translucent mirror technology. You spend all that money on an f/2.8 lens but you get as much light through as an f/3.5 or worse?
 
Hopefully, this will be a portent of the Canon 7D mark two. I do loads of wildlife photography so a 24mp sensor, with a proper mirror, would go down very well with me.
 
odd jim said:
... (i'm getting over the EVF now!)...
Click to expand...

:lol: I've seen some of those threads:D

The light absorption of the translucent mirror would be a bit of a pain for me as I often use my lenses at max aperture. I guess if the advantages of not having a moving mirror outweighed the light absorption of the translucent mirror it would not be an issue.
You might still feel a bit robbed that your OEM 70-200 f2.8 wasn't giving you f2.8...

Be interesting to know how much light it does absorb as I seem to have only seen guesses although admittedly I've not looked that hard or it might not have registered with me. One comment I remember was 30% but that seems rather high??
 
I've got one. OK, the fact that I laid out £900 for this little gem means that I'm hardly going to say I was suckered and it's rubbish but I'll share my experiences so far.
The sensor:
24 MP - who needs 24 MP? is the common question. Well, I can say quite categorically, it extracts more detail from most of my lenses, even the 18-70mm kit lens, and my 'G' lenses look staggeringly good.
High iso noise:
For a start, I always shoot raw so my judgement is based on the raw images. When viewed at 100% the noise does look a litle alarming at iso 3200 and above but with careful processing decent results can be obtained although some detail is lost. At iso 1600 and below it easily beats my A700, which with firmware version 4 is no slouch.
The A700 firmware took a couple of iterations to pull the best from its 12MP sensor, and I suspect the same will be true of the A77.
For now, my conclusion is that having a sensor that loses a stop's worth of noise at iso 3200 and above is a small price to pay for the sharpest APS-C sensor available anywhere up to iso 1600. One thing I have noticed is that there is considerably more detail retention in shadows than from my A700.
The EVF:
Moving from looking at a scene then to the viewfinder in bright sunlight takes a moment or two for the eye to adjust and is the biggest drawback to the EVF. On the plus side, it's a revelation to have seamless switching from screen based live-view to EVF, plus histogram, horizon level and other viewfinder options. And to actually see the white balance and exposure previews mirror what you're actually going to see on the photo is well worth the drawback. Stopdown preview is a bit of a waste of time with an OVF because the image dims so much that you can't see the DOF properly but with the EVF it corrects for this so you can easily see the differences that aperture changes make. In less bright conditions and indoors I barely notice that it is an EVF. It is much sharper than that in the A55.
Handling:
The handling still retains some of the feel of the A700 but with more tactile rubberised grips. It's a little lighter but still has a solid feel. There are plenty of buttons for instant changes, and mostly their placement is good. It's less of a 'brick' than the A700, but if you liked the A700, chances are you'll like the A77.
Performance:
Start up is quick and the fast burst shooting modes are impressive. Battery life is good although if you chimp a lot then it'll drain quicker, but I can easily expect a day's shooting from a single battery. Shutdown is a nuisance and takes an age, around six seconds. Like all Alphas the lens resets to infinity when shutting down so if you have a lens with a non-decoupled focussing ring attached you have to be aware of this.
Movies:
Full 1080p with continuous autofocus, and it works well. Quality is high. Caveats are that with full AF the AF system needs enough light to allow PD AF so the lens is automatically put to F3.5, or the lowest available whichever is the higher. To have full aperture control during shooting movies you can only have manual focussing. Before anyone complains, remember the competition has manual focussing or nothing. There is little or no problem with overheating of the sensor like in the A55. This is because steady-shot image stabilisation is done electronically. It clips a little around the sensor image then syncs each frame as it's saved to the card. It seems to work very well. Steady shot is the usual sensor-shift system when shooting stills.
@Dr O the 30% absorbtion of the SLT mirror is correct.
Any questions, I'll be happy to answer.
Mike.
 
The NEX7 is mirrorless and 10 fps. I'm assuming the next iteration will get rid of the mirror altogether and combine it with a dslr body...

The a700s were considered noisy until proper raw converters were released too so this could be the reason. Also if the mirror loses some light have the metering methods been tweaked sufficiently to deal with it fully? Slight underexposure would lead to more noise too.

I'd also be assuming the upcoming full frame will be the body for sports.
 
scottthehat said:
shame seems to noisy to me iso 100 seems to start with noise and 800 seems very noisy, and at the end they also say not good for serious sports photography, even know they say that is should have better af then a dslr and has 12fps.
Click to expand...

On the noise front, I generally take DPReview's findings with a pinch of salt because their testing techniques are not always consistent. Sufficient to say that when shooting raw, as I almost always do, up to and including iso 1600 the results are very, very good with very little effort needed to keep them clean. When viewed at 100% there is noise in a blue sky even at iso 200 but in practice it isn't particularly relevant even in large print crops. If you look closely enough you will see noise in any digital camera's raw file. You may have to go to 200% but it'll be there. But you won't see it in a print.

At iso 3200 and 6400 more PP work is needed to get decent output but it can be done with a little care. I wouldn't use iso 16000 at all.

On the FPS thing, true you cannot substitute it for a Canon 1Ds or Nikon D3X. You can use the A77 frame rate for sports but you'll need to adapt your technique to suit the way it works. Or you could spend the extra £4000 and buy the Canon or Nikon.

What it boils down to is that, to me at least, this is a very nice camera but it isn't perfect. If the reviews are enough to pique your interest then only getting one in your hand will enable you to decide whether it's good or bad. But I wouldn't rely solely on a review to decide.
 
Dr_O said:
:lol: I've seen some of those threads:D

The light absorption of the translucent mirror would be a bit of a pain for me as I often use my lenses at max aperture. I guess if the advantages of not having a moving mirror outweighed the light absorption of the translucent mirror it would not be an issue.
You might still feel a bit robbed that your OEM 70-200 f2.8 wasn't giving you f2.8...

Be interesting to know how much light it does absorb as I seem to have only seen guesses although admittedly I've not looked that hard or it might not have registered with me. One comment I remember was 30% but that seems rather high??
Click to expand...

Saw a test on this,an F2.8 would be about F3.2 :)
 
This is difficult to quantify, Simon, as it depends on how sensitive the sensor is. An F2.8 lens is an F2.8 lens with all the characteristics of that lens. Looking at DXO figures, the Canon 7D sensor isn't particularly sensitive and is noisier than latest generation sensors but one would still say an F2.8 lens on it is still an F2.8. So far it appears that the A77 is similar in sensitivity, perhaps a smigdin less.
But the Nikon 7000D/Sony A580/Pentax K5, and I think the Canon 600D, are all more sensitive, i.e. they have lower noise floors and better high iso performance but that doesn't mean an F2.8 lens becomes an F2.5 when mounted on these cameras.
Sufficient to say, in my experience so far, up to and including iso 1600 the A77 performs very well, but it unquestionably takes a hit at iso 3200 and higher and I couldn't get anything like 24 MP of detail at these higher isos. With a bit of work I could probably get an ok A4 full frame print from an uncropped iso3200 image but not much bigger. Whether updated firmware can address this remains to be seen, but I don't think it'll overtake the latest generation 16/18MP sensors on noise performance alone. It's the price of having better resolution at iso 1600 and below. A fair trade off? Maybe, maybe not.
For static subjects there is the multi-frame trick where the camera makes use of its high burst rate, takes a rapid succession of high iso shots and combines them to get relatively noise free images. Most high iso shots aren't going to be of rapidly moving subjects in any case so this will be quite useful. The top iso in this mode is 256000 but a bit ropy, but begins to look quite detailed at 128000 and at 6400 is rather good.
 
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If you want an honest and reliable opinion of a Sony camera, stay well clear of DPR. Their anti-Sony bias is legendary.
 
eccles said:
This is difficult to quantify, Simon, as it depends on how sensitive the sensor is. An F2.8 lens is an F2.8 lens with all the characteristics of that lens. Looking at DXO figures, the Canon 7D sensor isn't particularly sensitive and is noisier than latest generation sensors but one would still say an F2.8 lens on it is still an F2.8. So far it appears that the A77 is similar in sensitivity, perhaps a smigdin less.
But the Nikon 7000D/Sony A580/Pentax K5, and I think the Canon 600D, are all more sensitive, i.e. they have lower noise floors and better high iso performance but that doesn't mean an F2.8 lens becomes an F2.5 when mounted on these cameras.
Sufficient to say, in my experience so far, up to and including iso 1600 the A77 performs very well, but it unquestionably takes a hit at iso 3200 and higher and I couldn't get anything like 24 MP of detail at these higher isos. With a bit of work I could probably get an ok A4 full frame print from an uncropped iso3200 image but not much bigger. Whether updated firmware can address this remains to be seen, but I don't think it'll overtake the latest generation 16/18MP sensors on noise performance alone. It's the price of having better resolution at iso 1600 and below. A fair trade off? Maybe, maybe not.
For static subjects there is the multi-frame trick where the camera makes use of its high burst rate, takes a rapid succession of high iso shots and combines them to get relatively noise free images. Most high iso shots aren't going to be of rapidly moving subjects in any case so this will be quite useful. The top iso in this mode is 256000 but a bit ropy, but begins to look quite detailed at 128000 and at 6400 is rather good.
Click to expand...

See what you mean,it was just a test I saw,all the things I have read about the A77,seem to be fairly positive :)
 
Thought it was going to be a review of a drive between Glasgow and Stranraer lol.
 
*
Nice honest mini review Mike.

As I see it dpreview review of the A77 is pretty good, there's really only a few things they are not very positive about.

1/ noisy hi ISO jpeg's straight out of the camera, obviously this is import for people that are obsessed with shooting hi ISO. If you don't want noisy images don't shoot hi ISO! I personally hardly ever shoot above 800 and never above 1600, also I usually shoot RAW.

2/ they think the A77 isn't up shooting fast action sports, panning fast action was there main issue, they say :-

"Another disadvantage of the SLT system when it comes to fast shooting is that it isn't possible for the A77 to maintain a live view feed in its fastest 8fps and 12fps continuous capture modes. The viewfinder does not black out when shooting at these high framerates, but shows a sequence of still frames in real time. What this means is that at any given moment, you don't see the view through the camera's lens right now, but how it was a fraction of a second ago. This makes little or no difference if you're shooting slow-moving or static subjects, but it makes panning with fast-moving subjects very hard indeed, since you never know where they are - only where they were."

I can't see this being a problem in the real world, when you are shooting and panning at 8 FPS especially fast moving objects I would normally be pre-focusing till I want to take the burst of shots and follow through, no way I would have time to recompose to fill the object in the viewfinder once I had started shooting.*

This is the first anywhere near negative review on the A77 I've seen.
 
NickR said:
If you don't want noisy images don't shoot hi ISO!
Click to expand...

But I think the point is that modern semi-pro DSLRs are expected to have sensors with excellent high ISO performance...wedding photographers for example NEED high ISO performance to get their indoor shots and wildlife photographers NEED the ability to shoot ever longer lenses with fast shutter speeds in low light conditions.

To me this is a reflection of how photography and the technology we have is being pushed to the limits, something which wasn't perhaps possible in the film era.

That said, DXOMark have given the camera a decent enough high ISO score, up with the 7D of two years ago. This is pretty impressive given the 1/3rd stop light loss from the mirror. Less impressive, it appears from this review, is the JPG output. Whether that is an issue for the intended shooters is a different matter entirely.
 
manualfocus-g said:
But I think the point is that modern semi-pro DSLRs are expected to have sensors with excellent high ISO performance...wedding photographers for example NEED high ISO performance to get their indoor shots and wildlife photographers NEED the ability to shoot ever longer lenses with fast shutter speeds in low light conditions.

To me this is a reflection of how photography and the technology we have is being pushed to the limits, something which wasn't perhaps possible in the film era.

That said, DXOMark have given the camera a decent enough high ISO score, up with the 7D of two years ago. This is pretty impressive given the 1/3rd stop light loss from the mirror. Less impressive, it appears from this review, is the JPG output. Whether that is an issue for the intended shooters is a different matter entirely.
Click to expand...
Yes you are right of course and that said the A77 doesn't do a bad job when shooting RAW, I'm sure a few firmware updates to fine tune the in camera jpeg engine should sort things out to satisfy most.
 
manualfocus-g said:
I'm sorry, but that is nonsense. The Nex-c3, 5n and the A77 have all got high scores from DPR.
Click to expand...

To a certain extent, I agree. On the whole, DPR have improved its impartiality towards Sony cameras in the last couple of years, but familiarity with the big two invariably has the reviewers comparing others with them. They're not quite saying "this is better or worse than Canikon" but it can come across this way sometimes.

Having said that, my personal findings on image detail levels as I go up through the iso range are not a million miles away from those from DPR. They were quite generous in comparing the A77 with full frame cameras at moderate iso levels.
They tend to give high iso performance a bigger priority, and native resolution a lower priority than I would normally do, but that's up to them. My reasons are that I shoot wildlife and rarely have the need to use higher iso than 800, but I do often crop heavily, so resolution takes priority for me. But read the review and make up your own mind which are your priorities.
Mike.
 
manualfocus-g said:
I'm sorry, but that is nonsense. The Nex-c3, 5n and the A77 have all got high scores from DPR.
Click to expand...

They could hardly do anything else when the NEX cams outperform the (m4/3) competition by such a margin. For DSLRs they never give any credit for IBIS, compare noise performance at the native size (disadvantaging higher res sensors) and seem to deliberately ignore the fact that you can switch off things they describe as negatives (auto review on SLTs for example).
 
scottthehat said:
dont go above iso 800 for wildlife were do you live.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I understand that statement. It's a bit garbled. Are you asking why I don't need higher than iso 800?
If so, I suppose you could turn it on its head and say that I've got used to going out in good light and not bothering if it's rainy and/or very overcast. Shooting short eared owls along the Severn Estuary at dusk might have been one example in the past where high iso would be useful but even then I've got away with iso 800.
 
eccles said:
I've got one. OK, the fact that I laid out £900 for this little gem means that I'm hardly going to say I was suckered and it's rubbish but I'll share my experiences so far.
The sensor:
24 MP - who needs 24 MP? is the common question. Well, I can say quite categorically, it extracts more detail from most of my lenses, even the 18-70mm kit lens, and my 'G' lenses look staggeringly good.
High iso noise:
For a start, I always shoot raw so my judgement is based on the raw images. When viewed at 100% the noise does look a litle alarming at iso 3200 and above but with careful processing decent results can be obtained although some detail is lost. At iso 1600 and below it easily beats my A700, which with firmware version 4 is no slouch.
The A700 firmware took a couple of iterations to pull the best from its 12MP sensor, and I suspect the same will be true of the A77.
For now, my conclusion is that having a sensor that loses a stop's worth of noise at iso 3200 and above is a small price to pay for the sharpest APS-C sensor available anywhere up to iso 1600. One thing I have noticed is that there is considerably more detail retention in shadows than from my A700.
The EVF:
Moving from looking at a scene then to the viewfinder in bright sunlight takes a moment or two for the eye to adjust and is the biggest drawback to the EVF. On the plus side, it's a revelation to have seamless switching from screen based live-view to EVF, plus histogram, horizon level and other viewfinder options. And to actually see the white balance and exposure previews mirror what you're actually going to see on the photo is well worth the drawback. Stopdown preview is a bit of a waste of time with an OVF because the image dims so much that you can't see the DOF properly but with the EVF it corrects for this so you can easily see the differences that aperture changes make. In less bright conditions and indoors I barely notice that it is an EVF. It is much sharper than that in the A55.
Handling:
The handling still retains some of the feel of the A700 but with more tactile rubberised grips. It's a little lighter but still has a solid feel. There are plenty of buttons for instant changes, and mostly their placement is good. It's less of a 'brick' than the A700, but if you liked the A700, chances are you'll like the A77.
Performance:
Start up is quick and the fast burst shooting modes are impressive. Battery life is good although if you chimp a lot then it'll drain quicker, but I can easily expect a day's shooting from a single battery. Shutdown is a nuisance and takes an age, around six seconds. Like all Alphas the lens resets to infinity when shutting down so if you have a lens with a non-decoupled focussing ring attached you have to be aware of this.
Movies:
Full 1080p with continuous autofocus, and it works well. Quality is high. Caveats are that with full AF the AF system needs enough light to allow PD AF so the lens is automatically put to F3.5, or the lowest available whichever is the higher. To have full aperture control during shooting movies you can only have manual focussing. Before anyone complains, remember the competition has manual focussing or nothing. There is little or no problem with overheating of the sensor like in the A55. This is because steady-shot image stabilisation is done electronically. It clips a little around the sensor image then syncs each frame as it's saved to the card. It seems to work very well. Steady shot is the usual sensor-shift system when shooting stills.
@Dr O the 30% absorbtion of the SLT mirror is correct.
Any questions, I'll be happy to answer.
Mike.
Click to expand...

Great info, thanks Mike.

We'll see how the ISO issue plays out in time- people still complain about the 7D and most of the time it's user error.
Good innovation at least keeps all the manufacturers on their toes so we all win eventually...maybe not the bank balance:lol:
 
Johnd2000 said:
They could hardly do anything else when the NEX cams outperform the (m4/3) competition by such a margin. For DSLRs they never give any credit for IBIS, compare noise performance at the native size (disadvantaging higher res sensors) and seem to deliberately ignore the fact that you can switch off things they describe as negatives (auto review on SLTs for example).
Click to expand...

Well, everyone is entitled to their own opinions but I have owned several Sony models (a100, a200, a230, a450, Nex-3 and Nex-5) and totally agreed with the reviews I have read (there wasn't one for the a450 however).

Does the Nex really outperform the competition? IQ is certainly better, but is the overall package, handling etc.? Throwing the 16/2.8 into a single kit package for example is ridicuous IMO.

As for IBIS, I have not been that impressed with it. In lens stabilisation gives me more stops, more of the time. But I can see where you are going with this, recent reviews haven't mentioned it. Same for Pentax though.

The arguement around comparing sensors...I want to see what the results are like at native size. If I bought a 24MP camera, I would likely want to take advantage of that and blow things up big or (more likely) crop heavily.
 
I think IBIS has advantages, such as no time needed to wind up, less weight, effective with legacy lenses, and lower power consumption. It is also very good for wide angle and short telephoto lenses. At longer focal lengths then it can be less efective, and I would agree that for long telephotos in-lens stabilisation probably gives a greater chance of getting a stable shot.
I agree with the argument about sensor sharpness, and am often surprised how DPR dismiss quite significant differences with comments like "Oh there are differences but you need to blow the photo up to see them so they're not important".
 
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Actually, I don't think I made my point well about in body image stabilisation. It's fantastic that it's there and it's free, but in my experience in-lens systems are more reliable with better capability. If Sony made A mount lenses with in-lens stabilisation as well as offering IBIS, then it would be an incredible system in my opinion.
 
i have found no difference between body and lens stabilisation, my pentax sr was very good, but some of my lenses are not as good as other lenses my nikon 18-200mm vr up against my tamron 18-200mm both at 200mm low shutter speeds and the body beat the lens but then i put my 50-500mm os on and did the test again and things were the same.
 
manualfocus-g said:
Actually, I don't think I made my point well about in body image stabilisation. It's fantastic that it's there and it's free, but in my experience in-lens systems are more reliable with better capability. If Sony made A mount lenses with in-lens stabilisation as well as offering IBIS, then it would be an incredible system in my opinion.
Click to expand...

I think you were clear enough, and for long focal length lenses you're probably right that Steady-Shot (the Sony stabilisation) is not as effective. It's all about the degree of shake and how far the sensor shift can move to accommodate it. At focal lengths less than say 100mm it can handle most of the shake from a reasonably steady shooter. At 50mm for instance I can easily handle a landscape at around 1/20 second.
But once your shake exceeds the system's capacity to compensate then the shutter speed has to go up, and I acknowledge that a moving lens element can probably better keep pace with higher levels of shake than a moving sensor.
But sensor shift keeps working, albeit less optimally, and I've learned how to get the best from it. At 300mm I almost always use a monopod, but I can continue using it with my 500mm Reflex and still not have to use a tripod.
Regards,
Mike.
 
eccles said:
I'm not sure I understand that statement. It's a bit garbled. Are you asking why I don't need higher than iso 800?
If so, I suppose you could turn it on its head and say that I've got used to going out in good light and not bothering if it's rainy and/or very overcast. Shooting short eared owls along the Severn Estuary at dusk might have been one example in the past where high iso would be useful but even then I've got away with iso 800.
Click to expand...

I think Scott mislaid a few '?' ;)

I think he was suggesting that you either live somewhere with amazing light levels or you have f/1.0 lenses....;)
 
specialman said:
I think Scott mislaid a few '?' ;)

I think he was suggesting that you either live somewhere with amazing light levels or you have f/1.0 lenses....;)
Click to expand...
Yeah sorry, im lazy and really need to sort it out.:D

And it was not meant in a harsh way, so sorry if it come across that way, like pat says really.
 
Scott -I keep losing my apostrophe key and on my Android phone, it's nonexistent also... mind you, predictive text usually scuppers my grammar anyway :lol:
 
NP, Scott. Light levels are typical West Country and my lenses are mostly of modest aperture. However when shooting wildlife I use a monopod more often than not, usually with the leg segments retracted and pulled against my chest. This keeps the camera steady enough when using in-camera stabilisation.

Incidently, the monopod is a cheapo Jessops model 330 and is excellent for supporting the camera in this manner. The pan/tilt level is just the right length to rest against my shoulder. With the camera at my eye and the base of the retracted leg against my stomach the three-point contact keeps the camera very stable.
 
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