A55 review now up

[Neonsquare]

Why do you get that impression?
Remember that the delay does not occur in non-flash operation or when using non-dedicated flashes

[Greg Beetham]

Well what is it then?
Greg

[Neonsquare]

I don't know, but why would the A580 when using the OVF (!) be delayed because of liveview?
Why is the delay using the A550 in liveview even shorter than A580 in OVF? Thats why I asked how you did come to the conclusion that it ought to be the liveview. So it actually was just a guess and could equally have been "because it has a plastic body"?

[bakubo]

Like program shift and other things that Sony knew were not useful to their customers so they eliminated, Sony probably has decided that fast flash reaction is also of no importance and, in fact, another anachronism not belonging in a new technology camera. Who can argue with that? Actually, once this is understood I fully expect there will be many people who will jump in and passionately support yet another of Sony's wise decisions. As long as it sells it must be good! Who can argue with that?

[Greg Beetham]

Henry! stop it...ha ha. I'm struggling to give Sony the benefit of the doubt but I'm fast running out of options.
David how about just putting a flash on the A580 (also the A55) and trying it, with and without LV, and see if there is a difference, don't worry about measurements you'll know if there is or not, and whether it has a lag as compared too the A700.
Greg

[alphaomega]

Neonsquare stated

I don't know, but why would the A580 when using the OVF (!) be delayed because of liveview?
Why is the delay using the A550 in liveview even shorter than A580 in OVF? Thats why I asked how you did come to the conclusion that it ought to be the liveview.

I have both the A550 and 580. Just "eyeballing" it The A550 starts up immediately in OVF and the A580 has a very slight delay, which I would say is of no consequence. The A550 in LV has a slight delay in showing the image but the settings show up immediately. The A580 is almost instant in showing the LV and settings. Conclusion. The A550 is faster in OVF and slower in LV than the A580. Don't ask me to explain why. That is just how my two cameras work. I also wanted to try flash on both, but found all my batteries needing re-charging. Will try later if somebody has not reported in the meantime.
bakubo wrote

As long as it sells it must be good! Who can argue with that?

You could also say "as long as it sells it must have good advertising and distribution (and maybe even a keen price)". The problem with most modern cameras is that they are all good. So how do you differentiate and catch the mood? Sony have clearly caught the mood with the NEX-5 and the SLT concept and 2010 sales figures will justify their actions. The Barry Fitzgeralds of this world are in a minority and it is good Pentax is there to pick them up and so maintain their low % of sales to keep afloat. Sony are after big numbers in the sales statistics and the NEX/SLT ideas meet the expectations of future generations brought up on computers and other electronic devices. The future belong to the Sonys of this world.

[alphaomega]

Found a couple of batteries so first A580. I would say that mounting my HVL-F20AM flash using OVF is instantaneous. Cannot detect a delay. Using LV I would estimate 0.5 second delay between depressing shutter and flash firing.
A550 - I would say that the flash fires instantaneously in both OVF & LV settings with the shutter being depressed fully. Maybe the A550 is marginally faster than A580 in OVF but we are probably talking about milliseconds. There is no doubt that tha A550 is faster in LV shooting as there is no delay here. I can also confirm that there is no flash induced delay using A700.

[Neonsquare]

@alphaomega
According to my diagram the delay with flash on the A580 is ~ 0,39s this is without shutter halfpress. If you half press it down I would say it will be more like 0,29 or even below. The A550 starts at 0,22s with a full press and will be somewhere between 0,1s - 0.2s which is actually sort of a minimum and therefore should look like no delay at all. I don't think that you will realize the difference some something between 0,1 and 0,2s when comparing the A550 and A580 in OVF. It seems that the A580 in Liveview is more like the A55 (which is somewhat obvious) and my diagram shows the SLT to be somewhere around 1/10s slower than the A580. So you will have something like 0,3-0,4s vs 0,1-0,2s - which could start to be recognizable.

The slowdown seems to be a combination of slowdowns through the LV and others. From the general slowdown of something like 3/10s there seem to be 1/10s LV related and 2/10s not. I think the A580 will be fast enough with OVF but the additional penalty through the LV may just be to much.

There is indeed no delay when using radio triggers or non-system flashes. You can even get automatic flash metering when using a Metz 40 MZ with a dumb midcontact adapter like the FS-1100. No delay - the clock did show 0,1s. The sad thing is that you then face the dark EVF problem again, because the EVF only gets gained up in M-Mode when there is a active system flash recognized**

Sony really needs to fix at least this EVF problem which is a simple oversight in the firmware and I can only encourage all SLT users to use the sony support contact to speak up about this need.

**)
Or when using Bulb-mode - but this isn't really a good solution.

[alphaomega]

Neonsquare stated

According to my diagram the delay with flash on the A580 is ~ 0,39s this is without shutter halfpress.

Not far off my estimate of 0.5s. The other timings are so small that I would not be able to detect on just "eyeballing" the results. I would say that of all the "experiments" only the A580 with flash could be counted as a "delay" that could have consequences when photographing fast action. Not sure why the A580 LV should be slower than A550 LV with flash.