A77 hands on at endgadget

[Greg Beetham]

Using a pre-production model, so they say. http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/24/sony ... iew-video/
Greg

ps. Also at dpreview now. http://forums.dpreview.com/previews/sonyslta77/

[wwind_chan_200]

So it begins !

[stevecim]

dpreview have some previews up. The A65 seem to have included some of my "would like to have" select-able 1/3 iso stops, some programmable buttons

[Greg Beetham]

A quote from endgadgets ‘hands on’ image comparison with a 5DMkII,
“Images shot side-by-side at f/10 with a Canon 5D Mark II are noticeably sharper with the Canon when viewed at 100 percent (see our gallery for an example), but the 5D is a much pricier DSLR with a coveted full-frame sensor -- the Alpha offers excellent performance for an APS-C.”
What I don’t know is, if the focus point was the same for both photos using the two different cameras, and I couldn’t find any absolute verification about what lenses were being used on both, the only similarity given that I could see was they were both set at f10 for the photo, a fairly ordinary test to draw any conclusions from I think.
Greg

[bfitzgerald]

Greg I would expect a FF sensor to be better even if it were lower mp.
However whilst it's too early to judge right now I can't say I'm impressed with the IQ of the samples seen..maybe we need to wait for raw and more shots. It looks weak in low light and possibly well behind the 16mp CMOS (and indeed others)

I've a feeling the sensor will become the main talking point and Sony might have just gone too far too fast pushing to 24mp.

[Lonnie Utah]

It looks weak in low light and possibly well behind the 16mp CMOS (and indeed others)

As usual, I'll disagree. Imaging resource had some iso 6400 shots that look pretty useable to me. They also compared the output from the a77 to the pentax 456d @1600 iso (the 456's max), and while the 645 expectedly had more detail in the image, the a77 had lower noise (fair trade-off I'd say because at "normal" print and screen resolutions, you won't see those details anyway, yet noise will stick out like a sore thumb). I have no doubt that these were out of camera JPG's so we have no idea how the RAW files would look.

[Winston]

The full frame looks sharper at 100% because it has 33% lower linear pixel density.

[Greg Beetham]

Yeah Barry in principal an FF camera is going to be good, but the really critical bit is the lens, it doesn’t matter how good the sensor is, if the lens isn’t up to the mark it will produce sub par images. That’s why I would like too know more about the lenses used in the so called test at endgadget. And like I was saying did they actually get the focus point nailed exactly the same in both photos?
In any case a 24MP sensor on an APS-C frame is going too need high quality lenses to show its true potential, I’d like too see some images taken with a variety of high class lenses before I’d rush to judgement.
I was looking at a comparison (dpr I think) between the A77 and the A900, and according to that 'test' the A77 was sharper with more detail, but there again I don’t know what lenses were used, it could be that the A900 was handicapped by the lens they were using…early days yet I reckon.
Greg

[pakodominguez]

A quote from endgadgets ‘hands on’ image comparison with a 5DMkII,
“Images shot side-by-side at f/10 with a Canon 5D Mark II are noticeably sharper with the Canon when viewed at 100 percent (see our gallery for an example), but the 5D is a much pricier DSLR with a coveted full-frame sensor -- the Alpha offers excellent performance for an APS-C.”

they were comparing JPG or RAW? if JPG (Most probably) I will just not bother

[Dr. Harout]

Probably a marketing method. Comparing a77 with Canon 5D or Pentax 645D is not right. It's a way of discriminating it. There will definitely be people who'll buy into it and look further for Canon etc.
But on the other hand, if they are comparing it with cameras of higher classes, then it surely implies it really is good.

[pakodominguez]

Probably a marketing method. Comparing a77 with Canon 5D or Pentax 645D is not right. It's a way of discriminating it. There will definitely be people who'll buy into it and look further for Canon etc.
But on the other hand, if they are comparing it with cameras of higher classes, then it surely implies it really is good.

Well, I expect, with a similar quality lens, having better results from the brand new A77 than from the 4 years old 5DII.

[Argonaut]

However whilst it's too early to judge right now I can't say I'm impressed

Story of your life, Barry. I'll alert the media.

[Greg Beetham]

I don’t think comparing reduced for web JPEG’s is going too show any absolutes either at the moment, it’s just as nebulous as camera/lens/sensor comparisons can be. I still think it’s a case of the more you have the more you loose, so comparing JPEG’s from an A55 and an A77 at the same pixel count is probably going too favour the A55 when both have been reduced too a much lower equal with each other resolution; probably it’s more of a case of seeing if the reduction algorithm in the particular photo editing program works reasonably well for both cameras and not much more. When there is RAW support available in Adobe there might be some conclusions that stand a chance of having some foundation.
The thing that I would like too know more about at the moment is the electronic shutter in the A77, and how well the camera works with system flashes.
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

I saw yesterday that Carl was proposing over at dpr that the published images taken by the A77 so far are a bit 'how's your father' because they were taken with a pre-production camera/firmware, like back when he was involved with testing the A900 pre-production model; and that shakedown was guarded by nda's. But the thing is, why weren't these A77 images covered by an nda as well?
In any case why would Sony run the risk of the A77 getting any sort of bad press by giving it too people to play with before it was fully ready...it just seems odd too me...but then Sony have a track record of doing weird things now and then, so maybe it's not so strange after all.
Greg

[aramkostanyan]

Here is an update that I found in the first link given.
Update: Commenter Steve Jones pointed out the following oversight:
You should not be shooting at f10 on a 24.3MP APS-C camera if you want optimal sharpness as it will be diffraction limited. Indeed that's even true at f8 and diffraction will only finally disappear as an issue by f5.6. In comparison, a 24MP FF camera will not be diffraction limited at F10.
We have found this to be correct, and have updated the gallery images in question. At f/5.6, the A77's 100 percent view is much sharper than at f/10. Still, the image captured with the Canon 5D Mark II is sharper, but the difference is much less profound.
As Winston mentioned before with the same quality lenses FF will look sharper.