LL compares A900 and 5DII

[bakubo]

In case anyone is interested in a new article:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/revie ... mkii.shtml

[PhotoTraveler]

Yeah, saw that. Pretty good overall. I see at DPR the Canon folks are all in an uproar about it though. I think it just follows the simple basic conclusion.

Once any connection to a lens system is removed, and people are just comparing. Unless you have a real need/want for LV or video, the A900 is the winner. But both are nice cameras.

Now just imagine if the A900 had LV and video.

[KevinBarrett]

That was a very informative article, though I don't see why the Canon people should be upset. It shouldn't break their hearts if someone else goes out and buys a camera for themselves based on a reasonable unbiased article that didn't pronounce an "Absolute Winner." Strong cases were made for both cameras.

In criticism, I don't think he gave enough atttention to the fact that the Canon shoots video (but how much more can you say without it being sensationalized?), but neither did he give enough attention to the fact that the Sony's viewfinder will spoil you rotten.

[PhotoTraveler]

Dunno, I think video is something easy to skip over on a still camera. Afterall, you buy it because of it's still camera ability. If video is what you need, you buy a video camera. So, I look at skipping video stuff as the way to go.

[Dr. Harout]

A very nice article. And much objective.

[bakubo]

Reichmann seems to be very pleased with his A900 system. Gives Sony a much higher profile. Here is someone else coming from Canon that is very impressed with his A900:

http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read. ... e=30565899

[j_p_p]

Yeah...he really likes the a900. Seems to like it more than the Canon

Curiously he mentions also the Underexpose tendency that i noticed/ really disliked about the a900 (it thinks it works better in central /spot modes) ... but he uses +1EV always ???

Hum... When Sony (hope they do it fast...) releases a new firmaware to fix the Underexpose / Noise, i'd definetly (re)buy one ... that is if in the meanwhile they don't release a new model, that is...for example in PMA.

[bfitzgerald]

Does the A900 really constantly underexpose by a stop? Surely one for the firmware update...

[Greg Beetham]

Maybe the A900 is just biased towards preserving highlights, it might do an exposure range evaluation of a situation and expose to try and save most of the brightest object in the exposure, figuring that things can be lifted/adjusted in PP.
Greg

[j_p_p]

Maybe the A900 is just biased towards preserving highlights, it might do an exposure range evaluation of a situation and expose to try and save most of the brightest object in the exposure, figuring that things can be lifted/adjusted in PP.
Greg

But doing that increases the noise ...underexposed images are noisier

Ideally it shouldn't underexpose / overexpose by default , it should give the user the option to do either of those according to his will / needs for a particular shot

[bfitzgerald]

Just been reading the usual forums, and it seems some A900 users are saying the exposure is fine..no real problems, and def not a stop underexposure consistently. Obviously I have not even touched an A900, so cannot comment. Just curious if this is an issue that is common, or not..

[j_p_p]

From my personal experience when i had the a900 for 3 days, i'd say it tends to underexpose about 1 EV...but NOT always, wich is frustating because you can't even dial constantly +1EV to compesate for this ... this in Matrix Metering mode...just like it says in a couple of reviews like in LL, Camera Labs, Chasseur d'Images . I Used the CZ 24-70 2.8 and the 70-300 G, but only had it for 3 days or so, so can't say that my tests were enough to draw any conclusions.
Can't say i tried really much the spot/center metering modes.

[01af]

Try the integral metering mode; that should yield better and more consistent results than matrix metering.

-- Olaf

[David Kilpatrick]

Compared to the Canon 5D MkII, it's a stop under for midtones. What is interesting is that the A900 shadows are actually lighter when its midtones and highlights are darker, relative to the 5D MkII; and its shadows are much lighter than the D3X when midtones are similar. I would describe the difference as a tone curve shift, not an exposure error. The A900 has a very flat, low contrast tone curve compared to the other two and when you combine that with any degree of underexposure the result looks dark.

David

[bfitzgerald]

These are shots of no particular interest photographic wise, but demonstrate something similar with the A200.
All in raw, as shot on left..adjusted on right. Honeycomb metering mode..

+1.3 stops on the right



+1.5 stops on the right again




In many cases an adjustment on the lights slider in LR will do the job..say +40-50 odd. You tend to get better results doing this than the normal exp comp adjustment
So the light tones are flat..this is most noticeable when a subject has bright/light tones in the images. And is very different in behaviour to the 5d.
It's very hard to compare metering between the two, as I have no idea how close the ISO value in camera is to the actual ISO level.
These would be more obvious examples..