A camera in this price range doesn't really need to have great burst performance, but we do expect it to have fast AF and single-shot speeds. Unfortunately, the A900 doesn't always meet expectations in this respect. For instance, its shot lag under optimal conditions tends to be inconsistent, ranging from as fast as 0.3 seconds to as high as 0.5 seconds -- the former is quite good, the latter just okay.
Our biggest gripe, however, is with the relatively slow autofocus (at least with the 24-70mm f2.8 lens provided by Sony) in dimmer conditions, like indoor lighting. It's slow enough that we missed several shots of active kittens, and tests out at about 1.2 seconds to focus and shoot. The Nikon D90 feels more responsive. On the upside, DRO doesn't seem to slow down shooting at all.
Technically, we think the A900 produces excellent photos: it has good noise numbers across the range, low colour variation and so on, all of which are manifested in the photos. However, after hundreds of photos, we still didn't experience that 'wow' moment that we expect from a camera in this class. While the A900 can produce sharp photos, usually they're weren't as sharp as we'd like. The high resolution lets you get away with a lack of sharpness, to a certain extent, since you don't have to crop in as far to get the same size print.
Photos get noisy and a bit mushy starting at ISO 1,600 -- we think the Canon 5D Mark II's photos look better. The colour is very good, however -- bright and saturated or subtle when necessary. We did get some odd red-to-orange shifts when using automatic white balance indoors, though.
(Smaller bars indicate better performance)
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Time to first shot | |
Raw shot-to-shot time | |
Shutter lag (dim light) | |
Shutter lag (typical) |
(Longer bars indicate better performance)
Conclusion
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A900 isn't bad for a first full-frame effort, but the company has some catching up to do with Nikon and Canon, both of which have had far longer to refine their products in this class, although Sony's lack of a huge commitment to optical image stabilisation works in its favour here. We really tried, but we just couldn't love this dSLR.
Additional editing by Charles Kloet
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patager 6 April 2011
Good: Overall Feel, clarity and control, traditional features, versatility
Bad: choice of accessories (now becoming better). Battery life when tethered
Comment: I could not have made an informed opinion until now, having learned so much about the camera in the last year and upgrading to first class optics I can safely say its one of the best cameras I have ever owned. (I have owned a fair few). The sensor is amazing as is the dynamic range settings. I have studied the settings and experimented over the menu surrounding it and have completely wiped out the few skirmishes it caused in Photoshop. Initially everyone latched onto the ISO noise and I too stuck to the low numbers for safe shooting but if you can master the DR then you will have no issues. HDR is terrific - shooting the 3 shots with only one shutter movement. All the nice bits are there too - mirror up, preview etc. However, if live view is your thing and Video along with it ... get a Canon. I tend to buy video cameras for Video and at my age and the years behind a viewfinder... I tend to not miss live view. Besides - tethering is tops in my studio. I recommend this camera on value, quality of build, image quality and some very crisp lenses.
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