α560/α580 are coming

[David Kilpatrick]

Here's my big worry: the A55 is proving a bit like using a Leica, an old Leica. They had very difficult viewfinders, really you got little more than a vague idea of the shot from a IIIf. They flared up into the light, they were actually very slow to adjust (wind-on, lift and turn shutter speed dial, and so on) and very slow indeed for film changing. But the poor viewfinder could actually improve picture previsualisation, simplifying what you saw by reducing it so much, making compositions only work if they were strong. And the difficult bits of operation forced you to think all the time. Against that, the camera could go anywhere and the results had a quality which few cameras could match.

The A55 is a bit like that. The EVF does not reward compositions which are not strong from the start. It's a bit slow to bring to life and use. But the results are quite exceptional, so much so that I'm not even bothering to use the A900 right now.

My current thought is: the A900 will only better tha CZ 16-80mm + A55 if I buy CZ lenses for the A900. My Sigma and Minolta and Tokina lenses have been fine so far, but now the A55 with the 2007 vintage 16-80mm can produce better '24 megapixel' results most of the time or everyday subjects.

David

[KevinBarrett]

The A55 is a bit like that. The EVF does not reward compositions which are not strong from the start. It's a bit slow to bring to life and use. But the results are quite exceptional, so much so that I'm not even bothering to use the A900 right now.

Could the same be said of any camera that provided a live-view display from the 16.2 MP sensor like, say, an a580, D7000, or K5?

[David Kilpatrick]

Maybe, but the EVF is kind of concentrating - it makes you see things in a simplified way. And the shutter sound of the A55 is very similar to a Leica III in its way. The absence of mirror slap really does improve sharpness, you even see the difference despite SSS doing its stuff.

David

[KevinBarrett]

Thanks David, I am not really shopping for a camera right now, SLR or SLT, but I'm looking for different perspectives and insights on the a55 because I may have the opportunity to review one in the near future. Also, considering my wife may or may not have ordered me a couple of "easy choice" lenses for Christmas, it seems I am commited to the A-mount for a while longer and it's nice to know that the a55 isn't the Alpha mount devil.

[Mark K]

Mark K wrote

Has any noticed the weight difference between A560 and A580? A580 weighs approximately the same as my old A700 but A560 is about 180gm lighter.

These weights are straight from Sony's Instruction Manuals and without battery and cards:
A700 690 g.
A560 and A580 are both listed with same weight of 599 g.

I have not put my copies on scales, but I would say there is no way the A580 can be as heavy as the A700 unless you add the battery to the A580 only.

I have the printed brochure of A580 and A560 saying the weight is 670g and 492g respectively.

[Mark K]

Here's my big worry: the A55 is proving a bit like using a Leica, an old Leica. They had very difficult viewfinders, really you got little more than a vague idea of the shot from a IIIf. They flared up into the light, they were actually very slow to adjust (wind-on, lift and turn shutter speed dial, and so on) and very slow indeed for film changing. But the poor viewfinder could actually improve picture previsualisation, simplifying what you saw by reducing it so much, making compositions only work if they were strong. And the difficult bits of operation forced you to think all the time. Against that, the camera could go anywhere and the results had a quality which few cameras could match.

The A55 is a bit like that. The EVF does not reward compositions which are not strong from the start. It's a bit slow to bring to life and use. But the results are quite exceptional, so much so that I'm not even bothering to use the A900 right now.

My current thought is: the A900 will only better tha CZ 16-80mm + A55 if I buy CZ lenses for the A900. My Sigma and Minolta and Tokina lenses have been fine so far, but now the A55 with the 2007 vintage 16-80mm can produce better '24 megapixel' results most of the time or everyday subjects.

David

David: I am glad I do not share your worry.

[OneGuyKs]

580 now shipping to me through the wind the rain and the snow!

I look forward to hearing from David Kilpatrick in due course how he gets round the problem of Adobe not having added A560/580 RAW to LR3 and ACR. I wonder why this is as D7000 is now supported in release candidate 6.3 as well as A55 fully released previously. Interestingly enough Pentax K5 is not listed in release candidate 6.3. It could be some time before we see A560/580 in ACR & LR3.

I think there is way to fool adobe into thinking A580 file is same as A55 with a batch program? It opens the file that way.

[bakubo]

I'm especially interested in your assessment of the a580 now that you've already confessed an appreciation of the a55.

Does the DNG converter handle the A580 files?

[OneGuyKs]

The A55 is a bit like that. The EVF does not reward compositions which are not strong from the start. It's a bit slow to bring to life and use. But the results are quite exceptional, so much so that I'm not even bothering to use the A900 right now.

Could the same be said of any camera that provided a live-view display from the 16.2 MP sensor like, say, an a580, D7000, or K5?

The mirror still flips on A580 in liveview mode. It doesn't flip only if you are using 2 sec MLU. As for D7000 and K-5, I have no idea, but the liveview on those cameras have painfully slow AF. The LV is only useful for tripod work on those cameras.

[alphaomega]

The absence of mirror slap really does improve sharpness, you even see the difference despite SSS doing its stuff.

That's an interesting observation by David Kilpatrick. I wonder about what shutter speeds that would apply. I tend to boost ISO on my A550 and A700 to get shutter speeds up over 1/500 hand held. Also the A580 is reported to have better high ISO performance than A55 (1600 and up) because of the light loss through the fixed mirror. Essentially one could add 1/2 stop shutter speed on A580 and still have the same "base" ISO as A55. There must be a point "ramping up" shutter speed where the mirror action is eliminated as causing lack of sharpness.
OneGuyKs wrote

I think there is way to fool adobe into thinking A580 file is same as A55 with a batch program? It opens the file that way.

I wish somebody would publish a full procedure on how to fool LR3 and/or ACR into thinking that they were converting A55 RAW images.

[OneGuyKs]

The absence of mirror slap really does improve sharpness, you even see the difference despite SSS doing its stuff.

That's an interesting observation by David Kilpatrick. I wonder about what shutter speeds that would apply. I tend to boost ISO on my A550 and A700 to get shutter speeds up over 1/500 hand held. Also the A580 is reported to have better high ISO performance than A55 (1600 and up) because of the light loss through the fixed mirror. Essentially one could add 1/2 stop shutter speed on A580 and still have the same "base" ISO as A55. There must be a point "ramping up" shutter speed where the mirror action is eliminated as causing lack of sharpness.
OneGuyKs wrote

I think there is way to fool adobe into thinking A580 file is same as A55 with a batch program? It opens the file that way.

I wish somebody would publish a full procedure on how to fool LR3 and/or ACR into thinking that they were converting A55 RAW images.

From DPR forum


So to recapitulate:
LR3.2: No way to import an A580 RAW, even messing with EXIF.

LR3.3 RC: No official A580 support, but they have definitely fixed something, and now it IS possible to import A580 RAWs, by editing the SonyModelID metadata tag and replacing it with the A55's!

To do so:

•Download exiftool here: http://owl.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

•Place the exiftool executable you will find in the archive in a folder containing A580's RAWs (might be good to backup the originals for now, never know)

•Download and extract the batch file found here: http://andrebernet.ch/divers/exiftool_a55.zip

•Run the extracted exiftool_a55.bat. It changes this tag and also removes the "SONY DSC" caption.

Once it has gone through all the ARW files in the folder, you can import them into LR3.3

You can then move both exiftool.exe and exiftool_a55.bat to another folder and go on.

[OneGuyKs]

The absence of mirror slap really does improve sharpness, you even see the difference despite SSS doing its stuff.

That's an interesting observation by David Kilpatrick. I wonder about what shutter speeds that would apply. I tend to boost ISO on my A550 and A700 to get shutter speeds up over 1/500 hand held. Also the A580 is reported to have better high ISO performance than A55 (1600 and up) because of the light loss through the fixed mirror. Essentially one could add 1/2 stop shutter speed on A580 and still have the same "base" ISO as A55. There must be a point "ramping up" shutter speed where the mirror action is eliminated as causing lack of sharpness. .

Let's say the shutter speed is 1/30. You will need to raise ISO far more than 1/2 stop to remove any blur caused by the mirror.

[bfitzgerald]

Issues with mirror slap tend to be confined to a specific range and at higher magnifications or focal lengths. Higher speeds the issue is removed and longer exposures it's also not there. I spent some time looking at the effects of mirror slap from the A200 (and I posted those results previously) you could find it an issue between roughly 1/5th sec up to 1/30th sometimes a bit more such as 1/60th. But only for longer FL's or higher magnification. I'd be extremely surprised if anyone could detect mirror slap problems with short focal lengths.

Regardless that's why MLU should be there the help reduce those effects.

Still whilst the SLT solves the moving mirror problems, you're still stuck with an EVF that might impress if you owned an FZ superzoom (it's hugely better than those EVF's) it's not really great if you have used a "good" optical viewfinder. Looking through a film 7 VF (which shames a Canon 7d's VF too) You can see absolutely everything in great detail. You just can't get that with an EVF

[OneGuyKs]

The EVF on A55 is superior to APSC cameras according to DPRReview and LuminousLandscape. One thing is for sure: EVF on A55 is superior to Kx that doesn't even have AF illumination in OVF.

In most every day use where shutter speed is anywhere between 1/10 to /160 seconds (far more often than ISO 6400), A55 is more likely to produce sharper images than A580 because there is never mirror slap related blur. A580 does have MLU but it's 2-sec tripod only use. The OVF is blacked out for 2 sec timer.

Overall, looks like A55 has advantage as far as IQ is concerned in most everyday shooting conditions. It never has any mirror related blur .

[bfitzgerald]

Well DPR and the LL are known to get over excited about new tech so it's no shock to me they raved about the A55. Having tried one I have to say I would not purchase one. Folks have different views on this. Whilst I accept crop sensor OVF's could and should be bigger and improved..I still prefer them to an EVF. The A55 evf was not bad at all but it's still an electronic image and it comes with a price to pay..it's not as fast as it should be response time..I could see that clearly, the DR is not very good in some situations (in comparison to the massive DR of your eye which can instantly respond instantly) and it's heavy on battery drain too. So the folks who say it's a bit like looking at a TV screen are right, it is. Some might like that others not.

Of course I'll accept the K-x should have the AF points lit in the VF, but it does have the ISO on permanent display in the VF..something no Alpha has at any price level..even the A55 does not for some odd reason (unless I missed something there). So it's fairly easy to dismiss the DPR and LL reviews as they start from an overly excited position based purely on something different.