Sony A77, anybody got one yet

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SussexBlue

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Mine is supposed to arrive on Monday, interested to see if anyone else has rec'd theirs yet and have managed to play with it.
 
If you load the sony software then that should recognise the raw files. I'm assuming you could then save them out unaltered as either TIFF or PNG ie lossless and load into cs5. More of a hassle but might do for now :)
 
Drove from the Warwickshire to Warehouse Express in Norwich yesterdsay when I discovered they had them in stock. Got back at 8.30 last night so havent had much time to play with it, but off to Donington Park today to give it a try:-)
 
Watch the review on DigitalRev Youtube channel. Kai talks about this camera in a lot of detail.

He does some testing to see how much the translicent mirror technology loses light over conventional set up.

He also demonstrates how the EVF is quite slow to react to being placed to the eye, and how the camera just seems a bit sluggish in operation, for example dialling in aperture the scroll wheel takes a long time to register the actual value on the screen.
 
lol - "your hand sticks to it like a fly to a turd" :D
 
dd1989 said:
Watch the review on DigitalRev Youtube channel. Kai talks about this camera in a lot of detail.

He does some testing to see how much the translicent mirror technology loses light over conventional set up.

He also demonstrates how the EVF is quite slow to react to being placed to the eye, and how the camera just seems a bit sluggish in operation, for example dialling in aperture the scroll wheel takes a long time to register the actual value on the screen.
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EVF :gag:
 
dd1989 said:
Kai Wong is an absolute legend :lol::lol: In another video I watched last week he was talking about looking like a p*** :lol:
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i've watched loads of his vids now - even when the subject matter is unimportant to me, just as he's great to watch :)
 
He cracks me up! Check out the 'p**** alert!' when he reviews the A55! :lol:
 
dd1989 said:
He also demonstrates how the EVF is quite slow to react to being placed to the eye, and how the camera just seems a bit sluggish in operation, for example dialling in aperture the scroll wheel takes a long time to register the actual value on the screen.
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Yet he didn't demonstrate that there's a button to switch it to just the EVF or just the LCD...
 
FruitFlakes said:
Yet he didn't demonstrate that there's a button to switch it to just the EVF or just the LCD...
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There's a proximity sensor underneath the viewfinder which switches off the back LCD and turns the EVF on, like you say like the A55 you can configure the camera to use back LCD or EVF, I wouldn't want to have the back LCD on all the time anyway, uses up the battery and don't need to chimp :thumbs:
 
NickR said:
EVF is the future OVF will be out dated soon. :thumbsdown:
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No not a chance.

How can it ever be better than the human eye, as this is what OVFs give you? And dont forget, EVF's are not a new development, they have been around for years. I had one almost ten years in an old Fuji film S3500!
 
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odd jim said:
No not a chance.

How can it ever be better than the human eye, as this is what OVFs give you? And dont forget, EVF's are not a new development, they have been around for years. I had one almost ten years in an old Fuji film S3500!
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They don't give you what the human eye can see though, they're only as good as the quality of the components/optics. Not to mention the fact that human sight isn't that good ;)

Anyway, the EVF in the new Sonys is said to be a bit of a revelation in terms of quality and how much information you can bring up on the screen, how people see this as a bad thing is beyond me.

That fujifilm had a terrible electronic viewfinder with 88% coverage, the A77 is a 2359k-dot resolution affair and has 100% frame coverage.
 
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Wonder how many people Sony will tempt from other manufacturers with this camera

Surely that's the figure that decides whether its a success or not, not that many I suspect
 
Had this discussion in the office the other week.

Personally I don't think OVFs will ever disappear but I can see them becoming increasingly 'niche', in the same way 35mm SLRs now are.

In 5-10 years, I think we'll find only very high-end, and thus expensive DSLRs using OVFs and the low-mid end will be EVF.
 
tijuana taxi said:
Wonder how many people Sony will tempt from other manufacturers with this camera

Surely that's the figure that decides whether its a success or not, not that many I suspect
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Me for one.

£950 body, 24mp, SLT technology, OLED electronic viewfinder, fast FPS, fast AF, DSLR video that autofocuses, (I'm crap at manual focus) fairly good G lens lineup, a great 70-400 G lens, excellent 24-70mm CZ lens. Can't wait to get it mid October. :thumbs:
 
will be more interesting to see more reviews, and the tech will get better but how much. and you can see the difference in light fall of from the ltm, which is half a stop from the digirev video and will also be interseting to see if the af can keep up with the fps.
and the iso on digirev doent look to hot.
 
dd1989 said:
They don't give you what the human eye can see though, they're only as good as the quality of the components/optics. Not to mention the fact that human sight isn't that good ;)

Anyway, the EVF in the new Sonys is said to be a bit of a revelation in terms of quality and how much information you can bring up on the screen, how people see this as a bad thing is beyond me.

That fujifilm had a terrible electronic viewfinder with 88% coverage, the A77 is a 2359k-dot resolution affair and has 100% frame coverage.
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True, but the optics in even the most basic lenses are still purer than standard optician glass. If the human eye or lens optics has any defects, these will also translate to the view provided from an EVF (after the processor has decided what it thinks you want to see at a far lower resolution) so arguing for the EVF is a fruitless argument. It will never be as good as the view provided by OVFs.

The day I'm forced to use an EVF will be the day I give up photography.
 
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scottthehat said:
will be more interesting to see more reviews, and the tech will get better but how much. and you can see the difference in light fall of from the ltm, which is half a stop from the digirev video and will also be interseting to see if the af can keep up with the fps.
and the iso on digirev doent look to hot.
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There are many SLT-A77 reviews out there, this guy seems to be a little more objective than the guy from digitalrev.

http://youtu.be/HRVOzwI10Iw

He is reviewing a pre-production A77 which I would of thought to be inferior to the production copies?
 
If Canikon had produced the a77, people would be raving (even more) about it. As a self-confessed Sony cynic, I'm as amazed to be saying that as anybody.

I've been using a pre-production sample quite a lot. The spec is astonishing, stuffed with every imaginable feature, and some of them are actually very useful. Plus it runs at 12fps.

The viewfinder is nothing like any EVF seen before (it is the future Jim ;)) and the whole thing works as advertised. It's not perfect, but it's damn good and is the first Sony to threaten the establishment.
 
HoppyUK said:
If Canikon had produced the a77, people would be raving (even more) about it. As a self-confessed Sony cynic, I'm as amazed to be saying that as anybody.

I've been using a pre-production sample quite a lot. The spec is astonishing, stuffed with every imaginable feature, and some of them are actually very useful. Plus it runs at 12fps.

The viewfinder is nothing like any EVF seen before (it is the future Jim ;)) and the whole thing works as advertised. It's not perfect, but it's damn good and is the first Sony to threaten the establishment.
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Not for me it isnt! Even if it means keeping my (by then!) old hat DSLR bodies just so I can have an OVF!

I think we will always have the option, with maybe the EVF's in the very fast sporting bodies and entry level bodies (less moving parts so applied correctly will be cheaper to build) and OVF's in the higher quality, but slower bodies. Thats what I hope anyway.
 
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odd jim said:
Not for me it isnt! Even if it means keeping my (by then!) old hat DSLR bodies just so I can have an OVF!

I think we will always have the option, with maybe the EVF's in the very fast sporting bodies and entry level bodies (less moving parts so applied correctly will be cheaper to build) and OVF's in the higher quality, but slower bodies. Thats what I hope anyway.
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How can you have any idea how good EVF's well become in a few years? You may be eating those words.
 
Because it will never be as good as the mk1 human eyeball.

I also don't want to be presented with a processed image that the camera is interpreting. Even without any adjustments selected for the EVF in the menus, it will still be processed to a degree.

I'm not against progress, I just dont want to see the full computerisation (I made that word up but it makes sense) of photography. Soon we will have solid state plates you simply hold up and it will see the image you want and record it without you doing anything, but where's the fun in that?

I see EVFs as a further step in detaching the photographer from the scene in front of him.

Taking it off topic now, sorry (especially as this has been debated before). I'm sure the A77 is a fantastic piece of kit and the EVF is the only thing I dont like being seen as an unavoidable part of the translucent mirror package but I look forward to trying one!
 
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Vertigo1 said:
Had this discussion in the office the other week.

Personally I don't think OVFs will ever disappear but I can see them becoming increasingly 'niche', in the same way 35mm SLRs now are.

In 5-10 years, I think we'll find only very high-end, and thus expensive DSLRs using OVFs and the low-mid end will be EVF.
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Think you'll find in 5-10 years, the DSLR will 99% likely be replaced by the mirrorless camera. Apart from higher end DSLRS such as the Canon 5D mark 2 etc ;)
 
Back on topic, has anyone else seen the FW bug reports on DPR? It seems the first a77s to ship have a habit of locking up or not shutting down when switched off.
 
The big downside of the A77 is the small buffer. It's still bigger than the one for the D7000 which can hold a dismal 10 RAWS but at 13 or so with 12 fps the sony really isn't much cop unless it can empty that buffer as fast as you can fill it.

The poor buffer put me off the D7000 as that was almost worth considering a switch. The A580 has a 20 RAW buffer. That's more like it. Still seems a bit small. I think the 7d does unlimited jpgs on the highest quality so again that is more sensible.

It's an almost perfect camera. Think I may wait for the next version of it or maybe the full frame as the A580 is a decent crop (barring squeaky build quality).

If the sony evf has a built in level/gridlines then it will be worth it. Wonky horizons are a pet hate and I'm often doing them as an OVF doesn't have helpful grid lines and I rarely use liveview off a tripod. Tried a hotshoe spirit level but you can't see it with the OVF only if you're using the lcd, which is pointless as that has gridlines to line up with.

At some point I'm assuming EVFs will become so good you won't be able to tell them apart from OVFs.
 
srichards said:
The big downside of the A77 is the small buffer. It's still bigger than the one for the D7000 which can hold a dismal 10 RAWS but at 13 or so with 12 fps the sony really isn't much cop unless it can empty that buffer as fast as you can fill it.

The poor buffer put me off the D7000 as that was almost worth considering a switch. The A580 has a 20 RAW buffer. That's more like it. Still seems a bit small. I think the 7d does unlimited jpgs on the highest quality so again that is more sensible.
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Yes.

It's an almost perfect camera. Think I may wait for the next version of it or maybe the full frame as the A580 is a decent crop (barring squeaky build quality).

If the sony evf has a built in level/gridlines then it will be worth it. Wonky horizons are a pet hate and I'm often doing them as an OVF doesn't have helpful grid lines and I rarely use liveview off a tripod. Tried a hotshoe spirit level but you can't see it with the OVF only if you're using the lcd, which is pointless as that has gridlines to line up with.

At some point I'm assuming EVFs will become so good you won't be able to tell them apart from OVFs.
Click to expand...

The a77 EVF is that good already. You have to look very hard to see it's not optical, though the stack of (customisable) info overlaid is a bit of a giveaway, including live histogram. It's not quite as bright as it could be in full sun.

Jim, I know where you're coming from. There is part of me that says this Sony is a lot of technology for sake of it - gadget geeks will love it. But everything does actually work pretty well. Sweep Panorama is amazing, then there's Auto HDR and a clever Hand Held Twilight mode - all these modes merge multiple images in-camera. Also in-camera correction of lens aberrations like vignetting, distortion and CA.

But the thing it really does that nothing else can match is 12fps, which is does so quietly and smoothly (until the buffer fills ;)).

On the viewfinder thing. An optical jobbie is nowhere near as good as the human eye. What you're looking at is an image on the ground glass screen, which is just as 'processed' in a different way. It neither shows all the image detail, nor real depth of field, etc.

But that aside, the viewfinder is just a device to help you frame the image and time the shot. The a77's EVF does that, so you could argue that it at least does the job. All the info available is undoubtedly a bonus.
 
odd jim said:
It will never be as good as the view provided by OVFs.

The day I'm forced to use an EVF will be the day I give up photography.
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It depends how you define "as good."

EVF's will only get better so I don't see how anyone can write them off forever and claim that they'll give up photography rather than use one. That seems... silly to me :thinking: Sorry but you sound like you are a member of the Taliban :D Joking BTW :D

You just don't know what the technology will be like in two years time never mind five or ten years time so you surely can't just write it off forever. Even now the relatively old technology of my G1 allows me to see things that I can't see by eye... and you get those lovely graphics like histogram... so it's already "better" in at least some respects.
 
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