Sony alpha A55

[mike2008]

I think the current issue is why Sony feels EVF users or buyers come before OVF ones. Delaying the OVF model in order to ramp production on the A33/55 and NEX models (all of which are completely uninteresting to me) So if folks are saying "Sony are not serious about OVF users" can we guess why that might be??? lol

We can preach all day about market needs and NEX is "cool" if NEX rocks so much why does my ancient 110 film hanimex have better handling?? lol. Some of us are not interested in the uninformed consumer buyer but the informed photographer ones.

There is an OVF model parallel with the A55, the A580, available from October. Users can choose want they want.

The 7 series is a different story.

Funny, most folks (even a few quite well-informed photographers e.e LL) who've actually picked up the a55 seem to really like the ergonomics. You can't please everyone... lol.

[Javelin]

thats a silly questiion. those people are buying cameras

[bfitzgerald]

The A580 is identical to the A560 bar more megapixels. I don't see the point being honest paying a £100 premium just for a few pixels you'd never notice even in barn sized prints. Unless I am mistaken and there is a difference somewhere?

[alphaomega]

bfitzgerald wrote

The A580 is identical to the A560 bar more megapixels. I don't see the point being honest paying a £100 premium just for a few pixels you'd never notice even in barn sized prints. Unless I am mistaken and there is a difference somewhere?

2Mp extra Makes no difference to Barry Fitzgerald but I currently mostly use the A550 and often have to use the distortion filter severely ending up sometimes with less than 24Mp (from around 40Mp). I could do with the extra couple of Mp in these situations. In fact I will probably purchase either the A55 or A580 or maybe even the A700 successor (if it ever makes an appearance) if it has 16Mp or more. Having seen the 14Mp results at 100% using CZ 16-80, Sony 18-250 and Tamron 10-24 as my main lenses I am confident that they can produce acceptable results from a 16Mp sensor.

[Dusty]

The A580 is identical to the A560 bar more megapixels. I don't see the point being honest paying a £100 premium just for a few pixels you'd never notice even in barn sized prints. Unless I am mistaken and there is a difference somewhere?

Don't forget the GPS!

Dusty

[Greg Beetham]

Alphaomga 'ol pal I'm not getting it, why does anyone 'need' 16MP files or 40Mb files? Is that because Alamy wants totally huge files or something?
Anyway whatever, I thought I'd run a little fun exercise. I took a couple of nondescript photos of something, both with the same settings and the same lens, same focal length, same focus point, same WB etc. on two different bodies, and as near as I could lock the Manfrotto plate onto the bottom of the cameras for alignment, (might be smidgen off, one to the other).
The only difference between the two is the original MP's (6MP in one, and 12MP in the other) before downsizing to web size at around 124K.
Now without trying too peek at exif stuff and file names etc. see if anyone can guess which camera took what photo, your choice of cameras is obviously the KM5D and the A700....but not necessarily in that order.
Greg

ps. All in camera enhancements were set too zero, (they usually are anyway, on my cameras)

Image-1.jpg (120.5 KiB) Viewed 3182 times

Image-2.jpg (124.76 KiB) Viewed 3182 times

_ICT1575-copy.jpg (125.96 KiB) Viewed 3046 times

I re-hashed the software as best I could (dimage master lite won't run properly on my system with Vista now) so I tried again with E8. tell me if it looks like an improvement or still the same.

[alphaomega]

Greg Beetham
For your kind of test the sensor size is of no consequence. In retirement I have fun producing images for Alamy and have had pictures passed without problems from my old MD system, the R1, A700, A350 and A550 now as well as my LX2 and 3. All without any failures. I agree you can upsize but even that is not required mostly now that Alamy accepts 24Mb. There are two situations requiring larger original files for severe cropping.
If the photographic object is too far away for the longest lens available and architectural photography with a lot of distortion correction required because of shooting location in relation to object. (Sony, where is the T&S lens?). In the past I have submitted a lot of images with unnecessary megabytes to meet the old Alamy 48Mb target. With 16Mp I would be able to do more cropping to enhance the image composition. Upsizing works but I still think that the original image size is best. As long at the lenses can do justice to the 16Mp sensor I think that more is better for my purposes. There comes a point when more Mp is pointless as the lenses can no longer "keep up". Then the lens manufacturers will come up with new designs.

[Greg Beetham]

I'm not sure that any APS-C sensor above 16 or 18MP's will be of any benefit, there was an article where they demonstrated that most lenses reach the theoretical limit at around that point, the diffraction spot cannot get any smaller no matter how you design a lens, and for more resolution the lens diffraction dot has too be smaller than the individual sensel....or so they were saying in the article at least. (Once you reach the limit, according to the law of Physics that's it).
Thing is, the point I'm getting at with this seemingly never ending MP tit for tat escalation, is what's the use of huge image files generally? people who post images on the web don't need it, people who put images in blogs or facebook don't need it, people who send images of the baby via email to Aunty don't need it either. Anyone who prints out standard snapshot sized photos (even up too A4 size) don't need 16 or 18MP's because there is no benefit at all.
How many people in the general population submit images to Alamy? or print out at A3 or A2?
So I still don't get why the vast majority is being forced too fill up memory cards and hard disks with huge image files for no reason.
I think the camera manufacturers would be much better imployed keeping the MP's down to a sensible level and directing their endeavours towards more exposure latitude in the sensor instead, getting CDAF working responsively at low light levels, better focus tracking, getting the AF system working beyond a stopped down f7.1 effectively...that sort of thing.
Greg


ps. Yeah I agree with the, 'where is the TS lens' sentiment as well, not that I need one myself right away, but you either have a credible total system package or you don't.

[bfitzgerald]

I'm with Greg on this one. If anyone can demonstrate any real or noticeable advantage going from 14mp to 16mp for example I'd love to see that. Once we got to double digit mp wise it's become fairly academic the argument about resolution.
As we have seen with the every increasing resolution on compacts, they reach a certain point and then it's simply bigger, softer images v smaller sharper ones. I get better images out of my old 4mp compact then I did on my old 8mp one.

Sadly there is so much more to IQ than just resolution I'm staggered we've become so fixated on this one point. Tonality, DR and colours seem to be entirely irrelevant to some users, but to me they are factors that are far more important than debating the benefits of 12mp v 14mp v 16mp v 18mp.

They're so close even in res chart testing it's not even worth talking about. Out of all of those I would gladly pick the 12mp res sensor which is just fine thanks very much. I'm still finding 6mp perfectly good for my print output so any more than that whilst a bonus isn't that important. The higher up the mp ladder you go adding a few more mp becomes even less obvious and minor. Go from 2mp to 4mp was decent..from 12mp to 14mp is in the real world invisible.

[alphaomega]

Horses for courses. Barry Fitzgerald should buy the Pentax with an excellent Sony 12Mp sensor and Greg Bentham should purchase the A560 (if it is ever released for sale) with 14Mp as this is probably going to be Sony's smallest sensor in future or switch. I will probably purchase the A55 or A580 or A7XX next year with 16Mp as I see a small advantage in the situations I outlined above. DPReview stated that Sony's 16Mp sensor matches Canon's 18Mp in 550D and had best sensor DR in class. I think my lenses can handle 16Mp based on 14Mp results. The A550 is so good that I see no reason to pull out my wallet just now. Maybe next year. We shall see.
Those that are so scatching about Sony and their approach should look at the NEX3/5 and NEX-VG10 combination with common lenses. Users will have the option of a pocket NEX and proper VIDEO Nex and take videos as well as 14Mp stills with both and use a vide variety of lenses using a common adaptor. Who else can offer that? Let's see what Sony brings to the party with the rumoured A7XX and next generation of FF. It may not suit everybody's requirements, but then switch. I would not go to Pentax under any circumstances. Look at mighty Samsung just pulling out of the DSLR segment. At present Sony provides me with what I require. long may it continue.

[Greg Beetham]

Yep thanks Barry, I'm positive that I could take the same photo with my 6MP, 10MP and 12MP cameras and print them out on my Photosmart D7360 at A4 size and would not be able too tell which camera did what photo. I would if I had an A3 printer I'm sure, the 6MP would probably lag behind then, but I don't know if I'd be able too tell the difference between the 10MP and the 12MP...or 14MP 16MP also if I had them.

So what do we end up with as good reasons for large thru to huge image files, cropping, Alamy acceptance, and printing at very large sizes, none of which the general population does.
I'm not saying that there shouldn't BE large image file cameras, it's just everyone is having to pay the consequences of getting there for the few who do want them.

There is an additional drawback too very large image files, processing power to do the job, running dual high powerd GPU/CPU's takes lots of battery power extra over and above the power consumption of the 6, 8 and 10MP cameras, that is if you want the processing to take place in the shortest time possible. And that means one not only has to carry more and bigger memory cards, you have to carry lots of spare fully charged batteries as well if you are going very far from a power socket for any length of time.
Greg

ps. I will say one benefit of larger files is in the Macro area, you can zoom by crop a bit more, and that is definitely a bonus sometimes with a little extra DOF.

[Dusty]

Okay Greg, I'll bite where no-one else seems to.

The first it the KM, the second is the Sony. My reasons are as follows:

The tree branches in the left part of the tree, as well as the leaves in the tree behind it, show more detail in the second photo. The red roof is blotchier in the first photo, also. On top of all that, even the first white fencepost has more detail in the second shot. Slight, but it's there. Now look at the palm tree. The foreground frond's white tips are more clearly defined in the second shot as well.

All of this without pixel peeping, just looking closely at my screen.

If I'm wrong, then I would guess that it was because you had to use greater compression on the 12MP shot to get them to the same byte size.

You can never be too rich or too good looking, or have too many MP's! (This from an ugly guy with no money and only 14 MPs)

Dusty

[agorabasta]

The lower pic appears to be shot with a higher res cam.

It's always pretty obvious from the rendering of sharp edges, they look much more natural with a higher Mp camera. The lower Mp cams render sharp edges with unnaturally high weight due to pixel aliasing. And no reasonable downsampling can hide it, you need to downsample to about 1/6 linear res for that aliasing to disappear, and that would be a 36 times lower pixel count.

Ideally, the sensor must have a nominal digital resolution at least 1.7 times higher than the total optical resolution of the system (filters+lens+LPF+whatever else). In that case the pixel aliasing is sufficiently low and/or may be filtered out near perfectly.

[Greg Beetham]

Dusty my friend, in the end the photo location I chose was not the greatest because just as I finished setting up the large tripod and getting the small step ladder (that back fence is about 6' just to the low part), the afternoon sea breaze had picked up to about 20 Knots with gusts. So there is a likelihood the trees in the background would appear different in each photo just because of the conditions, they were being blown about quite a good deal.

Argorabasta, both you and Dusty have better eyes than I've got, I even put my reading glasses on and compared the two and I still couldn't see any difference worth a damn, I have too admit though at 200% you can see the aliasing difference for sure, and Dusty is right, the round ball is very slightly sharper in the second image....hmmm coises, foiled again.

So you are both 100% correct, the first is the KM5D and the second is the A700, but I still don't think you would see any difference in a snapshot sized print, and maybe not even at A4.
Greg

[agorabasta]

Greg, I must say that to me personally all the sharp high-contrast edges in the KM sample appear twice thicker subjectively. And quite frankly, I hate it - it looks horribly P&S-ish.
Still, my perception is very subjectively personal...