At first when you pick up the A77, the
immediate reaction is, that this is a big and heavy camera. The body of
the camera itself is about 700gms add the 15-105mm lens and you get a
1.4 KG shooter. The camera is solid and weather sealed, thanks to the
robust Magnesium alloy body. The ergonomics are brilliant and we
preferred carrying the camera without a strap since the front grip of
the body is nice and rubberized making for brilliant handheld use.
On the inside is where it all happens, instead of a traditional flapping mirror,
Sony
has instead used a translucent mirror. The fixed mirror sits in front
of the 24.2 MP Exmor APS CMOS sensor and allows only 2/3 of the light on
the sensor. The rest is bounced off to a 2.1 Million dot OLED
viewfinder. The top of the camera has a monochrome LCD, along with
controls for ISO, white balance, exposure, and a viewfinder / LCD
toggle.There are scroll wheels at the front and rear for your right
index finger and thumb, and a very convenient power switch ring on the
shutter button.
Controls are aplenty for those who like
setups, a button for AE lock, display options. The left of the camera
has microphone input, Mini USB and Mini HDMI ports, a PC Sync socket for
connecting external lights, a remote control port, and an AC adapter
jack.The camera also accepts SD/SDXC or Sony’s MemoryStick duo cards,
rather than the usual CF.
Features and Controls
If you are looking for filters on a
camera then, you probably need to look in the lower region of the price
bracket, a pro shooter like the A77 usually does not carry those. But
there is this camera that does HDR, Toy Camera and Miniature, plus a few
filters like Vivid and Monochrome. Apart from the multiple face detect,
it also has Smile-Shutter and a sweep panorama. You also have
selectable 19 AF points and full manual focus guide. The camera body
also has an orientation sensor that ensures that the camera is flat with
the ground and performs like a bubble meter. We would have rather had a
gyro/accelerometer that would have told us that our camera is straight
even when looking up or down away from the flat surface.
A full bevy of manual controls along
with selectable/dedicated buttons makes the use of the camera simple yet
professional. The easy to navigate menu and the robust mode dial are
simple enough for a novice user, and advanced enough for the pro-user.
The inbuilt GPS chip, which lets you
geotag your photos and then plot them on a map using iPhoto, Picasa, etc
is also wonderful, it does drain an awful lot of battery though. The
GPS was also about 50-100m off the exact target. But works none the less
Lenses, Viewfinder and Display
The lens we got with the camera was a
15-105mm lens, but there are over 90 lenses available for Sony’s alpha
mount and several adapters to allow mounting of Canon and Nikon lenses
(Sans Autofocus) and more third party lenses from Sigma, Tamaron and the
likes. The lenses are heavy duty and built to last, they do have
excellent glass allowing for, dare i say, “crispy” images and wonderful
low light performance. The lenses are also relatively cheaper than the
lenses of say – Canon or Nikon, because Sony lenses don’t have Image
stabilisation. That feature is inbuilt into the camera and works
wonderfully well, not only allowing for great handheld video but also,
impressive low light performance
The electronic viewfinder is the point
of controversy, where some debate that nothing can be better that a
optical viewfinder, I personally prefer the OLED viewfinder. My reason
is simple, due to the display-esque nature of the viewfinder, a lot more
information is available to the user. The ability to preview the image
in the viewfinder is even better, so now without pulling out of the
camera looking at the LCD and then taking another picture, one can click
a picture, preview it within the viewfinder and move on.
But here lies another issue, if you are
in single frame shot mode, then each click will show a preview before
you click another, hence delaying the ability to click photographs in a
scenario where you know your shots are good. You can press the button
halfway through the preview, but its still not as fast as it would be on
an optical finder. So, consider yourself pre-warned.
The LCD is filled by 921,600 dots, and
has the wonderful TruBlack technology, so black infact that it mingles
with the accuracy of photos adding contrast on the LCD. It’s viewable in
sunlight, but still a little off. The LCD also attracts a lot if dust
and grime, fingerprints and face oils so a wonderful
screen protector will do wonders. if you cant find one you can always cut a Mobile phone
screen protector and make your own DIY project. Although a 3 inch size should be easy to find.
The LCD is flippilty and Floppity! Okay,
it has a 3 hinge mechanism (happy?) and allows viewabilty for the
camera with any possible angle, even forward. One issue arises here
aswell, since the screen can face forward either from below or above the
camera, in a situation where one has say a Microphone on top and and
the A77 is placed on a tripod, it is practically impossible to view the
LCD. In this situation a Canon Style flip-out to the side LCD wins by
leaps and bounds.
Interface
The Simple interface is easy to go
through, the best part is that its a single menu system that you
navigate with the joystick. In Manual and Semi-Manual modes the Fn
button allows for customizations of settings such as ISO levels, Shutter
Speed and Aperture Size.
The menu is very easy to understand and
customise, but is a little slow, the whole camera interface suffers from
old man syndrome. Turn on the camera and the monochromatic LCD takes
about 3 seconds, click the menu button and there is a simple pause for
about a second or two.
We also definitely agree with the
proximity sensor issue, that we also highlighted in the video. Though
the ability to shift to a full time Viewfinder display is there, its not
the best solution. Shifting from the LCD to the Viewfinder, a simple
proximity sensor turns off the LCD and turns on the Viewfinder, the lag
is sometimes so much, that those precious seconds can make or break your
shot.
Performance and Image Quality
Step aside people the A77 has arrived!
Remove any and all doubts about the translucent mirror and the 1/3 light
loss. The camera uses the same 24.3-megapixel APS-C seen in NEX cameras
and possibly Nikon cameras aswell. Colors are accurate and clear, and
images are sharp and clean.
White balance problems occur indoors
where everything seems a little warmer on the camera, but is easily
fixed by selecting indoor on WB settings. The camera is stunningly sharp
thanks to the impressive in-body IS that allows for images to be crisp
even with shaky hands, even at night.
Low light performance, as mentioned many times, is impeccable. The
camera shoots at ISO 24600 with boost, but we don’t recommend that.
Images are Noise free till about ISO 800 and then you start to see grain
in the images. 1600-3200 is still usable, but beyond that will bring
you to the stone ages. By default the A77 will only go up to ISO 1600 in
Auto mode, but you can set it to go as high as ISO 12,800 through the
menu.
Although there is no real need for a 24.3 MP sensor, the large image
size, and the crisp images allow for a 100% crop without any loss of
detail. Images when shooting in RAW+ JPEG will take up almost 40-60 MB
of space an will slow you down if you don’t have a high capacity and
high speed card.
The A77 can shoot 12 full-resolution
frames per second, and captures about 20 frames in two seconds before
slowing down to allow a Class 10 standard card to buffer, get a faster
card and possibly have limitless shooting. The best feature of the
camera is now demonstrated, even at high fps, image sharpness and focus
is in place. Out of the many continous images you will capture, rarely
you will find flaws with it. Making it a semi-studio owners pride and
joy.
Video Features.
SLR video is a big thing nowadays and
Sony didn’t want to be left out, since video is their thing. Sony not
only added Video but did something to set a benchmark for other
companies. The SLT a77 focuses so brilliantly in Video mode that it
almost performs as good as a professional broadcast camera with auto
focus. The ability to capture 1080p video at 60p makes for fun video and
playback at high speed or double the frame rate. Other formats
include 1440 x 1080 @ 30fps, 640 x 424 @ 30fps, and 1080p @ 24fps.
The ability to add an external
microphone and a headphone out for monitoring make for a wonderful
excuse to buy this camera, which offers exceptional – shallow depth of
field – video.
Conclusion
The A77 is the only camera, that not
only lives up to expectations, but out performs them. Roughly a lac
(about $2000) for the bundle sets it at a semi pro price point, but as a
1 Lac rupee camera it does a lot more. Brilliant photography is just
one element. Video features that wow, fast autofocus, weather sealed
body and brilliant in-body image stabilisation just to name a few other.
The camera does come with its own set of defects, including the laggy
interface and the controversial viewfinder. What adds to the pie is the
slow LCD to Viewfinder switch time and honestly the lack of a
touchscreen (call me simple, but a touchscreen would have improved
video performance ten folds).
