Digital Camera Preview – Hands On With The Sony A55
My first effect is that Sony has created a minimal shape digital unmarried lens digital camera. A first glance had me wondering what the digital camera could be cramped to preserve and that my hands may accidentally spark off buttons. Both of those worries proved to be misplaced, the frame healthy properly into my arms, and the stability becomes superb. Overall the A55 with the package 18-fifty five lenses hooked up appeared very widespread and quite solid.
Before I dive into this virtual digicam’s precise functions, I need to touch upon some of Sony’s nicer touches. The swiveling rear LCD combination viewfinder/screen is absolutely very sharp and gives a respectable view even in slight sunlight. The electronic eye-level viewfinder might not be the same as the view via a direct view prism, but it becomes greater than enough. I appreciated the eye-level finder’s synthetic horizon show, which helped me maintain the digicam degree while handheld.
Powering up the camera turned into nearly instant. The rear LCD displayed applicable settings records as a border all of the manners around the stay photo view. The stay image switches from the rear LCD to the eye-level finder when the camera’s sensors discover that you have raised the digicam for your eye.
Operationally the A55 is just like any other single-lens virtual camera. Buttons and switches are marked with familiar icons and labels; the ubiquitous four-way controller is underneath the proper thumb, just as on some other digital camera. The command and mode dials are simply in which I would expect to find them. In quick, whilst the camera is up to the eye, a photographer familiar with a Nikon or Canon digital camera might not fumble very a good deal whilst looking for the controls.
And now allow’s the review of how the Sony A55 is very one of a kind. So far, I had regarded the A55 as a Digital Single Lens (DSL) digicam, leaving off the “reflex” (R) a part of the description applied to different, more conventional models.
In a traditional digicam, a mirror hangs down in the photo path among the rear of the lens and the digicam’s shutter and picture sensor. This mirror reflects the incoming photograph up into the eye-level viewfinder and onto recognition and publicity sensors. Each time the shutter button is tripped, this replicate must pop up out of the way so that the picture can skip even though to the photosensor. After the shutter opens and closes, the replicate resets into the picture path, and the eye-level finder view is restored. This reflexive up and down action gives us the “R” in DSLR.
Sony’s A55 does indeed have a replicate sitting inside the image route between the lens and sensor. However, this replicate doesn’t flow up and all the way down to get out of the manner while the shutter is tripped. The replicate of the A55 is half of the mirror, so pix each reflect up from it and skip through it as nicely. Think of mirrored sun shades or a two-way mirror, for instance. But why did Sony suppose this turned into a better concept than a shifting reflex replicate?
Reflex mirrors have a blackout moment every time the shutter button is tripped. For a breakup 2nd no longer best is the photographer blind, but so are the focal point and exposure sensors. For nevertheless, images captured at a brisk 5 or six frames in step with second, this isn’t always a huge issue. However, if the producer desires to offer a digicam with up to 10 frames in keeping with 2nd, the blackout duration would almost exceed the viewing period. Hence, awareness and publicity are less certain. Plus, there may be a large quantity of damping required to save your internal vibrations that could lead to blurred snapshots – a part of what makes traditional cameras capable of 10 FPS so pricey.
The largest plus of a non-reflex mirror design is discovered within the video mode. A conventional camera layout calls for that the replicate be up and out of the way for video capture. With the replication up to the focal point and exposure, sensors are blind. The digital camera must be manually focused or rely upon no longer so excellent comparison-based totally autofocus. Since the Sony A55 mirror is usually down and in play, the focus and publicity sensors are continually operational. In this manner, the Sony A55 can capture 1080p HD films with fully automatic consciousness and publicity, something that no other DSL can do properly.
In operation, I located that the A55 in movie mode does outperform most different DSLRs that I’ve used. The video is not better excellent (we will see that in a second); however, the revel in of taking pictures changed into by some distance convenient.
I did have numerous issues with the Sony A55. Many of my problems likely come from the last time I had with the digicam and would probably go away with better familiarity:
The A55 offers in-digicam HDR nevertheless photo capture. The digicam will take numerous fast exposures at various settings and then combine them into one with extra tonal range. The effects were desirable approximately forty% of the time. I observed that most often, the digicam’s HDR consequences had been too cartoon-like in the shade with blooming reds and heat colors. Niggling detail – once set to HDR, the photographer has to turn it off even after strength down and restart manually. Forgetting to do this could result in the digicam taking an HDR photo the following time it’s far turned on.
Video hues are regarded to be strong too. It may be that I much like more realistic evaluation and coloration, but the A55 appears to add a few “pop” to warm colorings in the video simply as it did in HDR. I did not take care of it. However, my spouse, without a doubt, appreciated it, so it’s far a be counted of personal taste.
Sony’s heavy reliance on pictorial descriptions of shooting modes within the menu machine simplest the sluggish things down for a sophisticated shooter. I consider that even a person new to publicity modes will quickly tire of the 2-beat postpone before the pictorial screen actions directly to the actual menu display.
I actually have a few pretty properly video editing software programs from Nero and Adobe. However, the Sony video output couldn’t be opened with either logo. The AVCHD video format captured by the A55 appears to require the first skip via the protected Sony software program before my video suites could manipulate the films.
Conclusion: The Sony A55 is proper on target for two sorts of the photographer. First is the photographer moving up from a compact virtual camera to appreciate the simple menu machine with pictorial help. The second group is the circle of relatives photographer who needs a distinctly reliable nevertheless digital camera with far simpler than common video capture. The photographer who handiest wishes video on few events and for a short period will in all likelihood be interested in a Nikon or Canon fashions for his or her larger device of add-ons and decrease access price.
