Digital Guru: Taking The Sony A77 for a Spin

It’s been almost 18 months since Sony introduced the Alpha 55, which was the first DSLR camera to use an electronic viewfinder in place of a traditional optical viewfinder. The camera featured a fixed translucent mirror, which introduced several benefits to photographers including continuous focusing when shooting video.

Last fall, Sony introduced a new model—the Alpha 77, or A77 as it is commonly called. It has a 24.3-megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor, which is the highest resolution camera with this size sensor on the market, at least when we went to press. 

However, it’s not the sensor that’s the key upgrade in this model but the use of an OLED viewfinder in place of the LCD used in the A55. For those of you who don’t know, OLED (organic light-emitting diodes) displays are replacing small LCD (liquid crystal display) screens because they are more efficient and produce a much better looking display. The major improvement in its use as a viewfinder is the faster refresh rate.

When I review a camera I like to use it for a real photo shoot as it reveals so much more about a camera than just going out and shooting for the sake of shooting. Not that that’s not fun. It just so happened that the two photo assignments I had during the month I had the camera on loan were both indoor events, where I would, unfortunately, have no control over the lighting.

The first time I tested the camera was while covering the Essen Motor Show in Germany. I photograph a lot of auto shows and avoid using flash as much as possible. In the old days that meant using a tripod, which is fine when you can photograph the cars in a hall without visitors but it’s a luxury that’s not often available. Thanks to the incredible improvement in high ISO of today’s cameras shooting hand-held is perfectly doable.

It so happened that the only chance I had to shoot cars in Essen was on a Saturday when the show was very crowded. I set the ISO at 1600 and fired away. I immediately discovered one of the major advantages, as well as a minor disadvantage, of the OLED viewfinder—as soon as you put the camera up to your eye the OLED viewfinder turns on and you can frame your shot. The advantage was that if I wanted to hold the camera up high to frame the shot using the rear screen it was also immediately available as the camera defaults to the rear 920,000-dot LCD screen when you move it away from your eye. You do not need to push a button and wait for the camera to lock the mirror. Even better, when you push the button the camera immediately fires the shutter; it does not have to wait while the mirror is dropped down for the lens to focus.

This is truly an advantage—you’ve got continuous focusing and the ability to use either screen for composition without any setup or shutter lag.

The minor disadvantage? After I’ve taken a shot at an auto show I like to immediately check the captured image. No problem; I just set the camera to provide a review. However, I found myself then being confused when I put the camera up to my eye for the next shot as the previous image was still displayed until I touched the shutter button. It was a minor disadvantage in this situation shooting static objects but a major annoyance shooting action, as I found out the next day.

I went from shooting cars in an exhibition hall to shooting race cars on a temporary race track constructed in a giant football stadium in Dusseldorf, where I was covering the annual Race of Champions. To the human eye the stadium was well lit so I was a little horrified to discover that even at ISO 1600 there was only enough light to use a shutter speed of 1/320 at f/4. The most frustrating thing was that I only had the use of a 16-50mm lens when I really needed a longer lens to get good action shots.

Aside from the lack of light and the lack of a long enough telephoto lens I found the camera to my liking. The 10 fps frame rate is impressive, even when shooting RAW and JPEG as I did most of the time. This time I turned off the automatic image review. Talk about confusing your brain! Of course then I had to hit the review button if I wanted to see the shot. It would be good if this image could be turned off automatically when you put the camera up to your eye instead of having to touch the shutter button. Another optional setting would be for the shot you’ve just taken to only show up on the rear screen while the eyepiece only displays the live view.

One annoying feature of Sony cameras is the non-standard hot shoe. I do not own a Sony flashgun, or any lenses, so I had to rely on the pop-up flash on certain occasions. It worked fine and proved to me once again that even professionals can benefit from a built-in flash. Granted, you’re not going to use it for all shots abut for the occasional fill light it’s a godsend.

So how were my results? The car show images were fine. As I expected, the noise level is greater than you would get from a camera with a larger sensor or fewer pixels. Honestly this was why I restricted myself to shooting at no more than ISO 1600. Above that the noise does become more apparent.

My biggest problem shooting the auto races was the lack of a longer lens. However with 24.3 million pixels to play with I was able to crop images giving me the same image I would have got ten with a longer lens. Not an ideal situation and certainly not a fault of the camera.

The other tremendous advantage of the A77 is the immediate ability to shoot video by just pushing the video shutter button. However, the video shutter button poorly placed as it is just out of thumb’s reach and I kept on pushing the AEL button instead. I had to take the camera away from my eye to see where to put my finger to fire the video shutter—not good.

The rear LCD screen is very flexible: it can be rotated 180 degrees and also moved away from the body and turned around for self-portraits or putting yourself in a situation for video capture. Again this is a feature every DSLR should have for professional users.

I was impressed with the A55 when I tried it last year. My only complaint then was the refresh rate of the LCD eye-level viewfinder as well as its so-so resolution. The OLED viewfinder in the A77 overcomes both these shortcomings and is just as good as an optical viewfinder in well-lit scenes and actually better in poorly lit situations.

Overall the camera offers so many advantages over a traditional DSLR that I can highly recommend it. I would seriously consider buying one myself. My only problem, like that of so many others, is that I cannot justify the cost of switching since I would have to buy new lenses to replace the current ones I use with camera bodies from other manufacturers.

I know many photographers will disagree with me but I believe the A77 foreshadows the future of professional DSLRs from all manufacturers. Eliminating the flipping mirror is a distinct benefit as it allows for improvements in usability in so many situations. I haven’t even begun to discuss the other features such as the ability to automatically make panoramic pictures and the ability to shoot multi frames so quickly that it delivers built-in HDR that is as good as the ones you get from the iPhone 4. The Hand-held Twilight setting is pretty impressive. The camera takes six shots at different settings and then combines them into one reducing noise and blur at the same time. Amazingly it works very effectively.

As the cost of an OLED display comes down and the quality improves it will soon be less expensive than a mirror mechanism. Ironically that might mean camera makers such as Canon and Nikon will introduce their versions of fixed-mirror DSLRs in lower end, or at least mid-range, bodies first.

In summation, if you want to gain the benefits of future technology today I highly recommend the Sony A77. It is the most versatile DSLR on the market, capable of producing some of the highest quality images across a broad range of shooting situations.

John Rettie is a photojournalist who has been covering digital photography since its earliest days. He resides in Santa Barbara, CA, and readers are welcome to contact him directly by e-mail at [email protected].