Trade A900 for A77?

deathvalleydave · Mon Sep 19, 2011 6:39 am

Hello Everybody,

I was hoping you could provide me with your input on my possibly trading in my A900 for the A77. I am an enthusiast, and do not want to pay $2,000 for the A77 kit and also keep my A900 - I don't use multiple cameras - I only use one. The pros on my A900 are shooting RAW and my Zeiss 24-70. I also have the older Sigma 12-24 and the Sony 70-300G. If I were to do the trade in, the Sigma 12-24 and Zeiss 24-70 would also go - I would get the A77 Kit, and I would only keep the 70-300G which would turn into a 450mm equivalent with the new A77 - a pro for the A77 because it has the same 24mp but with 1.5X crop factor.

The other pros for my A900 are its viewfinder. The main cons for my A900 are its chroma noise, large size/weight. The pros for the A77 are: Video, Auto HDR, Sweep Pano, ISO 50, no moving mirror causing possible vibration, and pop-up flash. Assuming the A900 replacement will be a 36 mp full frame - I'm not inerested in more than 24mp and more and more expensive lenses to resolve it. Therefore, please give me your thoughts if I'm crazy to get rid of my A900 and replace it with the A77 - I'm mainly a landscape and wildlife shooter. And you can check out some of my work on pbase, to see what type of photos I like to take: http://www.pbase.com/dw73

Thanks,
David

KevinBarrett · Unread post by **KevinBarrett** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 7:03 am

I personally think you'd be bonkers to make that trade, but I'll be happy to get an A77 kit and trade you for your A900 + 24-70.

deathvalleydave · Mon Sep 19, 2011 7:35 am

Okay - thanks for your input - I guess there is a substantial decrease in image quality between the A77 16-50 and the A900 24-70? I guess, however I could say there's an image quality gain for the A77 and Sigma 8-16 vs the A900 and Sigma 12-24, correct? Full Frame stresses the edge to edge performance, but I'd probably agree that the Zeiss 24-70 is hard to beat.

KevinBarrett · Unread post by **KevinBarrett** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:18 am

More importantly, if I were facing this decision, I'd miss the larger sensor's depth of field per angle of view. The 16-50 at wide open is going to have apparent depth of field similar to your 24-70 stopped down to f/4 or so. If you're shooting landscapes, the smaller sensor might have advantages for you in it's greater apparent depth of field per angle of view, but the less dense sensor of the full-frame camera will give you more room to stop down before you run into diffraction issues.

Whether there is an actual decrease in image quality is completely unknown at this point. All samples of both the SLT-A77 and SAL-1650 have been pre-production.

Dr. Harout · Unread post by **Dr. Harout** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:47 am

This question is analogous to: "which to pick? FF or APS-C?"
There isn't any straight answer to that, except for: what do you shoot mainly?
It was hard at the beginning with the APS-C, considering years of FF film usage. But now, I'm kind of used to this and do not have YET the intention to go to FF.
I found out lately that EVF is more "easy" for my eyes, so opting for the a77. If along with it an a99 would've been selling, it would've been hard for me to choose. (probably a99)

agorabasta · Unread post by **agorabasta** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 11:07 am

deathvalleydave wrote: The main cons for my A900 are its chroma noise, large size/weight.

The first and the most important 'croma noise' a900 con is not cured by switching to a77. The a77 seems about a stop worse there...

bfitzgerald · Unread post by **bfitzgerald** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 7:41 pm

If it is a stop worse than the A900 (which is far from class leading) that means the new 24mp sensor is significantly worse than the lower density 16mp CMOS and no doubt hands down beaten even by the older 14/12mp CMOS.

That's really not a good place to be it's possible the A77 will be the new "A100" and a gain Sony another negative rep for poor noise handling.
I doubt other makers will use this sensor if this is proven to be the case.

catalytic · Unread post by **catalytic** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 8:15 pm

deathvalleydave wrote:Okay - thanks for your input - I guess there is a substantial decrease in image quality between the A77 16-50 and the A900 24-70? I guess, however I could say there's an image quality gain for the A77 and Sigma 8-16 vs the A900 and Sigma 12-24, correct? Full Frame stresses the edge to edge performance, but I'd probably agree that the Zeiss 24-70 is hard to beat.

Not necessarily. The Sigma 8-16 may suffer from poor quality control from some reports (see Photozone.de), so you may or may not get a great copy of the 8-16 (mind you, the Sigma 12-24 had a similar reputation, so if you have a good copy, keep it!).

Mark K · Unread post by **Mark K** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:40 pm

deathvalleydave wrote:Hello Everybody,

I was hoping you could provide me with your input on my possibly trading in my A900 for the A77. I am an enthusiast, and do not want to pay $2,000 for the A77 kit and also keep my A900 - I don't use multiple cameras - I only use one. The pros on my A900 are shooting RAW and my Zeiss 24-70. I also have the older Sigma 12-24 and the Sony 70-300G. If I were to do the trade in, the Sigma 12-24 and Zeiss 24-70 would also go - I would get the A77 Kit, and I would only keep the 70-300G which would turn into a 450mm equivalent with the new A77 - a pro for the A77 because it has the same 24mp but with 1.5X crop factor.

The other pros for my A900 are its viewfinder. The main cons for my A900 are its chroma noise, large size/weight. The pros for the A77 are: Video, Auto HDR, Sweep Pano, ISO 50, no moving mirror causing possible vibration, and pop-up flash. Assuming the A900 replacement will be a 36 mp full frame - I'm not inerested in more than 24mp and more and more expensive lenses to resolve it. Therefore, please give me your thoughts if I'm crazy to get rid of my A900 and replace it with the A77 - I'm mainly a landscape and wildlife shooter. And you can check out some of my work on pbase, to see what type of photos I like to take: http://www.pbase.com/dw73

Thanks,
David

David
Do not do this. 　I do not see any camera with IQ close to A900 in Alpha line. I preordered A77 because I can get it really inexpensive and also I am psychologically prepared for the expected decrease in IQ, as compared to that of A850 or even Nex5n

Mark K · Unread post by **Mark K** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:40 pm

deathvalleydave wrote:Hello Everybody,

I was hoping you could provide me with your input on my possibly trading in my A900 for the A77. I am an enthusiast, and do not want to pay $2,000 for the A77 kit and also keep my A900 - I don't use multiple cameras - I only use one. The pros on my A900 are shooting RAW and my Zeiss 24-70. I also have the older Sigma 12-24 and the Sony 70-300G. If I were to do the trade in, the Sigma 12-24 and Zeiss 24-70 would also go - I would get the A77 Kit, and I would only keep the 70-300G which would turn into a 450mm equivalent with the new A77 - a pro for the A77 because it has the same 24mp but with 1.5X crop factor.

The other pros for my A900 are its viewfinder. The main cons for my A900 are its chroma noise, large size/weight. The pros for the A77 are: Video, Auto HDR, Sweep Pano, ISO 50, no moving mirror causing possible vibration, and pop-up flash. Assuming the A900 replacement will be a 36 mp full frame - I'm not inerested in more than 24mp and more and more expensive lenses to resolve it. Therefore, please give me your thoughts if I'm crazy to get rid of my A900 and replace it with the A77 - I'm mainly a landscape and wildlife shooter. And you can check out some of my work on pbase, to see what type of photos I like to take: http://www.pbase.com/dw73

Thanks,
David

David
Do not do this. 　I do not see any camera with IQ close to A900 in Alpha line. I preordered A77 because I can get it really inexpensive and also I am psychologically prepared for the expected decrease in IQ, as compared to that of A850 or even Nex5n

deathvalleydave · Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:59 pm

Okay, thanks everyone - Don’t worry, I still have my A900. But, please answer this – when I put the A77 and the A900 up on the IR Comparometer, and look at noise up to 1600, except for the red cloth – the A77 has the A900 beat! So, this one stop worse noise that everyone’s talking about leads me to believe that measuring noise is somewhat subjective – the A77 does not have any of the chroma noise – but has luminance noise, does this mean the absolutely ugly chroma noise of the A900 is not that bad of a thing? Because I can shoot RAW and remove it in LR3? Otherwise, if I just look subjectively on my own at the noise between the two cameras on IR Comparometer – I can’t believe that the A77 is a stop worse? Is there some smearing of the detail that’s not as visibly apparent at first glance, as the chroma noise of the A900 is?

catalytic · Unread post by **catalytic** » Mon Sep 19, 2011 10:57 pm

deathvalleydave wrote:Because I can shoot RAW and remove it in LR3?

Bingo. A900 RAW files in LR3 are a thing of beauty. JPEG comparisons do not do the A900 justice. The A700 and A900 have crappy JPEG engines. Image processing and noise reduction has become much more sophisticated in the last few years. Any recent camera will produce JPEGs that beat A900 JPEGs in the comparometer at high ISO.

Mark K · Unread post by **Mark K** » Wed Sep 21, 2011 2:11 pm

OK, let us step one more. Closely looking at the jpg images samples from all Sony cameras you will find very obvious and disturbing colour noise. Attempts made by NR mechanism make the resultant images even uglier.

mikeriach · Unread post by **mikeriach** » Sun Oct 30, 2011 8:49 pm

I'm also debating the A900/A77 dilema but in a different way.
I miss the 70-105mm segment of my longer lenses and therefore am debating whether to buy a second hand A900 rather than the A77 to partner my A700.
So I suppose my question relates to the noise issues with the A900.
I use PSE9 so hope this gives the best RAW-JPG conversion.

Any thoughts?

Mike

Simmondsphotography · Sun Oct 30, 2011 9:17 pm

Well for what it's worth if I can give my opinion and I am an avid user of both the A900 and A700 with now the A77 taking over from the A700.

The A77 is streets ahead of the A900 in most actual shooting situations whether it is flash, artificial light or whatever. But there is a very big but and that is file quality whether it is RAW or the excellent Jpegs from the A77 which are far superior to those produced by the A900. The A77 files are nowhere as near robust as those from the A900.

Crop the A77 file a little too severely and it will show, whereas the A900 files can take a whole lot of abuse! It is not just cropping either. If you are the type that does a lot of PP work, the A900 can take far more pulling around and abuse than the files from the A77. It is because of this that my A900 which is now well over three years old and well used, will be staying with me to accompany the A77. The A700 will need to go!

The A77 will used for natural history and travel work (environmental portraiture) for which it is very capable as it focuses fast and very accurately. Nature images used in international exhibitions and competitions must not be manipulated, so the files will be just fine for my use.

The A900 I will use for landscape and architectural work which often require some manipulation as I don't use graduated filters et al.

Just one photographers view in answer to the OP. All our needs are different though.

Photoclubalpha

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