Sony A900 Full-Frame: Hands-On Preview
by Wesley Fink on September 12, 2008 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Digital Camera
A900 Praise
When a camera and company truly break new ground, as the A900 does, there is plenty to like. The A900 also exhibits quite a few market firsts:
The blue bars are the 9 AF sensors and the green bars are the 10 hidden AF assist points.
The outer lines are used to compose 16:9 HD format, and the etched corners are APS-C mode.
The outer lines are used to compose 16:9 HD format, and the etched corners are APS-C mode.
- The Most Amazing Viewfinder - If the reason for an SLR is the through-the-lens view, and it certainly is in the opinion of most, then the A900 wins in spades with the brightest, sharpest viewfinder seen in any SLR in a long time - perhaps ever. Sony and the Minolta engineering staff they bought have lavished attention on the prism and 100% view and it clearly shows. The only complaint is that eye-relief, while excellent, could be even better. It will be difficult for some eyeglass wearers to see the whole viewfinder and displays without moving their eye a bit. The view is so beautiful and clear you will definitely want to see it all.
- A 24.6MP CMOS Sensor - Some will complain that noise is not as low as the Nikon D3 at high ISOs, and the answer is so what? The A900 is the highest resolution full-frame you can buy and twice the resolution of the D3. If you think that doesn't matter ask a working professional who is trying to supply images to his ad agency. Image buyers are demanding larger and larger files from photographers and the Sony delivers.
- Body-Integrated Image Stabilization - Calling it SteadyShot Inside instead of Super SteadyShot is just a marketing decision. The technology is still "Super SteadyShot" and Sony had to beef up the drive motors by 50% just to keep up with the added motion of a full-frame. Industry observers marveled when Minolta made the APS-C sensor Image Stabilized, because it was so much harder than stabilizing the tiny P&S sensors. We should all stand in awe that Sony accomplished body IS in a full-frame sensor.
- Image Stabilization with Any Lens - With body IS any lens you can mount can be an IS lens. This is particularly welcomed in very large aperture lenses, which are often prohibitively expensive for optical IS since such huge elements have to be compensated. Sony has taken advantage of this with a growing collection of fast, but very expensive, Zeiss lenses.
- Rugged Magnesium Alloy Body with Complete Weather Sealing - Sony passed around the alloy shell of the A900 at the A900 introduction. It is amazing how light the structure actually is considering the incredible strength of the assembled shell. We also saw full seals and gaskets for all buttons and openings and the rubber gaskets for ports seal effectively but are still easy to remove and reseal.
- Very Decent High ISO Noise - Compared to its real competition, which is the Canon 1Ds Mark III, the Sony sensor is amazingly low noise. According to pro photographers we talked with who have been shooting the A900 for several weeks the A900 is cleaner at ISO 800 and 1600 than the Mark III and just as clean at ISO 400. If this proves to be true in test comparisons this should certainly be considered a Sony success. The Canon 5D replacement may write a new chapter in this comparison, but only if it destroys the 1Ds Mark III performance. The A900 is not a D3 or D700 as it only goes to ISO 6400 and shooting at 3200 and 6400 is a when needed option - not something you want to do routinely. However, the A900 is also twice the resolution of the D3 and D700.
- 126 MB per Second - the Dual BIONZ processors in the A900 move 126MB/sec at the 5 fps shooting speed - faster even than the Canon 1Ds III. That's pretty good performance for a camera that will sell for $3k instead of the $8K for the Canon.
- Flash that Makes L Brackets Obsolete - Fortunes have been made with L brackets for pro cameras that enable shooting flash vertical with the flash also rotated 90 degrees. When you see the new Sony HVL-F58AM flash, you'll wonder why Sony - or you, or anyone else - didn't think of it sooner. The flash head turns smoothly in a 90 degree arc as one of its movements - aligning the flash perfectly for portrait mode. Goodbye L bracket.
- Sony PhotoHD output to Bravia TV - The support for direct tethered output via HDMI to Sony's Photo HD on a Sony Bravia TV is no passing feature. The performance and results seen at the Toronto hands-on were stunning. Output from the A900 model shoot and the studio shoot with fishing lures and flies was direct to huge Sony HD Bravia displays.
- Complete Familiarity - Users of the Sony A700 will have no learning curve at all, which is always a good thing. The layout of the A700 and A900 and grips are exactly the same, making for instant familiarity.
- True RAW Files - The Sony A700 has been criticized by some sites for not providing true RAW images, as even the Sony RAW had some noise-reduction applied with questionable success. The A900 finally has the RAW option of "No Noise Reduction". Sony will also provide this option to A700 owners in the upcoming firmware version 4.
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yyrkoon - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
If I had any personal gripes with Sony,it would be because of their 'business tactics' in the past with things mentioned by Westley here. Westley made mention of the 'battery issue', but what he did not mention was Sony's bad judgment in the past concerning rootkits.Sure, Sony's motivation for installing 'software' on a system without the users knowledge may have had to do with protecting their IP(DRM), but I have to question any company who deems they have the right to take control of any system that does not belong to them. Also, for those who may think that this is no big deal, keep in mind that even USB thumb drives, etc have their own MAC address.
What does this mean to the end user you may ask ? This means that anyone of us *could* potentially be locked out of the hardware that we payed hard earned cash for at the whim of a company who obviously has serious moral issues.
Thankfully Mark Russinovich caught this back in 2005, but it took several class action suits, and a court order that made Sony pay up $150 to each affected individual before they stopped shipping the CDs(almost two years later).
Now onto the subject of lenses. Zeiss also makes Nikon glass, but according to Ken Rockwell (heh yeah I know . . .) Zeiss actually does not make these lenses(some other company in Japan does), and most of, or all of these are MF. Ken Rockwell then goes on to say - "When photographers want quality they use larger format cameras, not 35 mm. " Nothing he says here really matters to me. All I care about is how well any given lens I purchase performs. I suppose the part he mentions going to a different format for quality does sort of make sense, but since I am not a 'professional photographer', my Nikon DSLR will just have to do . . . The thing is though, Zeiss is not the end all be all of lenses, and other manufactures make good lenses as well (Nikon for one).
I did the research more than 1.5 years ago when purchasing my first DSLR, and at that time, there just was not a broad enough lens selection available for the Alpha 100. Obviously I decided against it(and I do have my reasons), but with shooting pictures with a decent DSLR, I am finding that knowing how to use a camera in the first place makes more of a difference than the 'quality' of equipment used.
In the meantime, while the latest Alpha may have some desirable features, and can use some seemingly nice glass. I think I would have to pass on the 'latest flavor' of the month. Also seems to be yet another company who can not get it into their heads that the 'big MP penis' *thing* was a last year and before trend. While this year savvy photographers have been asking for, and want more dynamic range . . .
melgross - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Yes. Right now, most of Sony's lenses are old, and not intended for digital sensors. There are a few Zeiss lenses, which are certainly good, though not quite up to the standard of their third party offerings for Nikon, and now Canon. But their Sony models do auto focussing, which the Nikon and Canon models do not.It's surprising that their sony models, at the prices that they sell for are not weather sealed as Canon and Nikon's own lenses are.
Heidfirst - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
1. Sony have made it very clear all through the A900 development that they do not consider the A900 a Pro body (albeit capable of being used by a Pro).I guess a proper Pro body (or several) comes later if they decide that they really want to seriously target that market.
2. the reason that there is no increase in burst speed in APS-C mode is that Minolta/KM & now Sony have never had a shutter/mirror mechanism that can do more than 5fps i.e. it's the shutter that is the limiting factor not the image processing abilities.
3. batteries - yes, it's dear compared to generics but it's no dearer than equivalent Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax genuine batteries.
& I've got to say that it's a great battery in terms of performance so I don't need as many.
Keepitpro - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
Sony is an Industry standard in broadcasting with their video cameras, expect it to become a reference standard in photography as time passes. They have the engineering power to solve problems, and almost an unlimited budget to make things happen. They are the freshman in the SLR market and already making good decisions, it's only a matter of time before they get all of it right. The other question to factor in is how the photo industry will accept Sony as a future industry standard. Artist and photographers tend to stick with what they know and love. Lets see how their incredible marketing team handles that. It might be Sony take over, PS3 stile.Only time will tell.
Milleman - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
Looks interresting, but there are a few things that stops me from buying right now. First, it's the first of its kind in a new breed from Sony. Some functions and engineering is just great, while some other seems premature or even absent. Onther big backlash is the batteries. I don't wanna end up with a "Sony-only" choice of battery source. I have have a friend that is tied to the Sony batt-packs, and he claims it is really a pain in the ass.For now on, I'll probably wait until Nikon or Canon turns up with a similar 24 MP unit, just because of what I mentioned.
roweraay - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
Actually, the entire range of Konica-Minolta engineers are in Sony's employ and you cannot get any more expertise than that, from a photography perspective, regardless of manufacturer. As far as electronics and sensor technology is concerned, Sony has been doing that for a while, including as a supplier to Nikon.Bottomline, in the "DSLR", the "D" aspect is covered through Sony's own expertise/know-how and the "SLR" aspect is covered through the prior Konica-Minolta engineers.
I would not have too much concern about Sony being new to this field.
They did have some mis-steps when the A700 was initially released one year back, by applying NR onto RAW (BAD in my book) but they have completely reversed course, with the upcoming release on Sept.16th, of Firmware Ver.4, which completely changes things for the better.
Now the RAW files are virgin-untampered-RAW-files (with the NR-OFF setting) and is unbelievably detailed even at ISO 6400 and seemingly has even more luminance data in it than its peer, the Nikon D300 (which shares roughly the same sensor).
chiew - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
how much is sony paying you ;)i'm going to wait for some side by side comparisons by phil askey, etc before putting my money into something that isn't even on the market yet.
rjm55 - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
I suppose if you have already decided to buy Canon or Nikon then waiting for Phil's side-by-side makes sense. You can always be sure Canon or Nikon will be the winner in Phil's reviews. And dpreview and their parent Amazon are obviously paying me nothing.chiew - Sunday, September 14, 2008 - link
are you saying you are more qualified to compare cameras side by side than phil or any other site's reviewers? dpreview was just one site i mentionedKorruptioN - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
It has been generally seen that Phil favours his Nikons and Canons over something "different", such as a Sony. Cameras that are technically stronger but are of the "different" nameplate earn lower final ratings than a camera from one of the proven stablemates.