Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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Wes Gibbon
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

Unread post by Wes Gibbon »

bfitzgerald wrote: I personally cannot recommend Nikon based purely on my own experience of their AF, maybe the problems are sorted out on the D600, I certainly hope so.
It may be that support for 'professional' equipment is much better. I believe there is a dedicated team based in their head office for this. Unfortuately, both the D7000 and the D600 count as 'consumer' products. I don't understand why the D300 & D700 are 'professional' but not the D600. Not that there is excuse for poor support at any level.

Barry, have you seen the issue regarding possible battery problems: https://nikoneurope-en.custhelp.com/app ... a_id/52326?
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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I saw that issue with the battery I never had a bad batch.
Regarding consumer/pro level equipment my feelings about the D7000 are that it's not acceptable for AF performance even if the camera cost £299 a super budget DSLR, that's how bad it was. I'd have flung the camera out the window upstairs had it not had some cash value.
Can't say much about the D600, D800 had plenty of problems with AF alignment issues and some still find the focus not very consistent. Nikon decided to "keep hush" about that, which again I found a bit worrying considering how far reaching the problem was. They didn't even seem slightly worried about the no. of bodies I had bought with back focus problems, no extra mile on customer support, just the same tired "send it in for service" (right I already did that and you didn't fix it!)

I can't do business with any company that sucks for QC or customer support (ie Pentax and Nikon)

If I were starting out now I'd probably look at Canon, but I think FF is the way to go with them.
I completely understand why folks go for Nikon nice overall range, on paper they have the best cameras at least above the entry models. I have to urge caution with this maker purely on my own experience, what looks good on paper isn't enough if it falls down real world.
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bakubo
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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bfitzgerald wrote:I got a big wake up call, chasing features and a spec sheet come very much secondary to basic stuff like decent autofocus.
Yes, exactly. That has been my position all the way back. Basic quality trumps all the doodads. I am really happy to see that David has loosened his earlier policy limiting discussion of quality problems and has allowed lots and lots of it with regards to Pentax and Nikon. It helps everyone to know about quality problems. It is one of the good things about the internet. Years ago each person that might have a product problem generally had no way to know if he/she was alone or if there were others. Couldn't easily share ideas and solutions. Couldn't band together and pressure the company to fix them. Couldn't publicize them.

Barry, it is about time that you catch a break. Good luck with whatever you try next.
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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Another Nikon problem is oil or some other gunk splashing onto the sensor from the shutter mechanism. It seems to be associated with firing in continuous mode. I know two people with D800's who have suffered this but I have heard it has affected other models as well. I was on a workshop with someone who had a D800 and his sensor was badly contaminated. He got it clean eventually, but he had to buy the remainder of my box of swabs to do it - there were ten left and he needed every one. I suppose when there is a race for technical advances co-inciding with a recession there is pressure to 'control costs' (i.e. cut corners) and we all lose out in the end.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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The oil spots are well known and first started with the D7000 though I did not see any problems on the 2 I got. I read reports of this on the D800, but most of the complaints were about the AF. There are again reports of oil spots and back focus issues starting to turn up on the D600. I used to think you should just ignore internet chatter..and sure you can dismiss some user complaints. On the other hand I'd be inclined to take more notice of them after my own experiences.

I had a chat via DPR with one D90 user who sent their camera in to Nikon service 6 times..each time coming back with another problem (ie top LCD not working stuff like that) AF accuracy was as I reported mostly back focus. I know of quite a lot of D7k AF complaints and again I assumed it was just chit chat and nothing to it. But real world that's exactly what I got too (to varying degrees)

If Nikon can put out a body costing £1500-£2000+ with issues then I think that dents confidence in their products, I'd have no idea how many of their entry bodies have AF problems as that might likely be undetected by some users with only a kit lens. Pentax had problems with the SR and the mirror slap interfering with each other essentially making SR useless for shutter speeds in the 1/40-1/100 sec range, K-r had a flawed AF module that had massive front focus in low kelvin light.

I can report I set aside my EVF angst and picked up an A57 yesterday just to tick me over for a while, and so far the AF appears to be very good and importantly accurate. Lower grade body or not I just need something that "works" right now. If the D600 has a similar AF performance to the D7k DK's going to be in for a big disappointment depending on what type of shooting it's being used for. The A57 spanks the D7000's rear end red raw it actually is accurate!
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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bfitzgerald wrote: If Nikon can put out a body costing £1500-£2000+ with issues then I think that dents confidence in their products
Unfortunately for Sony, Canon would be the main beneficiary.
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artington
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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When I read all these stories about QC problems I wonder whether it is because these cameras/lenses are just being made to too cheap a selling price. Presumably these are assembly issues rather than component issues too. Maybe this is a partial justification for Leica's high prices. No QC issues there, at least prior to the M8 - but that was a design issue rather than one of product variability; they all suffered from magenta cast under certain, rare, conditions. And Leica lenses are absolutely dependable, unlike just about all others, Zeiss not excepted.

I bought my first SLR, a Minolta SRT101b, in around 1975 for about £120 - I guess that's equivalent to about £1,800 today. Yet this, admittedly sturdy, little box was hardly a technological triumph. It was, and remains, reliable because of its simplicity and mechanical construction. When I think of the technological wizardry of today's cameras and lenses, and the tiny tolerances involved, I am amazed both by their pricing and the fact that there is not greater sample variability than there is. Ultimately, I suspect the only consistently reliable products are those that are hand assembled by crafts(wo)men. Like Leica lenses.
Last edited by artington on Wed Oct 31, 2012 12:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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True but that's down to Sony.
I think most of us know that Canon got a very notable head start in the DSLR market, it's only recently Nikon have been quite aggressive with some models esp FF and going for a big pixel D800. It has always been Canon or Nikon. Other makers will have to accept that they won't be no.1 or no.2. Minolta was as far as I was aware in 35mm days a fairly solid no.3 choice. Olympus were not even in the game 35mm AF wise, Pentax again behind Minolta

Sony can't expect much more than that. Truth is I don't know how they can ever get to a position to rival the top 2, maybe it's simply not possible. Or I would suggest being a lot more aggressive in specific areas. If I accept I can use SLT or not, IMO that on it's own isn't going to give Sony any notable advantage. What is..well I'm all ears maybe DK has a master plan for A mount domination. Most folks I know still shoot Canon, I suspect Nikon will eat into that a bit esp with the D600. Ask most people what they would buy and still Canon comes back as the no.1 choice.

As for the post above I tried lots of lenses, Tamron, Sigma, Nikon even to the extent of borrowing a few pro level lenses. Same result. I'm convinced it's a body issue, how it's possible to get 5 back focus bodies is a mystery. It should be impossible statistically.
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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peterottaway wrote:David when Shirley gets the D600 could you please post a comment on the brightness and overall usability of its OVF in comparison to the A900.

It's just that there have been comments floating around basically saying that the OVF lobby should take a look at what you get from some of the lesser OVF on the market before trashing the A99 EVF so completely. And a decent workout in real world conditions is going to be a lot better than a 2 minute play in a camera store.
I can tell you that in advance - the Nikon OVF is the dimmest around, because of its LCD overlay. Sony's A900 EVF remains the brightest ever made. It is not possible to disable the LCD layer on Nikon screens, and they remove about the same amount of light as a high efficiency polarizer - 1 stop.

However, the D600 has a quite exceptional eyepoint distance, and a rectangular consumer-type eyepiece surround not the circular pro version found in the D700/800 and other Nikons. This new eyepiece gives people with specs or visual issues a bit more leeway to be able to see the entire screen. Shirley is bad with this, she likes to have a grid screen, but no other distractions, to get things straight as quite often she can't see the frame edges. The D600 will with luck improve this situation. The A55 did but she hated that. The A77 doesn't, and although the A580 has a tiny screen view, it doesn't have generous eyepoint.

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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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An interesting comment on SAR that when Focus Numerique posted its samples on the comparison between the A99 and the D600 they posted 8 MB images for the A99 and 15-16 MB images for the D600. Dumb ? Stupid ? Biased ?

It looks like DPR is not the only organization that has DPR Moments.
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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David Kilpatrick wrote:
peterottaway wrote:David when Shirley gets the D600 could you please post a comment on the brightness and overall usability of its OVF in comparison to the A900.

It's just that there have been comments floating around basically saying that the OVF lobby should take a look at what you get from some of the lesser OVF on the market before trashing the A99 EVF so completely. And a decent workout in real world conditions is going to be a lot better than a 2 minute play in a camera store.
I can tell you that in advance - the Nikon OVF is the dimmest around, because of its LCD overlay. Sony's A900 EVF remains the brightest ever made. It is not possible to disable the LCD layer on Nikon screens, and they remove about the same amount of light as a high efficiency polarizer - 1 stop.

However, the D600 has a quite exceptional eyepoint distance, and a rectangular consumer-type eyepiece surround not the circular pro version found in the D700/800 and other Nikons. This new eyepiece gives people with specs or visual issues a bit more leeway to be able to see the entire screen. Shirley is bad with this, she likes to have a grid screen, but no other distractions, to get things straight as quite often she can't see the frame edges. The D600 will with luck improve this situation. The A55 did but she hated that. The A77 doesn't, and although the A580 has a tiny screen view, it doesn't have generous eyepoint.

David

Thank you for the reply. Having had to use bifocals for the last couple of years and still trying to adjust - I wasn't sure whether my experience with the D700 was typical of modern Nikon OVF's or not.
Generally I have no problem with daylight shooting but I do find the low light work with the D700 to be somewhat frustrating. Given that I bought the D700 for its low level lighting credentials this has been frustrating as I use the A850 as my general purpose camera.
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bakubo
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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bfitzgerald wrote:I can report I set aside my EVF angst and picked up an A57 yesterday just to tick me over for a while, and so far the AF appears to be very good and importantly accurate. Lower grade body or not I just need something that "works" right now.
I hope the A57 works out okay for you. It seems to be at sort of a sweet spot in the line with the great 16mp sensor, good price, and other specs that look pretty good. I think it has a slightly downspec EVF compared to the A77 (I am not so up to date on Sony stuff so I may be wrong about that) and it doesn't have micro-adjust for focus, but I was pretty happy with the AF with my A700 and all lenses as long as the FL wasn't too short and the A700 didn't have micro-adjust either.

Let us know whether you can live with the EVF. They have some disadvantages and some advantages compared to an OVF, IMO. I expect they will get better over time though. This thread may help you get a better view out of the EVF as long as you shoot raw:

http://www.photoclubalpha.com/forum/vie ... =51&t=6832

The following new thread is about the Olympus EM-5 EVF lag time, but I expect that the Sony EVF is similar:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/post/50148761

Down inside the thread it turns out that someone found an Olympus document that says the lag time is 29ms which pretty much is confirmed by the OP's testing. For some people that isn't good enough, but for most people it probably is. It is a lot better than older EVFs though.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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I'll start a new thread with the A57 I need to spend more time with it overall to comment properly. It's a question at this stage of can I use it..rather than do I prefer OVF's because I will prefer an OVF. The lag time in normal light probably isn't a problem for most, in very dim light it's quite bad but I suppose we're talking about very dim as in can't see much with an OVF anyway. In fairly dim light (I'm thinking inside a church type work) it is probably acceptable. Resolution wise the EVF is "ok", in good light it's not got the detail of an OVF, if that's a problem I can't say yet.

DK is right about the LCD overlay it does rob light, if this was a deal breaker..well probably not. But some have commented on the VF brightness and the dimmer view yes you can see it isn't as bright. I suspect this also causes the "difficult MF" too. I'm pretty good at MF even with a basic OVF, but I found the D90 and D7000 much harder to MF with, to the point where it was not really that realistic using the MF. You can't rely on the "rangefinder" in the VF or the AF confirm dot if the AF is not accurately calibrated.
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Greg Beetham
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

Unread post by Greg Beetham »

Barry I think you can take the field tester award in the consumer-prosumer area, :lol: if nothing else you have certainly shed some light on the state of play in that area with Pentax and Nikon products, they LOOK like the real thing and most likely feel like the real thing but that’s about it, if you buy one you pays your money and you takes your chances, and none of em at very good odds by the sound of it.
Makes one wonder if the wheel has fallen off at Nikon and how long their customer base will put up with that kind of effort? Let’s hope the other models like the D600 and D800 don’t suffer from such mayhem.
I guess you didn’t have much option but to get the A57, it seems to be making plenty of owners happy enough, except for only having one dial at the front (like the KM5D), and no lens fine tune (I’ve never needed it, but with lower Mp’s maybe you don’t…don’t know on that one), also no auto ISO in M mode and I don’t know how reliable the flash system is…I haven’t noticed too many complaints so far.
Greg

Ps I was just browsing through this http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3291451 and one guy reported he had back focus on a lens (don’t know what lens) and was complaining about there being no way to adjust the focus plane on that level of camera, and there are complaints about the zoom button, picture effect button, and ? button being non re-programmable if you always shoot RAW, the first two don’t do anything in RAW anyway…JPEG only.
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bfitzgerald
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Re: Sony Alpha A99 Field Test Report

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Greg I've had some serious abuse from Pentax and Nikon users as I don't have a habit of keeping a low profile. I think they are serious issues with both makers, and esp with their service arrangements and competence. I've been called all names under the sun, a fool for not being able to operate a camera, I've read stuff about it's the users fault, AF settings, lens problems, focus shift, send my lenses to Tamron (even the Nikon ones!) One Pentax user even said it was "my fault" for not researching the K-r enough and discovering the FF problems with that model. Of course not up to Pentax to provide a fix for what was clearly a flawed AF module.

Just about anything but to make the issues known and give the makers a bit of stick for some obvious problems. I had some doubts when Nikon refused to own up to the D800 issues they just wanted it to die away, that said something about the company to me.

Onto the Sony it is a lower level body than I would prefer, not noted any back focus issues yet (and I've been looking) AF is far better than the D7000 by a country mile. IMO if the AF is accurate from the factory you should not have many problems. The small bit of variance with the odd rogue lens should not cause a huge problem and I've never felt the need for it on other bodies. The ? doesn't do a lot bar some newbie guide and delete files..but at least the AEL/ISO button can be user set. We get the same Sony niggles like small bracketing, too much NR on jpegs, no user set Auto ISO. But in the great scheme of things I think the fact I let the D7000 sit right next to me without any interest in picking it up speaks volumes..

I have to put aside the Sony gripes and pick up on the better things ie it can actually focus properly.
I'll add more details with a new thread in a few days. I will say though I've never entirely been happy with the Tonality of Pentax or Nikon esp not for skintones. Neither shine to me. Pentax were over contrasty and saturated, Nikon have a yellow type cast that I can't quite get my head around and I don't feel it grabs me for a variety of subjects I can't say why it just feels a bit wrong at times.. Fuji are IMO the absolute best out there for this type of shooting, but I got along ok with the A200 tones..not quite KM5d levels..but decent. This looks so far to be good or rather more to my tastes for tones/colours/hues. Seems minor but it's something that has bugged me a bit with other makers.
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