Sony A99 – DSLR Fast Start
Sony hosts workshops with the World Photography Awards in London (Dpreview).
Sports á la NEX-7 (Matthewdurrphotography).
HolyManta internal ND lens Adapters (Fundedbyme).
Icie: “I did a creative environmental portrait shoot with the NEX-5R and some lights. Mostly used a tilt adapter with a Leica Elmarit-R 28mm f/2.8 lens for this. http://pireze.org/2013/cosplay-photoshoot-akb0048s-atsuko-katagiri/”
Marcin: “I’m currently a member of Dyxum and I just saw one of the recent posts by Eric Lew. He recently came back from his trip to Antarctica and shared with us his amazing pictures. He mentions horrible conditions he encountered and how it not affected the way his Sony A77 worked as well as 16-50 and 70-400 Sony lenses. You can find his blog along with those pictures under this address: http://www.ericlew.com/”
JinJu: “I’ve found this info on a Korean dslr fan site. The reason for RX1’s slow AF speed is turned out to be its hardware, specially the heavy lenses that are actuated for focusing. I’ve included brief translation of the post. the first one is the translation, the other being the original text
http://englishdisabled.tistory.com/admin/entry/post/?id=10
http://www.slrclub.com/bbs/vx2.php?id=minolta_forum&no=729491“
Chris: “For your readers work roundup I have a test comparing the A99 to the Nex5n and EM5 video. The A99 is terrible, much worse than the Nex5n and the EM5. http://chrisjoyphoto.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/a99-interweb-video-test-part-2-sony-a99-vs-sony-nex-5n/ http://chrisjoyphoto.wordpress.com/2013/04/16/a99-interweb-video-test-part-1-sonys-flagship-vs-the-olympus-em5/.”
18 Responses
“He recently came back from his trip to Antarctica and shared with us his amazing pictures. He mentions horrible conditions he encountered and how it not affected the way his Sony A77 worked as well as 16-50 and 70-400 Sony lenses.”
That is a bit of a stretch. The a77 + 16-50 failed after 8 hours, apparently because of moisture. That is in my opinion rather disappointing for a weather sealed camera and lens.
He didn’t use a zip-loc and without proper acclimatization, all gear can suffer from condensation. That’s why pro’s tend to do/use both in such conditions.
As I read it, it failed while he was still outdoor. Condensation is a problem which occurs when you bring the problem from one temperature to another.
It was condensation in the EVF, which is the result of temperature change. In this case a delayed effect.
Wouldn’t that happens to any camera in any harsh environment , or? change a lens any your screwed.
But is this a harsh environment?
Cold, yes. But more moist than other environments? I don’t think so.
I don’t know. I kind of think ice and water could be a source of a lot of moisture, especially in the Antarctic summer, when the ice melt is greatest. But then again, he seems to be happy with how the A77 performed. And with the shots he took, I’d be very happy too. But heck, you could give him a disposeable camera and he’d be able to take great pictures. He’s a talented photographer.
One of Sonys new patents describes a layered organic sensor that incorporates silicon technology also.
The organic portion is better for detecting the light and the silicon technology is better for transmitting electrical info.
Utilizing this technology it seems likely that the new sensor would be BOTH higher sensitivity(iso) AND higher resolution (megapixels).
Hopefully this is the game changer Sony is talking about.
@Frozen No. It would not happen to any camera. I have not followed recent models, but for most of time, Nikon build models which were incredibly durable. Photojournalists took them into war zones. National Geographic photographers brought them on expeditions to Antarctica. Climbers would bring them up Mt. Everest. They would take many times more than Eric’s model went through, and keep shooting. Pentax had a similar reputation. Canon does not, but is still rugged enough for more typical professional work (e.g. wedding photography, where you might have someone puke on your camera, or spill a few drinks on it). Minolta cameras, and now Sony, are not in the same class as even Canon for ruggedization.
This is not a bad thing. Engineering is about tradeoffs, and I have very different requirements than a National Geographic reporter. You pay for that level of weathersealing in ergonomics and weight. A Sony a99 weighs about 60% of what a Nikon D4 does, and about 80% of what a D800 does. Several of the late-model Minolta Maxxum cameras (9Ti and friends) are considered the finest film cameras made for serious amateurs, precisely because they combined high-end functionality with a non-ruggedized (but still reliable) build.
I’ve shot Sony since while it was still Minolta, and I’ve never had a dSLR, dSLT, Sony lens, or Minolta lens fail, and I have not heard of such failures from my community of shooters, including lenses dating back to the eighties.
I have a big enough sample set that I do know of other lines which do have frequent failures (e.g. Tamron lenses wear out after 5-10 years, and Sony point-and-shoots are just craptastic junk).
See my comment above. It’s too simplistic to compare situations and cameras without taking that into account.
I’ve seen an A200 timelapse outdoor while snowing and minus 15C, unprotected for a whole night without issues. It’s not sealed, the lens wasn’t sealed. It was properly acclimatized both before use and after use.
I will phrase it this way. Everyone I know owns ThinkPads, MacBooks, and similar computers (I have a ThinkPad). They’re reliable. I’ve dropped mine many times. I’ve been stuck out in rain with mine once. I’ve had friends spill drinks in theirs. They generally don’t fail as a result. I once had a ThinkPad which I used, quite roughly, for five years (dozens of instances that would have completely broken a modern IdeaPad). In that time, I replaced one bezel and one palmrest after they developed hairline cracks (total cost: $50). They are light, practical, and the right tool for most jobs.
That’s roughly where the a200 and a99 are (most other dSLRs or similar). Maybe the a200 is like the modern Lenovo ThinkPads, while the a99 is a more robust IBM-era T42. If you do a timelapse in the snow, or take them to Antarctica, they’ll survive most of the time. If you get unlucky or do it too many times, they’ll break.
Panasonic makes ToughBooks. They conform to MIL-STD-810G. They’re guaranteed to survive a 6 foot drop onto concrete at any angle. They’re impervious to dust. They can be sprayed with powerful waterjets from arbitrary angles. They are also uncomfortable to use, weigh more than double a comparable Macbook/ThinkPad, and cost $5000. They are the right tools for a journalists in a war zones, an arctic explorers, but not for most people (even “serious computer users”). The high-end Nikons aren’t quite Toughbooks, but they’re pretty darned tough, and that’s the audience.
While there’s this obsession with buying cameras that can be used to drive nails into walls, as with Toughbooks, they’re less practical for most people. I don’t want to lug around a 5lb camera+lens combo just in case I happen to get caught out on a glacier for a week… If I really plan to be caught on one, I’ll rent something. But if you think the build quality of an a200 or a99 is comparable (or even that it would be a good idea to make it comparable), you’re kidding yourself.
So…what’s the deal with the A99 video?
The Sony a77/a99 video quality is hopelessly bad for a camera of that class. They are both outclassed by cameras a fraction of the price. This has been well-known for some time. On the a77, the quality is identical to shooting 720p on an APS sensor, cropping 20%, and upsampling to 1080p. This doesn’t mean the a77 necessarily does shoot at 720p — it’s possible they’re messing something up in post-processing (although it’s hard to imagine what exactly — the debayer step is the only one where I could see something this bad happening). From an end-user’s point of view, the effect is the same — effectively 720p video.
Now we’re starting to see reports that the a99 also does something quite bad.
This needs a proper context. No APS-C DSLR camera of the A77/A65 era performed better in terms of resolution. Only dedicated video cameras and one or two µ4/3 cameras. The simple being that the sensors have to perform lineskipping (to prevent overheating and processor overload) with a crude method to reduce aliasing and moire, which cuts quite a bit of the effective resolution
The A77 and A65 were actually slightly better than the Canon equivalents and the A99 is sits between the 5DMKII and MKIII.
You don’t buy any of these cameras to get maximum resolution, they have other qualities (DR, hybrid flexibility, DOF control etc.).
A65 vs 600D video crop:
http://oi43.tinypic.com/px2zl.jpg
Thank you Zohee35 for putting things into proper perspective. That is exactly correct. All DSLRs shooting video have sensors capable of amzing high resolution images as what their stills can show you..but during video recording from sensor scan to debayering to compression..most of that sensor juice is lost into low detail mush..still better than 3CCD video cameras of the past but nothing close to more dedicated large sensor video cameras of the present. ALL 8bit dslts/mirrorless save for 1 or two (GH2/GH3) can produce very fine resolution 1080p..they are all pretty much the same. I know cause Im an event filmmaker and Ive edited stuff from A55, Nexs, VGs, 60D, 5DMK3 and they are all pretty much the same resolution and details when it comes to fine lines. I cant say anymore that its a codec issue, because we also have an fs100, and using the same 28mbps avchd in 1080p it produces extremely sharp, detailed clean 1080p!Very similar to compressed files I see from the BMCC on vimeo. Its all about the processor cycle for video compression..which the dslrs are weak at..and the dedicated video cameras are good at.
You buy DSLRs for all the other amazing advantages over other video cameras (interchangeable lenses,lowl light,dof,ergonomics) but not for high resolution video details…there are other cameras for that (BMCCs,FS100,C series etc ). You cant single out the A77/A99 for its low detail resolution of fine detail in wide deep dof shots..every other DSLR has em.
Despite the bitrate being the same with the FS and A99, I think that the fact the FS sensor is native 1080p and not being scaled down makes a huge difference in terms of sharpness and noise. The FS100 is a far better low light camera than the A99, I found the noise to be objectionable at about 1600 with the A99, I can get to 6400 on the 5d3 before it becomes unusable. The FS is in the same territory.
And yes..beautiful videos can be produced from A99. https://vimeo.com/64768827
I posted the A99 tests, thanks Andrea for the link!
The A99 does shallow DOF stuff really well, but shots with deep focus are just mush. The aliasing and moire are also the worst I’ve ever seen from any camera, its really bad, look at the rooftops and the masts on the sail boats, yuck.
I’m going to do a comparison with the 5d3 using the same shot locations this week. I suspect it won’t be much sharper, but the moire is far more controlled and it sharpens up better in post thanks to a more robust codec.
http://chrisjoyphoto.wordpress.com/