Rebuttal of lukewarm A550 review...

[alphaPDX]

Given the rather dramatic changes to Sony's 5-series interface (not to mention other '09 models) I'm to the point where I'd take another '08 model for my next camera body - wish it were an A700, but I can't afford it. If a deal came along for an A300 (in champagne, just for ) or an A350, I'd deplete my stock of lenses plus a little cash & put it in the closet while Sony decides if I'm worth keeping. The older models fit me too well for me to want to go elsewhere, but if I need to learn how not to power off while changing shutter speed why would I not keep options open?

It's been valuable reading the reviews of the 5-series, but only to the extent of learning what Sony is planning. Sure hope the next generation is more accommodating.

[Chris Malcolm]

With a damaged A350 and some important unrepeatable events approaching I reluctantly bought an A550 as a spare-cum-slight-upgrade to the A350. If I hadn't broken my A350 I would have waited for something like an A560 or an A750. I was originally reluctant to get the A350 because it lacked MLU, but it was a sufficiently attractive package that I was prepared to postpone fulfilling that item of the ideal wish list. I'm not rich enough to be able to buy everything I want so I have to make compromises.

I was disappointed to discover that low ISO image quality wasn't quite up to the best of the A350. Many talk about that as though it were some kind of oversight or annoying marketing strategy on Sony's part. More likely I think is simply that the CCD sensor is inherently better at low ISO's, and the CMOS at high ISOs.

I was surprised to discover just how useful the real improvements of the A550 were, however. The bigger brighter better hinged LCD is so much better it's a real qualitative jump in what can be done with it. The main image sensor live view focus check is truly excellent for manual focusing, and an excellent way of checking AF in those awkward situations where it often gets it wrong, such as with wide angle lenses in poor light, or lenses with aperture-related focus drift at their widest, such as the 50mm f1.4. And the high ISO performance, is like having an extra two stops wider aperture on all your lenses!

So in the best conditions it can't quite match the image quality of the A350. But living as I do under the dim Scottish sun, I find that a lot of my photography isn't about coaxing the ultimate quality from the best possible conditions, it's about managing to get something reasonable in far from ideal conditions. Conditions in which I'd have to push the A350's ISO into unpleasantly noisy realms, and then do my best in post processing to get an acceptable image from it. In poor lighting the A550 is so much easier to get good results from it's like switching to a sports can from a station wagon!

Some of the A550's virtues were completely unexpected. I'd got used to processing from RAW most of the time with the A350 simply because the results were nearly always better enough to be worth the extra bother. I was surprised to find that it was possible to adjust the A550's jpeg parameters to get ex-camera jpegs which most of the time I couldn't improve much on by processing from RAW. The in-camera dynamic range optimiser is excellent, and removes one of my most frequent reasons with the A350 for wanting to process from RAW. The two-shot HDR with auto-alignment doesn't do any better at first sight than the most extreme ranges of the DRO -- until you look at the shadow noise, which is very much improved in the HDR, because of the extra exposure they've got. An unexpected but useful benefit of the in-camera HDR is being able to improve dark noise a lot in night shots.

Being able to get most of my shots from a simply tweaked and cropped ex-camera jpeg rather than going trough RAW speeds up my post processing by a very worthwhile amount.

I read all the reviews I could before deciding to buy the A550. So I was aware of its shortcomings. They weren't any worse than I expected. What was unexpected was how very much better and how very useful I found many of what I had considered slight or irrelevant improvements. My apologies to Sony. You were right and I was wrong about the utility of those "gimmicks"!

I haven't mentioned the notorious lack of program shift because I simply can't understand what the fuss is about. Of course it was annoying to discover that something I used to do all the time in program mode no longer worked. But since I could do exactly the same thing just as easily in aperture or shutter mode all I had to do was learn a new habit. Didn't take long.

An A550 advantage I've not seen mentioned much is that once it has gone to sleep only the shutter button wakes it up. The economical sleep mode of the A350 was compromised by its eagerness to wake up whenever any of its buttons was brushed against. Not only that but once woken up another button brush or two might change its mode of operation, leading to annoying exasperation when you eventually wanted to wake it up for a photograph and found it in a weird mode or fixated on an unexpected focus point.

So once the A350 comes back it can take up it's new position as spare and specialist high resolution low ISO shooter. If I was forced to have only one camera it would unquestionably be the A550. I'd lose a few of my best highest quality low ISO A350 shots. But I'd gain far more in terms of the extra shots and better quality I'd much more easily get in the poorer lighting most of my shooting is done in.

[OneGuyKs]

If I was forced to have only one camera it would unquestionably be the A550. .

Note that on several forums vast majority who are most critical of A5xx models are people who don't own the camera. Most of them have no clue what they are talking about. People who do own/use A5xx like them.

[bfitzgerald]

People who have just bought a new camera rarely say anything bad or negative about it..!
BTW I never claimed extensive use of the camera, but I have tried one..so I can comment on some aspects.

[David Kilpatrick]

I would have to agree with Chris for general outdoor work - the A550 probably is the most versatile Alpha yet made, simply because of the high ISO performance and the way this improves DRO+. Sony could never have put effective DRO+ on the A350, the noise levels would have been destructive. I am also keeping both cameras for much the same reasons.

David

[alphaomega]

Chris Malcolm wrote

I was disappointed to discover that low ISO image quality wasn't quite up to the best of the A350. Many talk about that as though it were some kind of oversight or annoying marketing strategy on Sony's part. More likely I think is simply that the CCD sensor is inherently better at low ISO's, and the CMOS at high ISOs.

That just about says it all for me. I have a new A700 and purchased a near new A350 for £300 (replacing my old A350 passed to my wife). Although I also live in Scotland I prefer the low ISO quality of the A350 for Alamy work and use the A700 for higher ISO and fast shooting work.

I recognise that Chris is making a lot of valid points about the A550 and it has virtues. If Sony had kept the A500 "as is" and enhanced the A550 with MLU, DOF, intermediate ISO levels, P Shift, and an ISO range between 100 and 6400 with low ISO to equal the A350 I would have bought a copy even if the UK price was above £600 rather than below. Who needs a grainy ISO12,800 in a camera such as the A550? This would have partly closed the gap left by the discontinuation of the A700. The Sony idea that A700 users would migrate to the A850 has not happened. Sony have misread the market. The A550 is a partial failure because of the paucity of features and the closeness to the A500 leaving too large a gap to the A850. I have never understood the rationale for the A850 anyway being so close to the A900 in price and features.
Sony are trying to get P&S users to buy their A2/300 series and then A500 series. What next? FF? Never. They simply lack a 7D "killer" to replace the A700. That is the camera I would have bought. Instead I purchased a second A700 and A350. These cameras will do me a couple of years or more. Hopefully by then Sony would have changed course and delivered something worthwhile.

[bakubo]

I have never understood the rationale for the A850 anyway being so close to the A900 in price and features.

The A900 is $1000 more, 50% more than the A850. It was when introduced, I haven't checked to see what it is now. Hardly so close.