The bad news is that anyone using the LR3.2 RC as a temporary free solution for getting full profile correction without investing in Photoshop CS5 will lose their freebie. But Lightroom is eminently affordable, and it can function as a raw conversion front-end for any earlier Photoshop or Elements version. On its own, it is a mere 10MB of program data fatter than Adobe Camera Raw as a plug-in and runs with great efficiency on modestly specified laptops (etc). It’s a lean, keenly priced solution which offers many further benefits as a DAM (Digital Asset Management) library such as keywording, copyright control, metadata editing, version stacking and multiple catalogues.

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/new.jsp

I am informed that support is included for the 16mm lens on NEX (profile) but I can’t tell whether it is the profile I supplied to Adobe Labs, or a new one, because my profile has remained unchanged on my system – same names, same modification date. And there’s no NEX-3 version which might be expected if they had created new profiles. So it looks as if it could be worth sending profiles into Adobe after creating them.

It’s fantastic news that Adobe has released ACR for the new Alpha 55 16 megapixel sensor before the cameras even hits the street – mine is on order, waiting! Not so great for Nikon users; no D3100 raw conversion in this release. But Canon users get the 60D (despite Adobe missing it out from their front page list). Adobe did this Sony friendly pre-release once before, for the Alpha 100, getting the conversion into place before the camera went on sale.

The bad news is that the Alpha 580 and 560 models are not in the list alongside the fixed mirror pellucid, transflective (anything but Translucent, please…) cameras.

The instruction manual for the Alpha 33 and 55:

http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-documents.pl?mdl=SLT-A33&region_id=1

is already on-line and shows a March 2010 publication date, which means that Sony has had these new cameras in existence since the beginning of the year, certainly well before PMA when mockups were shown. It’s likely that Adobe’s Thomas Knoll has been using one from the first bug-free pre-production model onwards!

Now all we need is the revised lens series with SAM or SSM motors fitted into the 16-80mm CZ, 16-105mm Sony, 18-200mm and 18-250mm Sony; the 11-18mm wideangle replacement, the 75-300mm SAL replacement, and a few other goodies. Hopefully all Zeiss glass gets SSM where possible. That 16-80mm CZ is four years old now as a design. A tweak to the maximum aperture, or the zoom range, would revive interest.

- David Kilpatrick

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Sony World Photography Awards 2011

• 2011 competition open for entries
• London to host Sony World Photography Awards ceremony
• World Photography Festival expands to Mexico, San Francisco, Shanghai and London
• Student Focus programme partners with Young Tate Online

• World Photography Organisation website re-launched – www.worldphoto.org
On the day that the Sony World Photography Awards opens for entries, the World Photography Organisation announces a number of exciting new changes for 2011.

Building upon the success of the annual World Photography Festival in Cannes, the festival will expand to four major cities across the globe throughout 2010 and 2011.  It will visit San Francisco, Mexico, Shanghai and London, bringing the World Photography Organisation’s passion for imagery to thousands more people each year.  The tour will finish in London where the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony will be hosted for the first time.

The World Photography Festival is an opportunity for photographers from around the world to meet and discuss the latest trends, challenges and innovations in photography today.  Each festival will showcase the Sony World Photography Awards winners and will feature practical workshops, exhibitions, talks, portfolio reviews and a photography symposium presented by leading international industry figures.

The World Photography Organisation also announces a new competition and additional categories for the 2011 Sony World Photography Awards.

The Open competition, which replaces the amateur competition, has been created for the growing number of people with a love of photography.  It has nine categories including Nature & Wildlife, Travel and After Dark, and is judged on a single image.

Professional and ‘serious enthusiast’ photographers are invited to join the Professional competition and will be judged on a body of work.   The 14 professional categories are arranged into three genres – Commercial, Fine Art and Photojournalism & Documentary – and new categories include Lifestyle, Still Life, and People.

Winners of the Professional and Open categories will each receive their trophies at the Sony World Photography Awards ceremony in London on 27 April 2011.  The winner of the L’Iris d’Or/Sony World Photographer of the Year will also be revealed and will be presented with $25,000 (USD) plus Sony’s Alpha digital SLR camera equipment.  The overall Open competition winner will receive $5,000 plus Sony’s Alpha digital SLR camera equipment.

The World Photography Organisation strives to support and connect the next generation of photographers via Student Focus, its global education programme and competition.  In an exclusive partnership with Young Tate Online, the 2011 Student Focus programme will tie in with Tate Modern’s new photography exhibition in London, Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera.  Inspired by this exhibition, ‘Surveillance’ will be the theme of the 2011 Student Focus competition.

For the first time, Student Focus is open to all universities from across the world, that hold a photography programme.  Ten shortlisted students and their tutors will be flown to London in April 2011 to conduct their final assignment as part of the World Photography Festival.  45,000 Euros worth of Alpha digital SLR camera equipment has been donated by Sony and the overall Student Focus winner will be announced at the Sony World Photography Awards Ceremony on 27 April alongside the Professional and Open category winners.

To coincide with the opening of the 2011 competition, the World Photography Organisation has re-launched its website – www.worldphoto.org.  The website is a hub for the photographic community and, in addition to showcasing the entries to the Sony World Photography Awards, it will provide the latest news from the world of imaging.  The website will also include exclusive interviews and podcasts with the World Photography Academy, a members section, a dedicated student section, forums, videos and blogs.

The 2011 competition closes for entries on 5 January 2011.

Full details about the World Photography Organisation and the Sony World Photography Awards can be found at www.worldphoto.org

Professional competition categories
For professionals and serious ‘amateurs/enthusiasts’.  Submissions must be based on a body of work and contain a minimum of three images and maximum of 10.  Both published and unpublished work can be considered

Commercial – photography that has primarily been commissioned for commercial intent, the purpose of which is to sell products or services

o        Travel
o        Lifestyle
o        Still Life
o        Fashion

Fine Art – photographs that are created in accordance with the creative vision of the photographer as an artist

o        Architecture
o        Portraiture
o        Landscape
o        Still Life
o        Conceptual

Photojournalism & Documentary – the creation of imagery to tell a story; from capturing current news and global issues, chronicling historical and worldwide events and popular culture

o        Current Affairs
o        Contemporary Issues
o        People
o        Arts & Culture
o        Sport

Open competition categories

Open to everyone and is judged on a single image.

Ø      After Dark
Ø      Architecture
Ø      Arts & Culture
Ø      Fashion
Ø      Landscape
Ø      Nature & Wildlife
Ø      People
Ø      Sport
Ø      Travel

Adobe encourages photographers to try out the newly added raw file support in this update and provide the product team with feedback on the Adobe User to User forum (http://forums.adobe.com).

In addition, photographers can also participate in the Lightroom 3 beta program and try out the new features in Lightroom 3 beta 2 for free. To learn more and download Lightroom 3 beta 2 visit: http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/.

What is more important for owners is that IDC has always copied, replicated or matched the behaviour of camera firmware. If Sony has acquired or written new deBayer algorithms, either future DSLRs will have much improved high ISO performance – or firmware upgrades are in the pipeline which could transform existing gear (except the poor old Alpha 100 – it was probably doing pretty well in reality anyway…).

Here are two samples quickly compared – old IDC 3 versus new IDC 3.2, on a 2500 ISO file from the Alpha 900. All settings were identical for the two files, and sharpening and NR were left at default values.

Before – v3.0

After – v3.2 both on Mac OSX Snow Leopard, and I can confirm a VERY much faster performance for 3.2, building a sharp preview of the A900 file rapidly and completely where 3.0 built in slowly and often only left the centre of each image previewed correctly.

We’ll know about the firmware soon, but it is significant that Sony having hinted at firmware upgrades for this Spring (documented from various trade shows, interviews etc on other websites) has first of all come out with an IDC upgrade.

Here is the full press release issued this morning:

α (Alpha) digital SLR users can now enjoy even more control over creating beautiful, low noise images with the latest release of Image Data Converter software.

Image Data Converter SR Version 3.2 now features new algorithms that significantly reduce image noise at high ISO settings when converting RAW data to JPEG files. Processing is most effective at ISO 800 and higher, delivering impressively natural results with minimised colour noise right up to ISO 12,800 (depends on DLSR model).

The new algorithm is effective when converting RAW file or cRAW files (depends on DSLR model) to JPEG files produced by all current and previous model digital SLR cameras by Sony (excluding DSLR-A100).

Image Data Convertor SR Version 3.2 is part of the Image Data Suite that also includes Image Data Lightbox SR Version 2.2. Supplied free of charge with all new digital SLR cameras by Sony, the enhanced bundle now also offers support for Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard).

Registered Alpha customers can download Image Data Convertor SR Version 3.2 free of charge from the Sony Europe support website in English version from 31st March 2010. Other languages will be available to download within the next 10 working days. To download the new update, please visit: http://support.sony-europe.com/dime/digistill/alpha/alpha.aspx?

Direct download links (unofficial): Mac – http://di.update.sony.net/SIDS/IDS32_Installer1004a.dmg

Windows – http://di.update.sony.net/SIDS/IDS32_Installer1004a.exe

These are English language. The main site will presumably be updated in the course of time.

New features in this release include tethered shooting support for select Nikon and Canon cameras, the ability to import and manage video files from DSLR cameras for a streamlined workflow and additional behind-the-scenes architecture enhancements for faster importing and loading of images. The addition of luminance noise reduction to the color noise reduction options already available in the beta helps photographers achieve overall exceptional image quality from high ISO images. The import experience and watermarking functionality have also been modified to reflect feedback received from the Lightroom community during the first beta period.

The input from the photography community has been extremely valuable and Adobe would like to thank everyone who has participated in the beta program. Adobe encourages photographers to test this new selection of features and provide the product team with feedback so they can produce the highest quality final product.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom
Adobe Lightroom is the essential digital photography workflow solution, helping serious amateur and professional photographers quickly import, manage, perfect and showcase all their images in one intuitive application.

Pricing and Availability
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 beta 2 is available as a free download to anyone on a Macintosh or Windows platform and is available in 12 languages. Visit http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/ to learn more and download the second beta. Feedback can be submitted on the Lightroom forums: http://forums.adobe.com/community/labs/lightroom3/.

Reach out to us on the Lightroom Facebook Page at www.facebook.com/lightroom or on Twitter www.twitter.com/lightroom.

The Alpha System celebrates its Silver Jubilee or 25th Anniversary this month – though left uncelebrated by the inheritors of the Minolta AF legacy, Sony. They have no reason to draw fresh attention to the age of the system, as in four years they have taken it the same sort of distance that Minolta took the world’s first AF system in the late 1980s.

It’s not only Alpha’s 25th birthday. This is also the 25th birthday of modern AF SLR systems – all of them!

This is a multi-page article. See the links at the bottom of the page to Continue Reading after each page.

For Photoclubalpha and the historic Minolta Club of Great Britain, the anniversary does matter. A good many of you out there have been members since the launch of the system, often using the earlier SR and X manual focus systems before that. We still have a 1985 Minolta 7000AF and it’s still working just as it did when new.

25 years before the first Minolta SLRs appeared – a folding Minolta Six of 1935

I don’t mind showing my age to make a comparison. I was 11 in 1963 when I took my first pictures with an SLR camera. My father had bought himself a Pentax S3 – and the camera it replaced was 25 years old, a pre-war Zeiss Ikon Kolibri collapsible 16-on-127 model.

When the Kolibri was made, 127 was the ‘vest pocket’ format of choice. 35mm was on the rise, but 35mm SLRs had not yet arrived. They were as much a thing of the future as digital SLRs were when the Minolta 7000AF was launched.

But within that 25 years, there was hardly a single camera system made with interchangeable lenses that did not become obsolete. Only the ‘frozen assets’ of the cold war kept some systems, like the Exakta bayonet and the Praktina, alive. New brands were launched, from the British Wrayflex and Periflex to the Italian Rectaflex and many German oddities. It was not unusual for an entire system to be come and gone within a few years.

Even in the following quarter-century, the high years of the Japanese 35mm SLR, the succession of lens mount changes was bewildering. Independent lens makers like Tamron and Sigma were forced to make systems using interchangeable mounts not just because the public wanted it. A dozen or more mounts were made for every lens and in the 42mm screw thread fit alone there were endless variants – Praktica LLC (Pentacon Electric), Olympus FTL, Pentax ES and more.

It was more or less a 25-year cycle – the SR system was announced in 1958, and really got underway by 1960. It was to be another quarter century before the AF system arrived. We are now a further 25 years on – can we expect a totally new camera system, once again, in 2010?

Minolta’s SR bayonet mount, introduced in 1958/9, actually remained basically unchanged all the way through to 2005 when the last manual focus model, the X-370S, was available. It survives even now as a mount popular in China where the Seagull range from Shanghai Optical includes Minolta fit models. That mount only ever had one major revision, to add a linkage for open aperture TTL metering. The introduction of programmed exposure and shutter priority was cleverly enabled by using the existing design of lens mechanism and improving its accuracy, while adding a simple reference lug to the ƒ-stop setting ring.

Nikon’s 1959 F-mount proved similarly easy to improve without any basic modification. Both these bayonet mounts celebrated half a century of production in 2008/9 – another landmark, which Nikon was able to celebrate but Minolta of course could not.

In brief, the A450 is an A200 update with an A550 14 megapixel CMOS sensor (the A500 being effectively an A300 update to 12 megapixel CMOS). None of the complaints levelled at the A500/550 or contemporary models are corrected; the same limits apply to EV bracketing, self-timer and mirror up (lacking) functions, control over the range of auto ISO, program shift, functions of controls and buttons, and so on. There may be some surprises present when examined, but the listed specification indicates this camera is exactly what it appears to be.

Camera sets – in every line the first has a fixed rear screen and no quick live view, the second has a quick live view and an articulated screen, the third has a higher pixel count sensor:

A200     A300     A350

A230     A330     A380

A450     A500     A550

The 450 breaks the pattern by using the 550 sensor not the 500 sensor, leaving possible room for a 12 megapixel A400. It’s unlikely we shall see a 14 megapixel A280, but that’s what the model number would be if it was made. In line with speculation, logical models A600, A650, A750 are possible introductions but the Ax30 and Ax80 designations could apply.

It is not an A230-330 style body, but an A5xx-style body, and uses the larger battery – hence the excellent shot count per charge. At the time of posting this information, no further images were available from Sony’s UK press media library.

The logic of this camera may be questioned, but a lot will depend on the viewfinder eyepoint. By choosing a relatively small and safe viewfinder magnification, and removing the articulated screen which forces your eye away from the eyepiece, Sony may come closer to the comfort factor of the Nikon D5000 which despite having an articulated screen allows a closer eyepoint and better visibility of the finder. Until buyers pick up this camera and try it, we can’t be sure. It may just hit the mark perfectly.

The press release follows.

The newest addition to the Sony α family of DSLR cameras teams flawless imaging with generous creative options and is ideal for consumers new to DSLR photography who want the best possible image quality.

Powerful yet easy to use, the DSLR-A450 is a perfect all-rounder when you’re ready to take your passion for great pictures to the next level. Ideal for active shooters, it’s at home in any shooting situation, from relaxed portraits to fast-moving sports action.

Inside the α450 is a high-resolution 14.2 (approx.) effective megapixel Exmor™ CMOS sensor. It’s teamed with the powerful BIONZ processor to deliver highly detailed, ultra-low noise images. Sensitivity extends right up to ISO 12800, allowing you to capture beautifully natural handheld images in low light without flash.

With a generous 95% field of view, the bright optical viewfinder makes framing and composition a pleasure. As an extra refinement, Manual Focus Check Live View previews clear, bright full-resolution images on the 6.7cm (2.7”) Clear Photo LCD screen. With selectable 7x/14x on-screen image enlargement it’s ideal for confirming pin-sharp focus with portraits, still life, macro and architectural scenes.

The powerful BIONZ image processor enables high-speed continuous shooting at up to 5 fps (maximum – approx. figure). In Speed Priority mode (with AF and AE set at start of burst) this increases to an amazing 7 fps (maximum – actual speed depends on shooting conditions and media card). More than enough to catch sports and fast-moving action with ease.

Creative options are enhanced with Auto HDR mode that accommodates bright highlights and dark shadow details in a single frame. Two successive frames shot handheld at different exposure values are merged automatically by the camera. The result is a detail-packed High Dynamic Range image – with no need for a PC image editor and specialist skills. In addition to fully automatic operation, the exposure difference between frames can be manually set up to 3EV, in 0.5EV increments.

Featured right across the DSLR line-up by Sony, SteadyShot INSIDE™ offers up to 4 steps of anti-shake correction with the full range of 30 α lenses and two teleconvertors, as well as compatible A-mount optics by Konica-Minolta.

The α450 also offers the most impressive shooting stamina of any DSLR camera by Sony to date. The high-capacity battery allows up to 1,050 shots between charges* – plenty for a busy weekend’s sightseeing.

Slots for Memory Stick PRO-HG Duo and SD/SDHC memory cards (sold separately) are offered to suit users’ personal shooting preferences.

Connect the α450 to any HD Ready TV for a breathtaking big-screen view of your photos. PhotoTV HD optimises still image reproduction on compatible BRAVIA™ models, while BRAVIA™ Sync allows control of slideshow and other camera playback functions using your TV remote.

Supplied software includes Image Data Converter SR; Image Data Lightbox SR; and PMB (Picture Motion Browser) for easy image management. The α450 is also compatible with the wide range of high-quality DSLR accessories by Sony, including flashes, carry cases, batteries and chargers, GPS and more.

The DSLR-A450 digital SLR camera by Sony is available from the beginning of February 2010.
Features: DSLR-Α450
Effective Megapixels – Approx. 14.2
Lens compatibility – Sony α lens, Minolta and Konica Minolta AF lens
Image sensor – APS-C size (23.4×15.6mm) CMOS sensor “Exmor” with RGB primary colour filters
Processor – BIONZ™ image processor
ISO Sensitivity Range – 200-12,800 ISO
Image Quality Modes – JPEG (fine, standard), raw, raw + JPEG
HDMI connector and Bravia Sync – HDMI  mini connector (Type C), BRAVIA Sync (Sync menu), PhotoTV HD
Image Size: 3:2 (pixels) – L size:  4592×3056 (14M); M size:  3344×2224 (7.4M); S size:  2288×1520 (3.5M)
Viewfinder Type – Fixed eye-level, pentamirror (porroprism)
LCD – 6.7cm (2.7”) type, TFT Clear Photo LCD (230,400 dots)
Manual Focus Check Live View – YES
SteadyShot INSIDE – YES
Anti-dust System – Coating on low pass filter, plus image-sensor vibration cleaning cycle
Focus Modes – AF/MF selectable. AF modes: Single-shot AF, Automatic AF, Continuous AF
Autofocus – TTL phase detection system; CCD line sensors
Focus Points – 9 points (all line, no cross)
Exposure Modes – Programmed AE (AUTO, AUTO – Flash Off, P), Aperture priority, Shutter priority, Manual, Scene selection
Exposure Metering Sensor – 40-segment honeycomb-pattern SPC
Exposure Metering Modes – Multi-segment, Centre-weighted, Spot
Scene Selection – Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, Sunset, Night portrait/Night view
Creative Style Settings – Standard, Vivid, Portrait, Landscape, Sunset, B/W
Shutter Speed – 1/4000-30sec, Bulb
Exposure Bracketing – 3 continuous exposures, in 0.3 or 0.7 EV steps
White Balance Settings – Auto / 6 presets / Colour Temperature/Colour Filter /  Custom WB
Continuous Advance Shooting – Up to 5 fps and 7 fps in speed priority mode.
Approx. no. of shots – Approx. 1050 shots
Built-in Flash – Auto pop-up – GN 12 at ISO 100, FOV coverage up to 18mm
Flash Modes – Flash-off, Auto, Fill-flash, Slow sync, Rear Sync., Wireless*, Hi-speed sync.*,
*With external flash HVL-F58AM, HVL-F56AM, HVL-F42AM, HVL-F36AM
Media – Memory Stick PRO Duo / PRO-HG Duo / SD memory card / SDHC memory card
Dimensions (W x H x D) – Approx. 137 x 104 x 81mm (W/H/D, excluding protrusions)
Weight – Approx. 520g

No price information has been released.

Even so, something was clearly happening during the period of sunnier weather used for my earlier A550 tests. I used Auto ISO initially, because I had not realised how readily the camera will select settings right up to 1600. Auto ISO has thrown up some surprises. Here’s something to consider:

Please note that although ‘process’ symbols are shown with these Adobe Bridge/ACR images, the defaults were restored and then each picture was set back to defaults. They are all shown relative to each other in density, the image preview built by ACR. There is no question of DRO or any other tonal setting interfering with the apparent exposure – DRO does not affect the .ARW file, ACR discards any DRO generated embedded preview in my setup prefs, and DRO was not being used anyway.

It has already been noted by other reviewers that the A550 has considerably more headroom without clipping, even compared to the A350 which was already a top-ranking camera for dynamic range. This is what I meant when I compared its default images to Canon with Highlight Tone Preservation switched on, or KM/Sony older models using the Hi200 setting. This can mean that the A550 is really ISO 100 at its lowest on-sensor gain setting, but the exposure system is programmed to underexpose by a stop and the post-processing (BIONZ) is set up to boost the gain.

Why would Sony do this? Perhaps they read the many posts referring to the Alpha 900 and 700 ISO settings. The on-sensor gain controls the main ISO steps, but a rather cleaner post-process gain adds the 1/3rd step intervals. Experienced Alpha 900 users set ISO 320 manually because the sensor is at its optimum at roughly ISO 160 (DxO tests bear this out). The standard ISO 200 setting can produce more noise than ISO 320 because two different digital stages are used to produce the gain.

In search of superior high ISOs, they may have realised that the early gain stage (on the chip assembly) is inferior to the later BIONZ processor, and you can indeed get better high ISO by underexposing a lower ISO setting, then processing it with clipped blacks. That’s a Nikon technique, which has served them well. It’s also a technique used by experienced DSLR owners.

Now consider the four shots above. They are all taken at ‘ISO 200′ but the camera was set to auto ISO. Other shots in the same set show ISO 250, 500 etc confirming the auto ISO was in operation. They are taken in the afternoon in Scotland, so it is fairly near to the end of the day for sunshine by 14:49hrs, around an hour away. But the two locations at 50 minutes apart, 14:00hrs and 14:49hrs, should not have the extreme variation in exposure shown here.

Just what is going on for an exposure of 1/400th at f/11 to look correct at ISO 200, with the dark sandstone buildings of Jedburgh at the end of October? 1/400th at f/11 is the ISO 200 exposure for full sunshine in midsummer (aka f/16 light). You hardly ever find f/16 light in Britain unless you are on the beach, surrounded by pale concrete, in a field of golden corn or out on a lake.

50 minutes later, exposures range from 1/60th at f/11 to 1/100th at f/11 – that is, more or less, from two to three stops more. In fact these exposures are in line with what I would expect, it’s the 1/400th at f/11 which is the odd one out. I have no evidence to suggest that my CZ 16-80mm has an aperture which fails to stop down consistently.

Now look at some sky samples:

Here is an in-camera JPEG version which shows less noise – the in-camera process is equal to using much stronger NR in raw conversion than I would normally choose for ISO 200:

Now for the same processed from raw – notice that despite the noise, it is slightly more detailed or sharper:

This is a reprocessed second version of the original noisy sky instance. Here, I have used Adobe Camera Raw 5.6r1 defaults, which include some basic sharpening and also 25 on the chroma NR scale. No exposure adjustment is made at all. This view, by the way, looks more or less due north and it is not a case of a brighter sky underexposed; also, the stone and the chimney pots look normally exposed.

This is the 1/100th at f/11 shot, processed exactly the same way. It’s interesting in that I expected to see much lower noise, but in fact it’s much the same. The sky density is similar as well. The view is slightly more towards the east. While my Alpha 380, 200, 100 and even 700 shots are capable of showing blue sky noise at ISO 100 and as much as this as 200 it’s not as obtrusive.

Finally, this is the 1/60th exposure – perhaps more what would be expected at ISO 100 in this light with f/11. Here, I have set -1 EV exposure reduction in Adobe Camera Raw to get much the same final sky tone density. The noise is lower.

Checking other images I’ve taken since, I am now suspicious about the Auto ISO function in the Alpha 550, and whether it reports the gain applied to each shot accurately. It’s hard to reconcile the same ISO 200 setting shown in EXIF with the range of exposures encountered, and the actual exposure of the raw file. Yet ISO 250 was also selected for this shot taken a few minutes before the chimney shot:

This is also included in the main report (click image to view full size on pBase). If I darken the sky as much as the other examples, I get noise similar to the 1/60th ISO 200 clip, or better.

Since making these tests, I’ve started using the Alpha 550 only on fixed ISO settings, with some misgivings as intermediate gain like ISO 250 or 320 might possibly be yielding better results. I just feel something is happening in the BIONZ stage, perhaps involving analysis of the Auto ISO images and compensation for deviations from the reported EXIF Auto ISO setting. This is just a hunch. Fixed settings seem to be equal to the worst case from Auto ISO. Here’s a textbook example, 1/125th at f/16 for a blue sky on November 3rd, facing due north, at 14:19hrs, ISO 200 fixed setting, ACR 5.6 defaults as above:

The answer seems to be to overexpose your manual ISO 200 shots by not simply one stop, but as much as two stops when shooting raw. At least if Adobe Camera Raw is used, recovery of normal tones (not burned out highlights) will fully restore the exposure from 1 or 2 stops over depending on the subject.

Here is an overexposed image, taken at 1/80th at f/10, ISO 200, in mid-day sunshine:

Below is what the sky looks like in a normally exposed image (1/250th at f/10), processed using Adobe Camera Raw defaults (including sharpening at 25/1/25/0 and NR at 0/25), looks like:

And here, finally, is what an adjusted ACR process from the overexposed image looks like with sharpening turned off, NR set to 25/50, exposure and brightness determined by the simple process of using Auto (which can be set as a default in ACR if you want to consistently make generous – over – exposures ‘to the right’):

This is much more how I expect to see a sky looking from the base ISO of a 2009 DSLR release, viewed at 100 per cent. From this stage, different types of sharpening can be applied to suit resized versions for different purposes.

Results with other raw converters, as more become available for the Alpha 550, may be finer in noise structure than ACR or may offer less scope for overexposing – ACR is well known for its ability to recover highlights. I do not intend to go much further into this with tests of converters, but I hope I have shown how the ‘true ISO’ of the A550 is difficult to pin down especially in Auto ISO mode, and how it is possible to benefit from the great high ISO performance of the camera (just use it!) and at the same time secure good low ISO results for travel and landscape shots where a clean blue sky is important.

It’s important to note that in-camera JPEGs will not necessarily show similar noise levels. If they do it’s not so easy to fix without using NR software. I prefer to shoot raw for many reasons.

So, why not be very happy with the Alpha 550 as a choice? Here are two pictures. You can view the full size Alpha image, and the Nikon D3S image resized to match 14 megapixels, by clicking on the smaller size here. Of course the Nikon image is better, though 1/250th at f/5.6 and ISO 400 is more of a step away from 1/250th at f/9 and ISO 200, and I’m not sure the light was SO different on the two occasions:

- DK

There are 11 pages in this review, please use the Next Page navigation at the end of each page to continue reading. A sponsor link appears before the end of each page – “Get camera lenses at Shopping.com’s affordable deals.” Our thanks to Shopping.com for spotting and sponsoring this review!

This review has been updated August 2010 – see the second to last page for new Adobe Camera Raw Process 2010 results, a massive improvement with Alpha 550 files.

The 500 was promised to me a week before writing this, but has not been sent by Sony. The Alpha 550 is mine; they have not been issued for reviews yet, and to get one, I had to buy one.
It’s both one of the best £600 purchases I’ve made and one of the worst. Find out why!

The literature and application CD included with the Alpha 550

The accessories included with the Alpha 550 – the neckstrap is slightly less sharp-edged than the very cheap version provided with the A200 to A380 models.

I have always valued the superb low ISO performance of the Alpha digital cameras – from Konica Minolta Dynax 7D onwards. The Alpha 100 remains unmatched for the crispness of its detail at ISO 100 when processed from raw, if you are lucky enough to get accurate focus.

The Alpha 350 had the same intensive test treatment that was planned for the 550. I left my Alpha 700 behind, and took only the 350 for a week shooting Gran Canaria. It didn’t disappoint; we knew the high ISO performance was a limitation, but shots at 400 and 800 were commercially usable. Those at 100-200 had a great colour quality and smooth, noise-free sky and neutral tones.

The 700 and 900 have both been a mixed experience. The base ISO 100 image in both cases lacks the finesse of either the Alpha 100/200/230 10 megapixel sensor, or the Alpha 350/380 14.2 megapixel CCD. However, both respond well to using settings or 160 or 320 (not 200 or 400) with Adobe Camera Raw/Lightroom processing.

The Alpha 550 has a 14.2 megapixel CMOS sensor so might be expected to behave a little more like the 700 and 900, with strong anti-aliasing and heavy noise reduction applied to the raw file (in effect) by processes built in to the sensor itself, and the BIONZ processor.

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