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We clicked with:
Intuitive design and layout
Flash and Dynamic Range upgrades
Shots in the dark:
It's not pretty
No Live View
Kit lens should be better
RAW limited to 12bit
Price Comparison:
Sony a700 DSLR
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(Review is of Sony a700K kit, which includes 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 kit lens)
Japanese consumer electronics giant Sony picked up the pieces of Konica Minolta's camera division almost exactly two years ago. The most obvious result of this combination of Konica Minolta digital photo smarts and Sony muscle is the Alpha DSLR range. The Sony DSLR-A700 is only the second model in this range - building on the success of the A100 launched in late 2006.
The Alpha system retains the Minolta lens mount, which not only gives the Sony DSLR range an ever-expanding range of new lenses, but a wealth of second-hand Minolta flashguns and optics too (essentially, every autofocus Minolta SLR lens made in the last 20 years will work with the Sony DSLR-A700 and the A100).
That Minolta-isation extends to the body shape itself, with the Sony Alpha range having a strong similarity to Minolta SLR and DSLR designs. Depending on your viewpoint, this makes the camera seem like an old friend, or a chunky and boxy plastic over magnesium Klingon battlecruiser. If nothing else, it invites strong opinions.
Features
It's the sheer plethora of useful features that gain your attention first. It's not just the presence of the long list of features, as much as the way in which they are cleverly placed across the Sony DSLR-A700's body - allowing for some very intuitive, environmentally-sealed and well-placed controls. These include:
One-touch White Balance has all the user friendly pre-sets, plus is taken to pro level with manual adjustment (2500-9900K), and even pseudo magenta or green filters can be dialled in to compensate for fluorescent lights.
One-touch ISO ranges from 100-3200, with a noise-heavy ISO 6400 top end available, continuing the very much “1 touch” theme.
Sony's Super Steady Shot technology provides fairly solid in-camera image stabilisation, coupled with a dual anti-dust system that engages when turning off.
The company likes to integrate as much as possible between products - the Sony DSLR-A700 sports Memory Stick Duo support (which, if you are familiar with Playstation Portable - PSP - will ring a bell), as well as a 16:9 ratio and HDMI output - ideal for beaming images direct from camera to your screen in eye-wateringly high quality detail to your shiny new Sony Bravia widescreen telly.
Despite the rich feature list, it's not without omissions. Perhaps the biggest one is the lack of Live View. Maybe the engineers were too busy in the development of the new 12.2 megapixel 'Exmor' CMOS sensor and the 'Bionz' image processor to notice that in the intervening time between the launch of the A100 and the Sony DSLR-A700, Live View has become a standard expectation in DSLR, particularly those tilting the scales past the £1,000 mark.
Operation
This is where the Sony comes into its own. The abundance of “1 touch” buttons may sound excessive, but really add to the fluidity of using the camera. White Balance, ISO, AF/MF and Exposure comp, and a user-defined Custom button all befit the easy set up and control, otherwise there's a funky little 'joystick' on the back to toggle through all the menus with ease. All of the changes made by these controls are displayed in the viewfinder, which still manages to remain very comfortable to the eye. There's also a lot of information available on the three-inch 'X-Fine' rear LCD screen
Given the speed of auto focus, the ability to toggle options so swiftly and pre-define the custom button to control a variable of your choice; the Sony DSLR-A700 has the ability to be one of the swiftest, easiest to use DSLRs on the market today. There's even a MR (Memory Recall) with three user-defined fully manual set ups to have at your fingertips on the main function wheel.
The A700 flash system usefully now features a sync terminal for use with external light sources. The on-board flash only engages when the user decides to use it (even in auto mode), simply by pulling it up. Great to avoid any unwanted flash that can render your photos undesirable or mis-balanced, but powerful enough to add some much needed fill-flash where required.
The ongoing debate of image stabilisation has seen manufacturers re-creating different 'branded' versions, some in camera, others in lenses. Sony's DSLR-A700 uses an in-camera system, tongue-twistingly called 'Super Steady Shot', easily clicked on or off by a single prominent switch.
For most of the part it does what it's there to do - you'll mostly want to leave it on as it is very effective for the most part, but there were the odd temperamental instances where it failed.
This image was a 0.5 second exposure - far too long to hold by hand, but you can see the difference that the excellent Super Steady Shot makes.
Many subtle features - such as a depth of field preview option - coupled with the layout and overall comfort of the camera, help place the a700 highly up the usability ladder.
Picture Quality
The 18-70mm kit lens is not poor by any means, but it lacks the sort of sharpness you would like to highlight the performance of that 12.2 megapixel sensor. There's some fairly poor fringing round the edges, too - although curiously it's like purple fringing dissected into its red and blue counterparts, which might prove hard to remove in post-processing.
A major advancement for Sony over the last year has been the development of the 'Exmor' CMOS sensor. You can expect great images from the Sony DSLR-A700 from ISO 100 through ISO 800, and ISO 1600 is more than useable. The noise at ISO 3200 is not great however, becoming fairly useless when pushed to the ISO 6400 limit. It's not so much the noise that's an issue at this ultra high sensitivity - it's the colour shift being much bluer and flatter due to the excess noise.
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ISO: 100
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200
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400
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800
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1600
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3200
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6400
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Another major upgrade for the Sony DSLR-A700 is the Dynamic Range Optimisation (DRO) feature, which allows for greater range of detail in shadows while retaining highlights (for example) as defined by the user. There's also an array of 'Creative Style' modes through from Standard to Vivid, Black and White and a number of inbetweenies too:
Conclusion
The Sony DSLR-A700 is fantastic to use and comes highly recommended - however, if Sony's gameplan is to be at the top of the DSLR tree, this one climbs a couple of branches, not the whole redwood.
Plus, there's some stiff competition to contend with, such as the Canon 40D, which manages to include Live View and cost less in the process. But, if you're thinking of buying a camera, then go and actually handle the Sony - that is where you will feel the functionality of the design.
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