SLT A57 thoughts and ramblings...

[peterottaway]

I'm not sure who it reflects worse on with the coverage on Australian TV with the coverage of the US elections. The networks who would
have been better off employing a bunch of Borat impersonators or the collection of village idiots that they chose to interview.

The US political and social commentators who they interviewed came across as generally intelligent and articulate people - just like many of the Americans these same reporters interviewed in the wake of Sandy.

[Andy B]

Oh, I can imagine it, but it does make me laugh that Sony used that as the excuse. If that was all there was to it then Sony could just put the cover in the box, but leave it off the body so when people look at the camera at the store or open the box they can see the flash shoe. Companies can do what they want to try to make an extra 3 cents on each body. I get that. I do laugh though at the kinds of excuses they come up with when challenged on it. I suspect Sony sells the cover as a separate item though, probably for more than 3 cents though.

I suspect that Sony flash shoe covers from China can be bought very cheaply on ebay.

Sony Style sells the "hot shoe caps" for $6.99 each plus shipping in the U.S. I bought 4 of them from an eBay seller in Hong Kong for $4.99 with free shipping.

P.S. Thanks for the tip about removing the reversed lens hoods, guys. I wondered why I couldn't find the focusing rings on my lenses!

[bfitzgerald]

I have some ebay hot shoe covers around, for some odd reason they are ultra tight fitting on the A57 hot shoe (but not on other A mount cameras)
Not to make a big deal over it..but if the excuse was folks not thinking they can put a flash on there, fine put the cover in the box then!
As for lens hoods I think none of the makers bundles one with a kit lens any-more. Canon are well known for not giving hoods with lenses bar the L series, I was not aware Olympus was doing the same trick.

Whilst I'm on Olympus they have not dropped the price of the OM-D at all since launch it's still £999 for the body (too much IMO) Olympus as well known for awful prices in the UK bar the odd Pen blow out deal.
Quick note on the A57 the AWB needs some work in artificial lighting strong cast in low kelvin temps, and they need a bigger kelvin adjustment a bit below 2500k. On the plus side they have a fine tune with the 4 colour axis now (long overdue)

You still get the same custom WB error in very low kelvin that you do on the Km5d yet it sets the WB ok..must be another bug from years past!

[MarcoC]

Barry - do you still have an a700? I would beintrigued to hear how you feel a57 raws compare with those from the a700.

My own take is that the a700 firmware v4 raws are actually not much worse, or (controversial I know) not worse AT ALL, at ISO 800-2000, than those from the 'mirracle' 16MP sensor in the a57.

Do try the flash exposure and see what you think - I find it a little less predictable than with my a700 when using off camera or bounced flash. Did you read Gary Friedman's complaints about over-exposure with the a77 and flash? I don't think the a57 is as bad but I do sometimes get unexpected over-exposure when using my Sony 56 flash unit on the a57.

[bfitzgerald]

I tried an A700, but never owned one.
I'm not using any Sony flashes so can only comment on the metz I have..it seems ok so far but I need to do more flash shots to see what the story is there. I have updated the flash firmware to the most recent one.
High ISO looks quite close to the D7000 surprisingly even with the light sucking mirror. I passed on the A77 because I'm not convinced about it's high ISO performance I think Sony will need to update their models next year to improve that situation. Esp since more 24mp APS-C models are due out soon.

Maybe someone could do an A700 v A57 high ISO raw shootout
Would be interesting to see. The 12mp CMOS is still good I personally felt it was perfectly ok up to ISO 3200, but not really beyond that. The 16mp CMOS seems to be able to deliver (with careful exposure) a half decent ISO 6400. Above that I think no APS-C sensor is that good I consider the really high ISO settings to be a bit hmm well either small print or web use.

[Greg Beetham]

Good write up on the A57 Barry.
Greg

[hrstrat57-RI]

Maybe someone could do an A700 v A57 high ISO raw shootout
Would be interesting to see. The 12mp CMOS is still good I personally felt it was perfectly ok up to ISO 3200, but not really beyond that. The 16mp CMOS seems to be able to deliver (with careful exposure) a half decent ISO 6400. Above that I think no APS-C sensor is that good I consider the really high ISO settings to be a bit hmm well either small print or web use.

Might pull the trigger on an A 57 after the holidays....very helpful write up.

I have 2 A700's and I never shoot over ISO 800 with the cameras. If I could get equiv results at ISO 1600 would be a big plus.

Thanks for the excellent thread.

[classiccameras]

Excellent write up Barry and useful information for potential new buyers.

I have the A37 which has almost the same lay out as the A57.
I'm not saying the Sony A37/57 is better than my Nikon D5100, but my A37 is 10 times easier and quicker to use. Nikon just will not listen to customers, because their button placement compared to Sony is not very logical or ergonomic. I quite like the plastic eye cup on the A37 because I wear glasses and the rubber cups always 'smear' the lens on my glasses.

Sony are slagged off at times by some review sites for their SLT system, most often is higher noise levels and less fine detail than other cameras of similar spec. Sony should drop the SLT idea completely and incorperate the NEX system into an SLR body like Panasonic, Samsung and Olympus have done.

Agree about the Oly prices, if you read the 4thirds forum, the OM-D E-M5 is selling well but only to Olympus fans, the general public are buying Sony, Nikon and Canon, because they are better deals with just as good or better performance. Jessops won't stock the OM-D E-M5 [except in their premium stores] because as my local store said it would sit on the shelf for ages while Canon, Nikon and Sony fly out the door.

If the OM-D E-M5 body was about £500/600 I could get interested, but not at a grand. This camera was aimed at the wrong market IMO.
I think my second choice to the Sony would be Pentax k30 [Sony sensor].

To date, my A37 is the best DSLR I have ever used and I am more than pleased with its IQ and performance. It just needs a higher resolution LCD. I might just look round for a used A57 body.

Pete

[agorabasta]

While the 16Mp sensor is really nothing magical, its noise performance is virtually temperature-independent.
If you compare the a700 vs 16Mp noise, the results are going be very different depending on the ambient/body temperature. At about 10-15C the a700 is same or better than an average 16Mp body, at about 30C the 16Mp simply trounces the a700. And the earlier 14Mp sensors were just as temp-dependent as the 12Mp in a700.

My understanding is that the 16Mp SLT/Nex/SLR bodies' raw noise performance also differs rather widely; here's how I'd put them from the worst to the best -
NexC3-NexF3-a35-a37/57-a55-a580-Nex5N/6

[bfitzgerald]

I might pick up an A700 next year for a play around or possibly look at an A580. I'll have a better idea of sensor performance then, I would expect the A580 to be the best in terms of low light performance. Though so far I am quite happy with the A57 at high ISO (compared to the D7000 that is) Though you have to factor in the in body AS here as I acquire my lenses again, such as the 90mm macro..this was a non stabilised lens on Nikon..but now it is stabilised on A Mount. Obviously for me and the type of shooting I do that is an advantage for me which will exceeded the D7000 purely because I can hand hold it with confidence at slower shutter speeds.

Never liked the entry Nikon's they just did nothing for me, too small and some issues. like no HSS (major problem for me for fill flash)

The OM-D is appealing to some, I do know of a few DSLR users who have moved to that (reality is a DSLR type camera was not really suited to their need to start with) Having tried one nice build and all I did not like the handling, and I would def not pay £1000 for one no way grossly overpriced IMO. I doubt micro 4/3 will put a big dent in the DSLR business of other makers, it will appeal to some users as I've said for the ILC type cameras all along. But already there is limited growth for both systems and types of camera.

Sony will no doubt get rid of the mirror at some point, but they will have to figure a way of tracking focus properly off the sensor. I've also said before I think this market is unique and you can't just come along and buy your way into it in a few years. Sony need to give people a reason to use "Sony" rather than Canikon. And I'm not sure they have grasped that yet.

A few things stick out to my mind
- Lens range does need to be expanded and quite a bit (Sony have discontinued some of the Minolta lines but have not replaced them) They need a 70-200mm f4 like yesterday, as well as a range of primes that are not cheapo, but not horribly expensive either (85mm f1.8 is sorely missing here too)
- Higher up you go the less appealing Sony are IMO. A57 isn't a bad price and broadly competitive with rivals at this price point. A77 is IMO too pricey and Canikon continue to sell a ton of D7000's and 60d's etc etc.
- FF Sony will make no serious headway until they bring an affordable FF to the market and beat Nikon's D600 offering and at a better price. The A99 nice and all just is beyond the reach of most users. Nikon WILL sell a ton of them QC issues or not..they will gain a lot of traction in the FF market and prices will continue to fall on that model.
- Video..Sony have to grasp that some users like video but many are mostly stills shooters so you can't make too many compromises for stills shooters or they will wander off! This is a back seat type priority IMO and Sony have to understand that esp at the higher end models stills is first video is very much a side show for most users.

Sony will have to respond and in a way which makes their offerings "yes please" EVF or not. I'd prefer a choice of OVF models too, and I think that the A99 is going to struggle good sensor or not for this type of user. Similarly I do not expect Canikon to move away from penta prism's for their higher spec APS-C bodies. Looking at the current line up I don't expect them to move to EVF's for their entry range either, least not for years.

I have not used the A37 it gets quite mixed user reviews from what I have seen..some complaints about the rear LCD, the body is pretty small (A57 is about the same size as the 5d thus I'm ok with it handling wise) I'm not sure it's as strong as it could be at that price point. Canon and Nikon heavily discount their lowest models (the older ones too) and dominate here. Sony have not really been a serious challenger at super budget levels since the A200 days (which at the time was a very decent offering v rivals) Sadly they abandoned that take and pursued a newbie range of models that I still see retailers trying to get rid of!

Sometimes Sony need to take stock of what is working, and what is not working..and change accordingly.

[classiccameras]

viceroy

Thanks for that info, very interesting to know. I'm a big Jpeg user especially as I was an Olympus 4thirds user for years and they probably had the best Jpegs in the business, very little if any PP was required with the Oly.

The Jpegs on my A37 look pretty good to me but DPReviews didn't like the A57 Jpegs.
I do question their findings at times, they tend to make mountains out of Mole hills.
I read some where that at the entry/consumer end of the Sony camera range, Jpegs have been enhanced for the point and shoot market.
How do you rate the Jpeg performances of the Sony camera range, in particular the SLT's and NEX.

Pete

[bfitzgerald]

Depends how you like your jpegs.
I personally prefer more details (and accept more noise/grain) Sony are heavy handed on NR so I would avoid the jpegs myself. They try to smash away all traces of noise in the jpegs even at low ISO, and IMO detail suffers. Even at the low setting.

They look like a compact camera to my eyes, once you compare the raw to the jpegs the difference is very obvious. I'd suggest shooting raw and if you need jpegs for non essential events etc I would convert them to jpeg and dump the raw files. Or use the Adobe DNG converter and lossy compression to save file space.

To me it's pretty easy on this one..people have their own preferences for jpegs. So you have a jpeg NR setting of high, medium, low, off. Ship the camera on medium or standard, allow users to drop down the NR on the jpegs to low/off with more details and the grain etc. I'm ok with that as they print better.

Compared to the D7000 jpegs set to NR off, the A57 jpegs suck..that's my take. Can't comment on the NEX and other SLT models as I've limited use of those. But it's been an issue for Sony for a while now. On the other hand the D7000's AF sucks compared to the A57 so I'm willing to live with the iffy jpegs based on that alone.

[bfitzgerald]

One addition..
I have noted the electronic level is not right (for vertical shots)
It's off by some margin (if you hold it with the shutter release downward, ie arms tucked in method)