Sony A900 Review at DPReview
GeneralThis was posted a little while back, but I hadn’t gotten around to reading through it until today: it’s DPReview’s Sony A900 review.
They point out a few areas where the Sony A700 has better specs than the A900, which are all related to burst shooting capacities. For example, the A700 can shoot 18 frames of RAW in burst mode before pausing, while the A900 only does 12. This is no big surprise given the resolution increase between the two cameras (12.2 megapixels to 24.6 megapixels) and the much larger amounts of data that the A900 needs to move around with each picture taken. In every other specification measurement, the A90 is a clear improvement over the A700, except for the slightly larger size and heavier weight (895g with battery for the A900 versus 768g with battery for the A700.)
DPReview brings out a big wheelbarrow full of sarcasm with the choice quote, “Once again Sony has included that professional photography essential, the Memory Stick Duo slot.” They also helpfully describe the Memory Stick slot as “a small, narrow place to keep dust.” Who knows what Sony was thinking with putting Memory Stick Duo slots on their “professional” level cameras, other than their usual “we’re going to keep pushing our useless proprietary format long past the point where we become the laughing stock of the industry.” See also ATRAC.
Like other reviewers, DPReview loved the A900′s viewfinder:
Aside from the headline-grabbing sensor there’s no doubt that the single feature Sony decided to concentrate on with the Alpha 900 was the viewfinder (even the design looks like the entire camera was built around the prism). And what a viewfinder it is; with 100% field of view and an incredibly bright, clear image it sets a new standard for this class of camera that I can’t see being improved upon in the near future. The eye relief is a little tight (you need to get pretty close to see the entire engulfing view), but boy is it worth it. Start using the Alpha 900 ‘in the field’ and you soon forget about fripperies like live view and simply enjoy the experience of a truly involving photographic experience.
They also pick on the new top panel LCD display as being relatively useless, although they combine that with praise for the “superb interface” on the main LCD screen. But it does seem like a silly feature. People who complain about cheap DSLRs that don’t have a separate status LCD screen want one because it provides constantly available information at a glance while shooting, and the A900′s status LCD just doesn’t manage to pull off that function (since almost no information is always there, forcing you to press a button to temporarily display one of the limited bits of information they let you use the display for.) Using such a tiny display also means the information is much more confusing than any other DSLR I’ve ever seen:
The fact that the display appears to be based on a dime store digital watch also means that the values are displayed in what is occasionally rather crude and far from immediately obvious manner (High speed continuous, for example, appears as ‘oooH’) – there are very few icons
That sounds more like the LCD display you’d get on one of those $15 keychain digicams than what you’d expect to find on a top-of-the-line digital SLR.
DPReview managed to get tremendously better battery life than Luminous Landscape did intheir A900 field review; LL was getting around 250 shots per charge, while DPReview says they were right in the ballpark of the CIPA standard-rated 880 shots that Sony’s specs claim. I’m not sure what would cause such a huge discrepancy, unless Luminous Landscape had a faulty battery, or using the battery in slightly colder outdoor temperatures (they reported using it between freezing and 65 degrees Fahrenheit) has a much larger impact than expected on battery life. My unfounded guess would be the former.
One extra-interesting element of their review is a look at the Image Data Converter SR 3.0 software that’s included with the camera for RAW conversion. This looks like one horrible piece of software. A quick glance at 100% crops of a resolution chart shot shows that in-camera JPEGs look much better than RAW files converted with the IDC software; their software results in tons of moire artifacts and blurring of the highest frequency lines on the test chart. The JPEGs show much milder moire artifacts. They also compare it with Adobe Camera Raw, which, as expected, beats IDC and JPEG at the resolution chart. Other tests show that IDC applies more sharpening than plain JPEGs or ACR, which generally isn’t what you want out of your RAW converter.
For high ISO noise, they find slightly higher noise levels in the A900 than in the cameras they compared it to (the Nikon D700, Canon 5D, and Canon 1Ds Mark III) up to ISO 400. At higher ISOs the difference becomes more marked, with Sony throwing more and more noise reduction at the image to try to reduce noise, sacrificing detail to the ISO Gods in the process. “By ISO 3200 the result is a blurry mess with little fine detail – with the added insult of visible chroma noise in the shadow areas. I think it’s fair to say that ISO 3200 and 6400 are firmly in the ‘emergency use only’ bracket (of course with 24MP to play with you shouldn’t have many problems at small print sizes).” They also point out that the A900 just has a very noisy sensor, and so the difference between NR turned off and NR turned to the lowest level is huge; there’s not nearly as much difference between low NR and high NR.
Thankfully, it looks like Sony hasn’t done the same thing that they did with the original A700 firmware, where they were doing noise reduction in RAW files to try to deal with how noisy the A700′s sensor was. They can’t be completely sure, but DPReview’s testing makes it look likely that the A900 gives you a true RAW file, at least from the standpoint of unwanted noise reduction.
Comparing noise to other cameras, in RAW mode:
Unsurprisingly the D700′s larger pixels give it a distinct advantage here, and show clearly that at higher ISO settings it’s not all about pixel counts — the ISO 6400 output retains noticeably more detail than the Alpha 900 with visibly lower noise. But it’s also worth noting that at ISO 1600 the three cameras are broadly comparable (Sony has more chroma noise but also the most resolution). At ISO 3200 Canon shows that its in-camera JPEG processing does a far better job at removing noise without destroying information (and that the actual noise levels in raw are lower than Sony’s).
And wow, 6400 ISO is really, really bad on the A900. It would be an interesting experiment to figure out how large you could print a 6400 ISO photo before the noise became visible. At some small photo size, the noise should be able to be averaged together with surrounding pixels so that you can’t see it. The question is, how small would it need to be? This should even be able to be simulated in Photoshop by shrinking the image until noise become invisible, but you’d have to work out the DPI and size in inches that give you a nice, sharp photo at that resolution. Maybe when I get a free hour I’ll play around with it.
DPReview joins the other reviews I’ve seen in stating that the A900 gives you an absolutely amazing dynamic range: “All the lab results tied in with our observations when using the A900 in the field; JPEG dynamic range (and particularly highlight range in the region over ‘mid gray’) is excellent, and there’s even more in the raw files if you need it. Impressive stuff.”
Overall, they really liked the image quality of the A900:
Overall there’s really little to complain about here – and much to like – and I’d only caution concern if you regularly intend to shoot at ISO 1600 or higher. 100% comparisons are a valid and useful way to check out the absolute limits of a camera’s resolving power, but in my book the superb tonality, appealing color and surprisingly reliable metering / focus systems count for a lot and mean the Alpha 900′s output at lower ISO settings is amongst the best we’ve seen.
Interestingly, they come to a different conclusion than the Luminous Landscape review. LL predicts that the A900 will put a huge dent in the Nikon D3x sales, and be one of the top cameras in its target market along with the Canon 5DMkII. DPReview, however, doesn’t think it’ll break out of the Konica/Minolta faithful:
In conclusion this is, more than anything else at this end of the market, a true photographer’s camera, with at least one totally unique feature (the Super SteadyShot stabilization) and one that offers the best viewfinder and highest nominal resolution (and the lowest ‘cost per megapixel, incidentally) in its class. It’s capable of stunning results at up to ISO 400 (and is fine at ISO 800-1600 as long as you’re not printing posters), and it is incredibly fast and responsive in use. If Sony had managed to keep the price nearer to the $2000 mark (even if this meant fewer megapixels) I think it would be flying off the shelves. As it stands it will, I fear, struggle to make a serious impression on anyone other than the Sony/Minolta faithful. One thing is clear, however: anyone who thinks a consumer electronics giant can’t make a heavyweight photographic tool is seriously misguided.
As long as you take into account our reservations about the high ISO image quality (which we’d more easily forgive on a camera that wasn’t the best part of $3000), the Alpha 900 is a camera that just, by the skin of its teeth, offers enough to gain our highest award.
It’ll be interesting to see what actually happens with this camera, which is certainly a unique and groundbreaking one for Sony.
