I just had to get an A55

[bakubo]

Henry, have you tried that EVF against your eye for a long enough period?

To me the eyepiece cushion feels too small and far too hard. They surely could make it larger/softer if the EVF didn't stick out that much.

I used the Minolta D7i for a couple of years and I thought the eyepiece was okay. I have played with an A33 and thought it was okay too. Maybe if I used it more then softer rubber would be nice, but I didn't notice any problem with it in the short time I had one in my hands. I did like that it sticks out from the back though since it made it easier for me to use with my left eye. All SLRs are not so great for people who use their left eye and the A550/A580 are the worst because the rear LCD sticks out and makes the eyepiece even harder to get to and see than a normal SLR. Weird how with the DSLRs Sony makes them harder to use than a normal DSLR, but with the DSLT they make it easier. Maybe the suggestion that Sony wants their DSLR line to fail is true.

[agorabasta]

I think Sony wants all DSLRs to fail altogether with their respective manufacturers
This way they can make it to being 'the only one'.

But seriously, given the current maturity of the tech used, sensors quality, etc., almost every serious electronic manu' could build its own line of cams. That's a clear commoditization of larger-sensor cams - means profit-cutting to around zero fluctuations.
So if Sony are serious in that business, they need to make something different yet much better than the traditional designs.

So we shall see...

[bakubo]

But seriously, given the current maturity of the tech used, sensors quality, etc., almost every serious electronic manu' could build its own line of cams. That's a clear commoditization of larger-sensor cams - means profit-cutting to around zero fluctuations.
So if Sony are serious in that business, they need to make something different yet much better than the traditional designs.

I have no idea what Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Crocs, Nestles, etc. will do in the future, but I think that the current camera companies could easily come up with a A55 type of camera or some type of other non-OVF large sensor camera with their current tech. I don't know if they will for business reasons, but they could and my guess is that if they did they would be able to do it better than Sony. This is just my opinion and I know many will disagree with me here, but I have found that Sony has a really tough time getting the basics right. Maybe it is because they worry so much about smile photos, sweep panorama, and trying to find some other new doodad that will make them stand out. I don't mind the doodads, but get the basics right too. Anyway, I know lots of people here disagree. It is just my opinion.

[David Kilpatrick]

Barry, I wouldn't quote the Canon 600D as an example for Sony. It's a seriously crippled camera which is able to shoot just 6 raw frames at 3.7fps - deliberately crippled, to prevent it cannibalising Canon's own market. Compare that to Pentax and Sony 16 megapixel models which can reel off 17 or 16 raw (plus JPEG!) frames at 7fps - something which should easily be within reach of Canon at the same price point. The 600D is about the most gimmick-ridden model imaginable; personally, I would rather have sweep panorama, 3D capture, HDR and multishot NR/high ISO modes, and even the things I never use like face recognition and smile shutter... than a fisheye effect you can apply in camera, a Toy Camera lens effect, Miniature Effect, etc.

If you accuse Sony of adding consumer gimmicks, bear in mind these gimmicks are aimed at improving straight picture capture success rate. Canon's are all aimed, as far as I can tell, at faking up cheesy 'creative' effects.

What I find remarkable about this whole debate is that there has never been ANY DSLR quite as versatile as the Alpha 580 but people can still gripe on and on suggesting that Sony has somehow got things terminally wrong; all the evidence is that Canon's extreme conservatism, driven mainly by the need to protect sales of higher end models, will only contribute to a further decline in market share.

David

[bfitzgerald]

I quoted the 600d in reference to the swivel back lcd as in it's fitted more flush (not completely) to the body than Sony's offerings. It's open to debate pros and cons which method of lcd swivel you prefer. I'm not defending their choices whilst I'm not fps based clearly 3.7fps more would be expected and a bigger buffer, the new EOS 1100d even worse with just 2fps raw 3fps jpeg. As per usual Canon style everyone will buy a 60d if they want a Canon because the launch price is always nuts for a few months and the 60d is only a fraction more (better VF buffer controls etc etc)

I've actually no problems with "gimmicks" but you have to nail the basic stuff. I've no problems with sweep panorama, 3D capture, HDR and multishot NR/high ISO mode great shove it in there. I've junk on the Pentax I really don't care for "toy camera" and some other tedious filters (there are a few decent ones cross processing and b&w filters etc)

Thing is and I think you seem to miss this every time what's the point on having these "make life easier" bits if you can't sort out some incredibly obvious things like (yes here we go again) P shift, AEL spot toggle, DMF, user set auto ISO, ISO on display in the VF (how long is this going to take to figure out down at the Alpha tech lab?) It's even worse that the part time on demand ISO display got the chop) real control over jpeg NR, proper customisation, crippled live view no AF with screw drive lenses, no release priority options, no ambient ambient/flash options. Yes circular yes utterly tedious repetition but ultimately valid points which you seem overly keen to ignore every single time. And guess what a lot of those actually do have a make life much easier bearing for some users. I use quite a few of those but it's "sooooo difficult" for them to just keep stuff that was there before.

Sony seem to like giving folks some nice treats but ultimately at the expense of some of the older well liked (useful) bits. So in fact yes all makers cripple their products it seems Sony does as well but in different ways.

[Birma]

Thing is and I think you seem to miss this every time what's the point on having these "make life easier" bits if you can't sort out some incredibly obvious things like (yes here we go again) P shift, AEL spot toggle, DMF, user set auto ISO, ISO on display in the VF (how long is this going to take to figure out down at the Alpha tech lab?).

Surely the "make life easier bits" and the "incredibly obvious things" are both lists of features. Some are important to some and not to others. One person might find ISO on display in the VF more important than sweep panorama. Another might rather have the sweep panorama feature. It is a personal preference based on how we each like to use a camera.

[David Kilpatrick]

I don't know Barry. I simply don't use any of the things you think essential. Mostly, I shoot using aperture prioity and matrix metering and raw, and that is the end of the story. I have no need to see ISO in the finder any more than I need the current price of a barrel of oil. I do not need AEL or to toggle anything as I just press the shutter halfway if I want to hold exposure, same way I did back in 1975. I can't work out why the specific things you always go on about wanting are precisely the only things you can find missing in a camera. All cameras are different. Give me any one of them, and I can produce professional quality images.

As it happens I don't actually use the very fast shooting frame rates, almost never - a Canon would do fine for me (so would a Hasselblad or Phase One shooting one shot every two seconds).


But I can't find any camera on the market to match either the A55 or the A580 at the same price in overall mix of functions. I actually find them complementary, so worth owning both. A700 will, I think, be sold - we are just not using it.

David

[Greg Beetham]

I think Sony thinks that AEL spot toggle, P-Shift, ISO display in VF, DMF etc. are things that fussy old still shooters would want and of not much use to new age video in a still camera shooters. The new features sweep pan, and HDR sound good but I heard in practise the camera doesn't do as good a job as the shooter did before without them just using the +/- bracketing that was already there or using [M] Mode exposure control; and photshop can do a better pan than the camera using the shooters choice of overlaps.
Anyone figured out yet how you print a video?
Greg

ps. I caught your post David, the thing about shutter half press is it normally locks both exposure and focus, the AEL button allows you to seperate them, and sometimes you do need to do that, also there is the flash function built into the AEL button that can be very useful if the subjet is backlit; and that's something I don't know if is still available on the the A580, no one seems to know.

[bfitzgerald]

And I can take nice shots on beaten up 35mm compacts with broken battery covers that on it's own proves very little. Having taken shots (and some important ones) at an inappropriately high ISO level (on the 5d yes user error) I suddenly acquired a taste for seeing the ISO in the VF and being able to set the Auto ISO limits it was incredibly annoying shooting low light with the 5d and having to manually change ISO between shots not to mention it helped ruin my concentration.

I've even highlighted stuff I don't care much about bracketing is one all that effort for jpeg HDR and yet stuck at 0.7 EV +/- so what gives costly r&d to extend that?

These specific things can make quite a difference esp if you do low light shooting such as I do. AEL spot toggle incredibly useful feature instant spot metering on demand and not the same as AF and lock exposure in "honeycomb" (matrix is a Nikon term) I don't understand why Sony would go out of their way to remove some useful bits as listed above (yes a deliberate choice) my only conclusion is they wanted to make things simpler..


I buy p&s for simple not DSLR I rest my case. As said Sony really don't understand your DSLR user is a million miles away from the cybershot one.

[bakubo]

I respect Barry's, Greg's, David's, and everyone else's opinion. Mine doesn't line up with anyone else's, I think, though. I am not really negative about all the new stuff that Sony is doing (DSLT, NEX) at the macro level, but from what I have seen it is at the micro level that Sony often screws things up. In other words, the ideas are often very interesting, but the implementation often is not first rate. The A55 flash delay thing and the A55 dim display when using external flash are a couple of examples where Sony puts a lot of effort into getting new ideas implemented, but ignores getting basic stuff working right. The impression I get is that Sony doesn't have enough people with influence that actually do photography so things just slip through the cracks. The program shift thing is another and I seem to recall quite a few others over the last few years, but I don't keep track of all of them so don't remember them all. Oh yeah, the A900 "crippled A-mode" thing (yeah, I know some people hate Walt's appellation ). Seems like I remember seeing some NEX things too. Of course, no camera is flawless, but with Sony it is so often basic, rather simple things that they screw up and that leave you scratching your head wondering how they could have let the flaw slip through.

I like some of the cool things Sony is doing so I still like to follow what is happening, but I have been conditioned to expect that after a new model gets in people's hands there are going to be some brain dead oversights and bugs. With any camera from any company it is often worthwhile to wait a bit after it is released to find out if there are problems from current owners, but with Sony it is essential.

[Greg Beetham]

Actually H I do agree with your point of view. For me it started long ago when Sony screwed up a perfectly good macro flash system for no other reason than to flog some non macro photographic centric LED light of their own...that should have set the alarm bells ringing then, but hope and wishful thinking set in I guess.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

We don't know why Sony abandoned the ringflash system. It was never made by Minolta to start with - none of the flash units sold by the major camera makers are actually their own factory products - and in common with discontinued lenses and nickel plated sensor strips, there may have been regulations or component issues which Sony has never bothered to make public.

The only reply I can make to Barry is that the A580 (and the A55) simply remove most of the need for any of the functions which are missed. For example, the metering if you really want low-light performance is much better done using the sensor, in A580 Focus Check LV mode. This is 128 times more sensitive than the spot meter of the camera's honeycomb (which was also called a honeycomb matrix by Minolta!), or the spot meter of the 5D. It can meter down to EV -2 and is dissociated from the focus point which can be freely moved across the frame - it is a different way of working, but once you understand HOW it works, just as fast and far more accurate for both focus and metering.

Also, there is absolutely no need on the A55/580 or the NEX-5 for any ISO indication when using Auto ISO, as there is absolutely no risk of an unusable or poor result. 1600 looks as good as 200 on a 5D, and that's at full 16 megapixel compared to 6 megapixel. The days of being concerned whether the camera has set 200, 400, 800 or 1600 or anything between are past and gone. I can shoot on Auto ISO and know for sure that every picture I take will be a) already at the lowest ISO the system calculates is going to work with the focal length in use, without taking SSS into account b) fully professionally usable for A2 prints anyway no matter what ISO is set.

David

[bfitzgerald]

You're still left with Auto ISO limited to ISO 1600 as these sensors are now so good I'd say you should let the user decide how high to set the limit. Meaning above ISO 1600 you'll have to adjust the ISO which wouldn't be a problem if it actually displayed the ISO when you pressed it! Sony went to the trouble to put the button in a great place near to the shutter release yet failed to even offer this most basic function that even older cheaper bodies had press button VF displays ISO, change it with eye to viewfinder. Somebody isn't thinking properly.

No excuses for such a simple request some might not do much low light shooting others do and know the value of both user selectable Auto ISO and having the ISO in the VF full time or at the very least the ability to do it 5d/A200 style..

Yes lots of nice stuff great sensor so why skimp on some silly little bits that could cost nothing and take very little time to address. All these niggles added up = no thanks around here. Call me fussy I expect a 2010/2011 DSLR to match and exceed a 2005 one in every respect..even the VF is slightly worse!

[Greg Beetham]

I still find that hard too believe David; if the Minolta flashes were made by some other company how come there weren't any lookalike clones that actually matched the OEM performance and compatibility, surely there would have been some leakage of vital specs one would think, if that scenario was in place. Talking spefically about just one unit for a moment the Minolta ring flash head for example is probably one of the best designs around, so why did no other flash manufacturer copy it? why didn't the non OEM manufacturer offer a very similar unit of their own under some other brand name?
How would that system work? the manufacturers would have to release sensitive secret information to third parties, it just doesn't make any commercial sense to me I'm afraid.
I'd still like to know where that information came from, that camera companies don't make their own flash systems, and some substantiation of some magnitude would be required for me to believe it in total.
Greg

[jcoffin]

I still find that hard too believe David; if the Minolta flashes were made by some other company how come there weren't any lookalike clones that actually matched the OEM performance and compatibility, surely there would have been some leakage of vital specs one would think, if that scenario was in place.
[ ... ]
Greg

There are a couple of things that prevent this. First of all, if you have something original, you can patent it so nobody else can use that, at least without paying you for the privilege.

Second, Japanese companies are largely formed into alliances (keiretsu) that would almost certainly be illegal in most other countries. Though this system was damaged by the Japanese recession in the 1990s, it's still in place. To a large extent an entire keiretsu acts a lot like one big company, so there's very little difference in safety between doing the work in-house and contracting it out to another company in the same keiretsu.

Even outside of that, OEM work is frequently done, and protecting trade secrets (and such) is quite routine. AMD no longer fabricates any of their own CPUs at all. I don't know at the moment, but at least at one time, most graphics chips from both ATI and nVidia were built by the very same contractor (and while they may have different contractors at the moment, neither one manufactures any of their own parts). If a contractor leaked information about the designs they built, they'd lose their customers very quickly. Even the person receiving the information would probably never really trust that contractor again...

I'm not at all convinced that the lack of "leakage" means much of anything.