Sony A77-Really a Bridge camera? Worth Getting Now or Wait.

[redsim74]

I always thought the Minolta (rather than KM) colours derived from their (Minolta) lenses rather than the (KM) sensors.

Yes, Minolta colours would be the more accurate description, but the KM sensor plays a big part in this. The same shot with my A700 - using the same Sony 50/1.4 - would have been quite different in terms of colour I'm sure.

[agorabasta]

Minolta was and still is into serious professional colour 'science' tools. Their lenses were made to produce consistent spectral transfer response, so changing a lens on a body didn't change the colour rendition. And that really was so since the film era when no other 'sensors' were even considered. Such is the real basis of all the urban legends of 'Minolta colours'.

Then came the digital sensors, and Minolta naturally tried to make array filters to produce optimal metamerism of the whole system. But frankly, those early attempts were rather kids' play. The Sony DSLR cams starting with a700 and later were much better at colour, almost all of them. The only cam that I had a problem with in regard of subjective colour rendering (metamerism) was the a500. Yet even that was better than any direct competition from other manu's.

Personally, I prefer the a700 colours processed from raw to any other cam's output. But colour perception is very widely differing even between individuals, and more so between families/tribes/nations/races. But really that's all very individual...

The most indeterminably personal colours are the greens and the reds. The greens are so because they are a pure brain construct, as we don't have any green colour sensors in our eyes at all and the green part of spectrum is captured by the luma (rod cells) sensor array. The reds are a kind of a 'super-colour', since their shades are derived from the difference between the two yellow sensor (cone cells) arrays in our eyes. But some men have only one yellow array, and some women have three such arrays. And all of that is within a norm...

[Greg Beetham]

Thanks guys and girl, I just noticed today (too late) that Kylies (across the road) red/white Frangipani tree is flowering, it’s a very small Frangipani tree but the red colour is rare, it’s the only one I can remember seeing…I’ll see if I can get a photo of the blossom.
Greg
Ps. Looking at that rendition redsim74 it’s hard too imagine how it could be described by any other camera at web size any better, despite the later cameras having many more MP’s.
Pps. Agorabasta, colour space and colour recording/rendition must be just about the most complex thing it’s possible to be involved with, I reckon E=MC2 or the unified field theory is child’s play by comparison ha ha.

[aster]

Lovely colours Redsim74 - seems the advice is to get a KM5D Yildiz .

Wow! Indeed very tamgible details and colours, Redsim74. The blossom is almost 3D in effect, coming off the screen.

I like the KM5D alot. If only I could find one brand new which would be almost impossible with its first release date in mind. Hard to trust anyone's word of 'excellent condition' when ordering a used one online. I haven't seen one physically in Istanbul yet, though I know a few people who speak of having used one once.

I hardly bought anything used until now. Have a heart for the brand new, always did.... I have to be the first and the sole owner of my investment. It's a principle with me. I'll never know how mistreated the item was and there's a lot of foul play going on everywhere.

So, it'll be a new camera model for sure, which only I will take out of its unscratched box. Let's hope Sony repeats the success of the 'tangible 3D effect' of the KM5D....without the the real 3D feature that comes with the newest camera models , that is.

Yildiz

[redsim74]

Thanks for your kind words, Yildiz.

It wasn't my intention to hijack your thread!

Of course I'm not really suggesting you should go out and buy an old KM5D, but it shows that there's plenty of good photos that will come out of an older (or not quite the latest) camera.

[aster]

Thanks for your kind words, Yildiz.

It wasn't my intention to hijack your thread!

Of course I'm not really suggesting you should go out and buy an old KM5D, but it shows that there's plenty of good photos that will come out of an older (or not quite the latest) camera.

By all means, please do hijack anyway you like with such nice contributions and photos that remind us of the qualities we already own or have nearby...
The thread only benefitted from the latest posts by yourself and Greg. : )

Who knows, maybe somewhere around the world, there's a KM5D that never got out of its box and was hidden and forgotten inside a shop's storage or dusty remote shelf... Waiting to be uncovered.... : )


Thanks

Yildiz

[Atgets_Apprentice]

Why look for a KM5D when the KM7D has the same sensor, with a better spec? I still look at my KM7D images from 2006 and think they hold up pretty well against images I have shot recently.

[[SiC]]

Why look for a KM5D when the KM7D has the same sensor, with a better spec? I still look at my KM7D images from 2006 and think they hold up pretty well against images I have shot recently.

I think the D7D had the better spec but if I'm not mistaken the D5D had better jpegs or something... If you are a jpeg shooter.
Personally I was eager so I got the D7D almost immediately when it came.

/Z!

[aster]

Why look for a KM5D when the KM7D has the same sensor, with a better spec? I still look at my KM7D images from 2006 and think they hold up pretty well against images I have shot recently.

Hi,

Actually that's not what I meant when said that I'd rather look for a brand new KM5D; KM7D is also an excellent camera model and I know the colour rendition of the camera.
As Zeb already pointed out as an owner of one that it's a competent model with more to offer than the KM5D.

My point from the beginning was that I wanted a 'brand new' one and not a second-hand camera due to the oldness of these particular models. Since it's highly unlikely to find brand new ones of any of the older models I feel better for reserving my investments for newer camera models.

Thanks,

Yildiz

[alphaomega]

It would seem to me that Sony are trying to pull out all stops to really improve this camera with what (for them) seems to be an "avalance" of firmware updates. There was v.3 and not hot on its heels v.4 shortly http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/more-aou ... w-support/
It would seem to me that rather than being a bridge camera until something better comes out, it is destined to be on the market for some time to come. I may be wrong. You never know with Sony, but the EVF is now acceptable, I don't think they can go above 24Mp for APS-C and the shooting rate is quite impressive. They will probably try and improve on high ISO but I think Sony will now concentrate on getting EVF FF cameras out and maybe more A & E lenses. I would certainly welcome some more E lenses, and in particular a wide angle zoom around 12-24mm (18-36mm in 35mm speak). This would obviate switching between 16mm, 16mm with W/A converter and 18-55mm for wide to moderately wide when doing town/city type photography.

[agorabasta]

It's very much likely that they can improve the a77 noise performance, maybe at the risk of faster overheating and/or greater battery drain. But the image quality may really improve to almost the Nex7 levels.

What they absolutely cannot improve is the buffer capacity and memory interface with that laughable single slot. And those two features of a77 are simply shameful for a 7-level cam.

[bfitzgerald]

They could have just made the buffer bigger. I know it's 24mp and that's going to take some space up, but memory is "dirt" cheap nowadays. I'd say double the buffer would be more acceptable. You'll still run into problems with raw files but many would be shooting jpeg for action shots. Even the jpeg buffer isn't very big it almost negates the advantage of a high fps for those who want it.

[alphaomega]

I think that Agorabasta and Bfitzgerald pinpoint the remaining main "weaknesses" of the A77,
these being
High ISO excessive noise
Small buffer
Single slot only
and (DK's issue) the lack of mike manual adjustment.

I must admit that when I saw the overall specs. of this camera and the buffer capabilities I was taken by surprise (apart from the fact that a company such as Sony could release a top flight camera with old software).

So now most reviews will be with old software and if v.4 noticably improve on performance we are back into a replay of the launch of A700 and later v.4 firmware improvements.

[Scooterman]

Morning all, well it is here!
I have the A-77 as do quite a few others and we love them, yes there could be improvements, no camera made is perfect, although one or two people may claim that their Canpentnikoly is?
One- how long does it take to change an SD card?
The next thing, I see quite a few Canon 1D users with their huge lenses heavy tripods “machine gunning” lookers on, me included think “What a ****” they spend many thousands of £$ etc more than I have, for what, hours of scanning though images for that one shot that they can use and they think they are photographers.
In my days with film, remember them? 36 frames on a normal film and ISO 1600 was just for that very rare time.
One very small point folks, if you want to make a camera that does equal a Canon 1D mk4 or Nikon 3 the price would be quite a bit higher, much too high for me, Sony have done a superb job and made a camera that is in my price range and as good as it could be for the money, I say well done Sony, more of it please, keeping my budget in mind.

[Greg Beetham]

Richard and Doc. Both with the A77 that’s good, I hope we’ll get user pros and cons as time goes on.
When it comes to the buffer, my idea of the use I’d put the camera too is that I wouldn’t be shooting everything at 24MP. I think I’d use 12MP JPEGs for action and maybe 6MP for low light high ISO; what I’m not sure of is how that would effect the data throughput speed and memory buffer issue, it should make things easier for the camera and speed things up considerably in the buffering area if one used 12MP JPEGs for action type shooting in theory except that 12MP has to be calculated and processed ‘on the fly’ …maybe David has done some tests. The A77 has very good JPEGs right out of the camera so even RAW shooters shouldn’t be bothered by using 12MP JPEGs for action shooting.
Greg