A nice video made with the A77: “Light and Wind” by Sony.
Jefferson Graham from USAtoday (Click here) tested the A77. He is a known Canon shooter but I guess he will become soon a Sony user: “If you’re serious about photography and video, spend what it takes. I know I will. I liked the camera so much, I plan on buying it once it is back in stock.” 🙂
There is one more review at Digital-photography-school (Click here) tested the Sony A77: “If you can afford the top glass available for it, this is a phenomenal camera. Deserves to do well in the market. Good news Sony!”
The A77 is almost sold out everywhere. It’s so bad for Sony will have nothing to offer for the big Christmas sales time!
In USA you can find the A77 as part of mega-kits only. Via Brooklyn camera and Yibum on [shoplink 8461 ebay]eBay (Click here)[/shoplink]. And as super-kit on Amazon (Click here) -> sell the huge Monitor 🙂 UDPARE: The Sony A65 is back in Stock via Cameta at Amazon (Click here).
In Europe there are only a few in Stock at Jessops, Warehousexpress, Amazon.fr, Amazon.it, and of course on eBay (Click here).
P.S.: More A77 tests:
Test à hauts ISO des Raw de l’Alpha 77 développés avec Lightroom 3 (Alpha-numerique).
Sony A77 test at Itmedia.
23 Responses
Focus peaking works on all lenses + in video/stills ?
How fast is it ? Would manual focussing with the peaking function work faster than the AF ( especially in low light ) ?
500 $ difference and all the time i see a77 reviews , why almost no detailed a65 reviews – it is the best bang for the buck cam right now , only slightly pricier than a t3i but much more features. No one is buying these or why?
Dprevies.com did a full review of the A65 and awarded it their Gold award, which the A77 didn’t receive – for exactly the reasons you mentioned. I don’t think you are alone.
And as far as peaking being faster than AF, they aren’t really the same thing. Peaking provides you focusing information, how quickly and effectively you use it would be up to you. Cinematographers have gone without AF for a very long time. In professional filmmaking there is a crew role that solely does focus pulling for the cinematographer, they rely solely on distance meters and measuring – that and knowing exactly where actors are going to be at any given time.
How fast is manual focusing? It’s as fast as your hands turning the focus ring I guess.
Fast or slow MF is mostly subjective matter. There are plenty of things to consider, like, focusing throw of the lens, how damped the focusing ring is, how good your focus confirmation tool if you use one and finally how fast your hand turn the ring. But focus peaking is by far the best focus confirmation tool available on earth, but I’m afraid it’s still nowhere near as fast as AF+IR focus helper for low light(not available in some canons).
It works in all lenses too.
Actually, you might be surprised to find out there is a market for the A65, as I am part of that market. Being that the A65 has only come out the same time as the A77, don’t you think that you should give it some time to see how fares against the competition(T3i). And you should know, that as a happy owner of the A65, it received the Gold award on Dpreview.com. That was a shocker to me, since the A77 got the Silver. DPR’s review sums it up pretty well. I was looking at the RebelT3i, shoot I recommended the T2i to a first time DSLR buying friend last year. The A65 lived up to everything I’ve needed for the price I paid for. It’s a good year for Sony. I wish they Nex7 comes out sooner to complete this banner year!
With the focus now starting to happen on the A77 I wonder how long it will be until some serious questions start to be asked of Sony on the additional crop when shooting HD video.
They really should remove this additonal horizontal crop when steady shot is disabled or alternatively provide clear specs on the respective FOV changes. I know there have been a few discussions out there on the likes of dpreview on the additional crop numbers but Sony should give some clear answers on why they have done it, whether they can remove it etc..
When you shoot in the video mode the crop is there from the start. So what you see is what you get. Just turn the dial and you are set to go.
I have already been doing a lot of video with my A77 – and love it. It gives me a lot of control, and the ability to go auto when I need it. The quality with a 50mm f1.4 or a good zoom-lens is astounding.
And BTW, when you are in PASM-mode there are clear markings on the display where the crop will occur.
For VFX work (short film) which is what I will be using mine for the numbers for FOV, film plane are critical for camera tracking.
I agree that the tools are there for composition as I have seen on my own A77 but it would just be good to have more info from Sony on what is actually going on, whether they can use the full width of the sensor etc.
For example on the A55 and also NEX-5n from what I have seen in using them the cropping is only top and bottom for the 1.66 a/r. I would have thought that the top model of the APS-C line up would not have this issue and it is an issue to a degree. 🙂
The 135mm F2.8 footage of the tram looks really lovely.
very boring, my ordered on 26th Oct yet to receive and status of availablity is unknow 🙁
Nice video, but why is there nobody wearing wooden shoes? And where are the tulips? And our new pride to foreigners: the ‘coffee’shops are nowhere to be seen!
Nice review – but if I were Sony I would be pretty tired of getting bad reviews from the hotshoe. I know Sony has been the kings of proprietary, but the hotshoe is a Minolta heritage. For once not a fault of Sony. And the remark about “magnify manual focus” being hidden, must be because he is a Canon-shooter. Yesterday I tried to help a friend with a Nikon D90 set it up for bracketing. WOW that is a menu nightmare. Suddenly my Sony seemed to be very very user friendly.
I agree, Nikon’s menu compared to Canon’s menu is just a headache. Once you get used to it though I’ve been told it gets easy. So being a first timer will really put you off, and if you don’t have any knowledge about cameras you will be doomed. Nikon does have some physical buttons that I wish Canon had.
Once you get used to it you will be fine. The speed of changing settings will differ though, we all know what that leads to.
The Minolta/Sony hot shoe is much better than the ‘standard’ shoe as it has a positive lock, a gun can be easily fitted or removed with one hand. No need to tighten a thumb screw to stop your gun fallIng off or having to carry a pair of pliers to loosen a stubborn screw.
The standard shoe isn’t that standard anyway as the other manufacturers have adapted it over the years in different ways.
Need to agree with Adam..Nikon menu control is a nightmare…..harder than fixing a washing machine..wahkakakakakakakaka…LOL
am I the only person on earth who is bothered by the skipping and snagging that occurs on DSLR Video?? Accpet for absolute slowest pans you can’t move the camera at all w/out ruining the shot. Do not buy a DSLR for video unless you’re capturing talking heads because the motion flaws are a real show stopper.
But video in DSLRs is an excellent way to get shallow depth of field without spending a huge amount of money for a dedicated large sensor video camera. And Sony’s a77 aims to address the problem of accurately focusing during video capture. So for video shooters, the a77 looks like a really good deal.
The video is really nice. I also wonder how nice this 16-50 SSM must be. It seems very very good!!
For the record, there is no monitor on the Amazon mega-package. That is an shade for the rear LCD.
Two things: Do the videos seem a little dark? Does that vary depending on my monitor like stills? Also seems like the whole scene is taking on a color cast, one that is in the scene and it maybe real, I do see that where the sea or sky pick up each others colors. The green scenes seemed the worst. It is almost like it too sensitive picking up colors.
It is also funny how still photographers either move to slow or too fast when they hit video. Learning curve,no? Some of those shots had no movement and I was thinking was this a still photo?
I enjoyed the footage:) nicely done. Tried both a65 and a77 and had mixed feelings about them. Mostly positive about a77 and I may get one once the FW is completed and raw conversion software settles down on good settings. A900 had similar path, look at its RAWs now and tell me it’s noisy:)
Honestly, not so good.
also here is in stock a77: http://www.cyfrowe.pl/aparaty/sony-slt-a77v-i-ob-16-50-.html
and they ship world wide
Here is a video I shot of a basketball game recently w/ the A77 + stock lens… autofocus is incredible, especially in such a fast paced game!
http://www.vcuramnation.com/2011/12/video-vcu-defeats-south-florida/