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The gallery where these Sony Alpha A-700 African Cichlid
photos are located is here.
Today I put the Sony Alpha A700 to the test. These are
one of the the types of photos that I have had published in the past, so I
finally gave these African Cichlids from Lake Malawi a go with the Sony A700.
The lenses I used were the Sigma 24mm F1.8 EX DG and the Konica Minolta 28-75D.
These were shot handheld with only standard tank illumination from above. This
is normally very difficult shooting and to my surprise the Sony A700 passed this
test very easily. I was shooting all the way to ISO6400 without hesitation and
this is simply unheard of in A-mount performance.
The Sony A-100 was really only usable to ISO400 as ISO
800 was not reliable in this environment. The Konica Minolta 5D would top out at
about ISO800 in this test. The A700 seems usable through 2000 and possibly even
beyond to 3200...but this is only part of the story.
The JPG's coming out of Firmware V2.0 are pretty nice,
they have a different feel, but they will print huge without scaling. The Sony
A700 simply nails the exposure with good dynamic range almost every time. This
is a far cry from both the KM5D and the Sony A100 whom both had the their
exposure quirks and inefficiencies. The Sony team has hit the mark with this
metering system, coupled with DRO bigtime! It's makes image making of this type
so much easier it ain't even funny. The A700 has so much latitude in the JPG's
and Raw files it is almost amazing.
The autofocus is spot on quick, tracking focus much
better, and the side focus points are finally usable. To make a long story short
the Sony A700 is a great camera, a much better camera than the KM's and the
A100 before it. The auto-WB works surprisingly well and that is what I used for
this shoot. On all previous A-Mount and KM cameras before it I would need to dip
a white card into the tank and take a manual reading, not this time, very nice
job Sony! I realize Auto WB is not perfect everywhere, but I was very surprised
to see it getting the job done here!
The A700 keeper ratio on this type of shoot is
gi-normous in comparison to what the old A-mount digitals can do. Prints to
20x30 inches are easy for this camera even at medium-high ISO's. The shots
in this fish gallery range from ISO 640 to ISO 3200 and they all are camera
JPG's with minimal processing.
You can take these speaks to the bank...forget
watercolors, forget cooked Raw files, forget perceived softness, forget all of
this techno-pixel-peeping yak, just forget it long enough to take a look
at the images the Sony A-700 is delivering! Once you do this you will realize
the A700 is delivering tremendous images despite whatever flaws you perceive it
may have. And you know what else? 12MP kicks the cra* out of 6MP files when they are well shot. I can crop the daylights out of a Sony A-700 file and still end up with a KM file! I liked the 10MP upgrade and 12 MP is sensational!
This camera rocks...A-mount users do not be afraid,
this is a great piece of kit!
Sonolta 11-03-2007 10:33PM CST
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