Sony A350: Full-Time Live View at 14.2MP
by Wesley Fink on April 3, 2008 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
Final Thoughts
Recent years in the photo industry have seen Canon and Nikon as the 800-pound gorillas playing in the DSLR jungle. Everyone else was further down the food chain. There have been some interesting cracks in that perception with Pentax teaming with giant Samsung who is making their new 14.6MP CMOS sensor in the K20D. However, no one has seemed quite so serious a challenge to Canon and Nikon in DSLR space as has Sony in the last six months with their unending parade of new models with significant new features.
Sony now has more interesting new entry DSLRs than any DSLR maker. The top entry DSLR - the A350 reviewed here - is truly unique and comfortable for those stepping up from point and shoots. It will also appeal to buyers impressed by high-resolution numbers, and frankly it delivers quite well on the promise of its 14.2MP sensor. Those who want to step up from entry DSLR can stay in the Sony line and choose the A700, and later this year Sony says they will introduce a full-frame Pro-oriented 24.6MP that will likely be called the A900.
There is absolutely no doubt that the A350 is the right camera for you if you mainly want to shoot using Live View. Nothing else comes close to the smooth and seamless Sony Live View for ease of use that makes every other implementation of Live View look complicated and slow. The A350 will certainly appeal to new DSLR buyers moving up form point and shoots. It will also attract a number of serious amateur photographers with the 14.2MP sensor, which is currently the highest resolution sensor available in any current or announced entry-level DSLR.
The good news about the sensor is that output is very clean and noise remains low up to ISO 1600. However, ISO 3200 is usable for only small prints. Color is very accurate across all ISO settings. While the A350 does not equal the CMOS sensors of the more expensive Pentax K20D 14.6MP or Canon's low-end Pro 12.2MP full-frame, side-by-side comparisons are better than we really expected. That is certainly good news for those looking for a bargain high-res DSLR.
Serious photographers need to also be aware, however, that the nifty Live View only shows 90% of the image you will capture, and the optical viewfinder is downright awful, with a somewhat dim view at the end of a very long tunnel created by the .74x viewfinder magnification. If you plan to do most of your shooting with the optical viewfinder the A200 is a better choice at a lower price, but you won't get Live View or a 14.2MP sensor if those features are important to you. The $1399 A700 seems to have it all with the best .90x viewfinder on a bright true pentaprism and the excellent 12.24MP CMOS sensor also used on the Nikon D300. However, you won't find Live View on the A700 as Sony believes it is not needed or wanted by photo enthusiasts.
The other good news is that the A350 is exceptionally easy to use. It is easy to reach a comfort level very quickly with the A350 - even if you are new to digital SLR photography. The flip side to this is that you won't find a submenu of custom functions on the A350 as you will on competing Canon and Nikon cameras. You can reassign some button functions if you would like, but you won't find anything that remotely resembles a custom functions menu. We doubt that will matter much to the A350 target audience, but you are forewarned if that matters to you.
At its price point, the Sony A350 is an exceptional value. It is easy to use with the highest resolution sensor in its class. One of our Editors just got his A350 this past week and he commented that in 15 minutes he felt comfortable with all the features of the A350 and was ready to go out and shoot like a pro. It's hard not to like the easy and fast focusing full-time Live View and the quality of the images you can take with the A350. If others feel similarly comfortable with the A350 in such a short time, this could become a best seller.
It is becoming clearer that Sony has ambitious plans in the DSLR market, and that they are willing to invest the resources for a large and varied product line to attract buyers and provide them a line to grow with. We strongly believe it takes great products, wonderful service, and competitive prices to win the market share Sony covets. The A350 is a great value in what has become a good DSLR line. Recently Sony also serviced a first DSLR product for us and the service far exceeded our expectations. That is certainly a good sign.
Sony is a huge player in the worldwide electronics market, and they bring considerable resources to a market they have said they intend to dominate. That huge size brings tremendous resources, but it can also be a handicap if Sony tries too soon or too hard to bully buyers in the DSLR market. Sony is not the biggest player yet, and the expensive proprietary battery is an example of such bullying. Sony, as one of the world's largest battery makers, is clearly self-serving in forcing Sony DSLR buyers to pay $50 to $70 for proprietary Sony InfoLithium rechargeable batteries that are available for every other DSLR brand as $10 generics.
The inability to even use AA batteries in the grips for the new Sony cameras is another example of Sony dictating to a market it does not yet lead. A smarter move would be a lower battery price along with serious marketing on the advantages of InfoLithium batteries. Then no one would care that you could only use the Sony proprietary battery. The current expensive battery only available from Sony smacks far too much of coercion to make sure Sony gets their extra pound of battery flesh from buyers who bought their cameras for the nifty features and didn't know to ask about batteries.
We wonder if accessory moves like the NP-FM500H battery and the "no AA" grips mean that Sony's thinking may be too far down the growth curve right now. Sony needs to tweak their thinking a bit and try to win new DSLR buyers instead of bullying them. Everyone knows Sony but not everyone loves Sony. Many in the photo market genuinely love Canon and Nikon and it will take a complete and solid effort from Sony to win them over.
The current lineup is a good starting point for Sony to win the market share they want to capture. If Sony can keep the announcements, innovations, and service coming - and tweak their marketing a bit to better mesh with DSLR market realities - they may actually reach their ambitious goals in the DSLR market.
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danddon - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
I have to say that this forum thread is much more interesting and entertaining than the camera test has been.First, thanks for fixing the a350 pictures. They now look more like the other two sets in terms of lighting. The a350 results in the new pictures look more like a DSLR than a $50 Vivitar.
Now, about the a350 versus 5D comparison: Does anyone else think that comparing an APS-C camera to a Full Frame camera a complete waste of time?
Look at the crops. Since this is a visual comparison, the different sizes of lettering and the relatively larger amounts of black space in the 5D crops make any sort of comparison difficult at best.
How about – as a minimum – use a 75 mm lens on the 5D, or at the very least, a zoom lens set at 75 mm. That way the details in the crop areas would look much closer in size.
Or, failing any of the above, select a photo target with enough white space (and no lettering) to negate the differences in image dimensions. In other words, both crops would be all white. I didn’t see any white boxes in the photos shown. Perhaps the budget doesn’t allow for the purchase of such high-tech testing gear.
Or, how about a GretagMacbeth color rendition chart, so that noise can be seen for different colors, and not just black and off-white, plus a little green? BTW, the black area in the 5D crop looks completely noise-free, but, is it? In other words, how does one look at those crops with all the black and see how much noise is there?
In the meantime, we all now know a little bit about how the a350 fares when taking 100 watt light bulb pictures of a collection of boxes in Wesley Fink’s office, but not much else about the camera. I suppose we should be thankful for that much.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
The usual ISO noise argument goes that the full frame has a tremendous advantage at the same resolution as an APS-C because of the increased size of the individual pixels in the full-frame image. I only included the 5D to try to illustrate the same pixel crops, as all are 230x300 pixels. Yes, I could have used a 75mm lens from the same position or I could have moved the tripod closer to the packages for the 5D.That brings up the next question – do you make the scene always the same “image area”? If you do you adjust the tripod distance with almost every camera tested, or you use a slower zoom lens that is likely not in its sharpest aperture range at f4. Even two cameras with the same claimed 1.5x multiplier will in reality show different views as the 1.5x is an approximation. With a constant position the images show the impact of the actual multiplier.
I could have used the White “ESA” lettering next to the selected crop area or the large white label on the next box or the large white P5K Deluxe lettering. There are plenty of white choices for crops in the larger image.
danddon - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
Well, excuuuuuse me.I thought this review was about a visual inspection of noise levels. I guess I was wrong.
The a350/K20D crops like fine for the purpose, because the focal lengths are the same, and the sensor is the same size. The crop is of an area that contains a white background with black lettering. Noise can be seen not only in the background, but also at the boundary between the background and the lettering. However, can you see noise within the black lettering itself? I can't - at least not without additional digital manipulation of the crops.
Now consider the a350/5d crops. Are you saying these are equally effective at comparing noise levels? Because - if you are - then you should start looking for another job. Perhaps you could go back to being a "Pro" photographer.
Apparently you _do_ think they are as effective, otherwise you would have chosen a better crop location, or adjusted the lens focal length, or moved the tripod, or, or ...
I just hope someone in management at AnandTech is reading these posts.
And, to answer your question - no I don't always "make the scene the same image area". Only when I am trying to compare noise levels from two cameras. All of the other review sites seem to make the same mistake, too, especially "The Imaging Resource", which goes to great pains to make all of their photos as similar as possible.
Its too bad they didn't check with you first to learn the correct technique.
jake123 - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
Honestly I feel that some of the commenters simply want to prove others wrong to boost their little self-confidence.We don't need another dpreview. I find the perspective of this article refreshing, without irrelevant detail and I think this is what the readers need.
Sure the review process can be improved but anandtech does not need to become another dpreview.
Hulk - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
"Irrelevant detail" in this case = accurate testing methodologyElFenix - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
accurate testing such as having the D300's noise reduction on while having the 40D's off?Hulk - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
Wesley,First I want to thank you for your hard work with these camera reviews. You (and Anandtech) are moving into somewhat new territory with dSLR reviews. As you are learning there are many people using dSLRs that are very knowledgable, even if they are pros. My Mom is a professional photographer with brilliant composition skills (in my and many other's opinion) but she couldn't do a proper camera review/comparison if her life depended on it. Just because you can take a good picture doesn't mean you can do a good review. Please realize that many people have little patience with the learning curve necessary to get up to speed with many established, cough,,, cough, dpreview, cough, photo review websites. Some of the people here need to take it easy on you and refrain from personal attacks and stay to the facts.
In the future I would recommend resolution and noise testing be done in full manual mode so that we can see how each camera imager exposes at various settings. Also please keep f-stops constant and at least at F/4, higher would be better to remove lens quality from the testing variables.
Also please use manual white balance as it adds another variable to the resolution and noise testing. Automatic white balance should be a separate part of the review and need not involve resolution or aperature actually. In fact, most people buying these cameras, when doing mission critical work use RAW format and white balance in the image editor. Also when doing automatic white balance testing please make sure you test each camera under a variety of lighting temperatures. As many people will agree automatic white balance is somewhat like "watching a dog walking on hind legs, it's never done very well, but it's amazing it's done at all." That is a quote from "Copying Beethoven." Have a look around the web at some technical articles on it and you will see the inherent problems with it.
Finally, please do all resoution/noise testing with RAW images and use the same settings for conversion to TIFF files.
I would suggest thinking of these camera reviews like you guys think of overclocking, philosophically of course. That is "isolate and consolidate. The biggest problem is too many variables in the testing. Define what you are testing and then hold as many of the variables constant as possible.
Again thank you for the hard work and I look forward to seeing the Anandtech camera reviews becoming among the best on the web.
- Mark
whatthehey - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
You know, all the stuff you mention is exactly what I DON'T want to deal with in a camera review. I want to know how well the camera works with as little effort as possible. Manual white balance in particular is way more effort than I'm willing to expend. Granted, I'm very much an amateur photographer (if that), but I do appreciate the ability to change lenses plus the almost universally faster AF speeds on a DSLR.Considering this is more of an entry-level model rather than a $1500+ pro model, this sort of review covers a lot of what I want to know. Could it cover more? Sure. The difficulty is in coming up with a good battery of tests where the photographer's skill won't skew the results. For example, I like a camera that I can set to ISO 100 (for low noise) and still get a good quality picture without always resorting to using the flash or a tripod. I'm also far more concerned with auto WB working well than with what can be done using the manual WB.
DPReview does cover a lot of good material, but they are almost too much. I mean, 29 pages on the Canon 40D as an example. I can't read through all of that! Maybe if I were in the market for a new DSLR I'd feel differently, though.
Really, I'm interested in a short, quick overview of a camera. Is it better or worse than the competition? Does it offer anything revolutionary that would make me want to switch? I get a reasonable feel for that from this review. Reading the DPReview article on the same cameras, I get... NOTHING! Probably because they're still working on putting together several new 30 page magnum opus articles looking at the A350, K20D, and 5D used in this review.
Hulk - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
Well I can understand you not wanting a review that is too in depth. That's fine. Although I find it a little strange when you are talking about a 14Mp dSLR with removeable lenses.What I can't understand is not wanting to have testing done in a scientific manner so you know what is actually being tested. For example if you are testing resolution and one camera is set to f/1.4 and another at f/1.8 then that will skew the results significantly.
But as you say there are probably lots of people like you that don't know or care to know about aperture, latitude, or a variety of other photography related terms.
BTW, the pages on dpreview are labeled so you can go to the page you want. You can always just skip to the conclusion to read a well throught out and supported by good testing conclusion of the camera in question.
I love a well constructed review. Since these cameras all use the same technology the difference is in the implimentation and that is hard to detect without good testing procedures.
I personally have never seen a camera that does a good job on auto white balance in any conditions except outdoor natural sunlight. Some get close under tungsten but none get it right in my opinion.
And I'm not a guy that tweaks and photopeeps my pictures. I load them into Photoshop Elements and at most fix color temperature, crop, and save.
Wesley Fink - Thursday, April 3, 2008 - link
Given the fact that we did use a 50mm f1.4 lens on all models (we even have a 25mm f1.4 Leica for the Olympus in reserve) your criticism that testing one camera with 1.4 and another with f4 would be acceptable is really unfair. We are glad that was brought to our attention and we have corrected it so all shots are at the same aperture.While the aperture initially varied in our test shots for ISO noise, that was never our intent. It should be obvious that if we went to the trouble of equipping all the DSLRs with f1.4 prime lenses that the testing was to be as close to apples to apples as we could make it with differing camera makers and different sensors. Those who pointed out the discrepancy in apertures were correct to do so and we reshot the whole series to correct our mistake of relying on the programs to set the same aperture line.
However, i do not share the same enthusiasm for shooting all at f8. At 100 ISO and f4 the required shutter speed with our current lighting is about 2 seconds. To use a constant f8 the ISO 100 shutter speed would have to be around 8 seconds, and we would be running into noise issues that could be caused by long exposure times instead of ISO speed. You might say improve the lighting and shoot studio lighting, but that would defeat the purpose of looking at noise under demanding conditions.
Most of our readers who read our camera reviews could care less how a camera might perform under studio conditions. They are more interested in seeing how it performs in conditions more like they would use it, and that is in an indoor setting with indoor type lighting where many of the worst DSLR pictures ever taken are shot. Our challenge is to find ways to scientifically test under those real-world conditions.
It is not controlled conditions be damned, IMO, it is more how do you test controlled in the real world where these cameras will mainly be used by our readers?