Sony Alpha DSLR SLT A33 Translucent Mirror Digital Camera, 14.2 Megapixel, 7fps, Quick AF Full HD Movie, 15-Point Auto Focus, 3D Sweep Panorama

2012-09-02T21:00:00

If you shoot in Aperture priority or the Program auto modes you will get great results. The "Auto" setting is okay but the camera really shines when you know how to work the lens you are using. Get an old Minolta 50 mm f/1.7 lens on this body and see some really beautiful color and sharpness. I also have a Minolta 28-85 mm zoom lens that is really pretty good with this camera. Remember that this is a crop body 1.5 times the focal length of 35 mm film lenses. My 50 mm is a 75 mm on this body. the 28 mm lenses are the perfect focal length.

robotman

2012-08-26T21:00:00

I was looking to step up to a DSLR without making a big money investment. This Sony fits the bill with lots of great features with the added bonus of being able to use my Minolta lenses. Though I haven't had alot of time to play with it I like what I've seen so far!

DONNA W.

2012-02-14T19:00:00

This camera performed as advertised in still mode and is very easy to use. Shutter lag time is probably industry avg. In video mode the exposure cannot be adjusted while recording. You do have good latitude on exposure but backlighting and high contrast situations are things to stay away from when shooting on the fly or with out some assistance.

LOU R.

2011-09-24T21:00:00

I find the fact that all my Minolta accessories were compatible was great. I take wildlife and pet animal photo's and find the photo's excellent quality and it stops the motions where you want it. Good camera for beginner or progressive photographer for a DSLR. Easy to learn and fun to use.

AMANDA F.

2011-04-10T21:00:00

I bought this camera for video after evaluating and testing a variety of video equipment, including full shoulder mount Canon and Sony HD HD video recorders, and all the interchangeable lens DSLR/P&S cameras I could get my hands on to fully test. I needed a camera to shoot action video of boats, including straight on video of boats coming toward the camera at speed. I also needed to do this with lenses from 35 mm to at least 200 mm long. So fast, very accurate AF performance was required with telephoto lenses. I also needed an ability to adjust exposure settings in video. Before I provide other details, I will list my recommendations for this camera: 1) Highly recommended for 640 x480 and 1140x1080 video performance in all situations except for highly backlit scenes with reflections or white/ dark highly backlit scenes that can cause purple fringing. 2) Video AF performance with most fast moving subjects. 3) Image quality in video - 640 x 480 really does look like DVD/LD quality if you expose and shoot well. 4) HD video Image quality at 1440x1080 really is excellent, that is, if you expose and shoot well. 5) Recommended for users who need to go quickly from a still camera to high quality video (such as local news photojournalism or travel). 6) Quick Panoramas - Details below 7) Recommended for the novel things it does very well (video) and pretty well (quick panoramas). STILL CAMERA PERFORMANCE While image quality overall is very good, noise is higher than for instance, my Canon 40D. Noise is visible in blue skies at 200 ISO. Despite 12mp, the Canon's 10mp results in the same amount of fine detail at high magnification. The older Canon still has less moire effects, and much more accurate color using AWB. The A33 can take excellent pictures in most situations, but not as high of quality as some of the competitors in the price class. If you want excellent, professional grade still imaging for prints over 12x18 get one of the following: any Canon DSLR, most Nikon DSLRs, Olympus E-3 or E-5, or possibly even a new Pentax, or new Sony DSLR with a conventional SLR optical viewfinder. However, compared to any of the compact interchangeable lens non SLR cameras such as the Sony NEX and the Olympus models, the A33 had better imaging when I tested them. That is, with one serious exception. The semi silvered mirror really does allow the Sony A33 some advantages in AF capability, but at least for now, it comes at a cost. Very Serious Purple Fringing on many types of backlit subjects. (Note: does not seem to effect sunrise/sunset images.) This may be due to the semi silvered mirror as I have not come across this complaint on conventional Sony DSLR's. This flaw drops image quality far below other DSLR's in still image quality. It also drops it below cameras such as the high quality P&S Canon G11/G12 in such situations. The 7 FPS SOLUTION If you use the camera on single shot, the viewfinder blacks out after a shot. Most annoying. When using continuous modes, this can happen momentarily, but most of the time, you will be able to see without the distraction of either blackout, or a swinging mirror. While Sony has a dial setting for the 7 fps continuous shooting mode, this leaves you wanting for control as it only works as an auto exposure mode with restrictions. There seems to be no advantage to using this. As it turns out, set the camera on continuous in the FN menu, or by the four way controller, (easy access) and the camera still runs 7 fps, but you can use any of the PASM modes for full creative control. You can take one shot by just not holding down the shutter. But, guess what. The viewfinder/screen still goes black immediately after your shot, which is really annoying if you are trying to follow a subject. Hold the shutter down and you usually get to see your subject without any blackout, that is, until you release the shutter. The limit of the buffer is about 13-15 images at full size and quality in jpg. While certainly not useless, most other DSLR cameras can do better. AUDIO Never expect to use the built in mic for video. Noise from the AF system intrudes badly. This is not unusual at all. Most onboard mics are substandard. Best to use an external mic MOUNTED FAR AWAY from the camera. Better yet, record sound on a dedicated sound recording system. ______________________________________________________________ PRIME ADVANTAGE - FAST & ACCURATE AF IN VIDEO MODE TRACKING FAST MOVING OBJECTS This camera, mostly due to the use of a translucent mirror combined with Sony's AF system, has by far, the best video AF of any of the interchangeable lens DSLR/P&S cameras available from Sony, Canon, Olympus and Nikon. While certainly not perfect, the A33 is capable of focusing on and usually maintaining focus on fast moving objects, such as cars, boats, people, and larger animals. Using a telephoto lens to shoot video of small birds in irregular flight can be tedious or impossible, but that was far better than any other camera even remotely in this camera's class could hope to do. Most of the others could not even maintain focus on fast moving boats or cars with the standard length zooms. I have found the Sony can easily maintain focus on fast moving cars and boats with a 200 mm telephoto even coming straight toward the camera. It can also track focus on small moving objects at near macro distances. To test this, I shot video of a tiny Z scale locomotive coming toward the camera until the train reached the minimum focusing distance of the A33's 18-55 mm kit lens. The camera could even maintain focus on the tiny subject, the focusing motor constantly making tiny corrections to keep in focus. In comparison, I could find no other larger sensor (4/3 or APSC size) camera that could focus as accurately in video mode as this camera. I tested all the other cameras on a rather simple test. How well could they focus on a person walking toward the camera. Most failed this simple test, but the A33 never had a problem with this. Curiously, the Sony NEX 3 and 5 would barely focus on moving subjects and frequently lose focus. The NEX had trouble maintaining sharp focus on someone walking toward the camera from across a room, but at least it would not lose focus too often. The A33/55 AF system performs much better than this. The Olympus could not track accurately. The Nikon and Canon DSLR's can't auto focus once you start filming. Pure video cameras can usually do this well, but the larger sensor size offered in these still cameras really does offer the ability to obtain very high quality video. In short, the A33/55 offers a large sensor for video that provides very high quality and excellent focusing, at least by current standards. Exposure in Video The A33 has various odd choices in how much control it will give the user in various modes. For instance, there is no compensation available in Sweep Panorama Mode. In video, you can set the exposure compensation + - up to two stops in 1/3 increments simply by accessing the exposure compensation button. And you can even change the setting while shooting. HEAT IN VIDEO No, I'm not referring to some illicit website. The sensor and processor can get hot enough to shut down the camera. This supposedly happens after about 10 minutes of shooting, though I have only had this happen twice in about 10 hours of raw video shot. Since the camera was ready to go again after only a couple minutes, I would consider this only a minor issue. So far, the warmest day I've shot video on has been about 85º, so this could be more of an issue in our nice cool summer days of 105º. SWEEP PANORAMA Sweep Panorama Mode - IF you are expecting the quality of panoramas you can get by carefully shooting and hand stitching manually shot panoramas, forget it. This will not provide images of that quality. Frequently, it can overlap or double parts of the image from the overlap, even still subjects. This can be a problem shooting subjects like trees in a forest. Sometimes it does a perfect job of stitching, sometimes not. Still, it can do a pretty good job, and it is very quick. I've noticed many complaints on blogs about panning the A33 or 55 at the right speed during the shooting of the Sweep Panorama. Since I am used to smooth panning in my work, I have rarely had any problem with this. I suspect we will be seeing improved versions of this system in future cameras, probably from all manufacturers. The user sweeps the camera in a pan of the scene as the camera trips the shutter at roughly 7 fps. Then the processor in the camera magically combines it all together in one smoother panorama. Well sort of. First, you have to pan smoothly without changing the angle of the camera at a fairly constant speed that the camera likes. This really isn't as difficult as it sounds, but it also doesn't everyone is just going to pick up an A33 and instantly get good pans. If you aren't already familiar with panning a camera, you will probably have to practice a bit. The Sweep Panorama images themselves can range from pretty good to unusable, and that is if you do everything correctly. It is best to figure on shooting several of them because the stitching doesn't always work out correctly, sort of like what you would get out of a piece of commercial stitching software. This is a quick and fun little feature to use. It won't replace doing it manually, but when it works without overlapping a branch or a light pole, it really is quite useful. It is best for outdoor scenes in good daylight, though I have successfully shot some sunsets and interior views with it. When you want a panorama quick, and you are using it on the web, or not going to try to make a large print, it will work. Exposure in Sweep Pan Mode is a bit tedious though. The camera defaults to a really primitive totally automatic P&S mode that won't let you set anything. The only thing you can do is try to lock the exposure on some area that will give you the focus point and exposure that works for the entire pan. It can be done well, but it would be nice to have control of the ISO and exposure. Maybe that will be in a future model. BATTERY USEAGE This camera is hungry. The battery charge life is very short. You can expect only about 150-200 stills or about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of video on a charge. Whereas my Canon 40D or my Pentax K10D will still operate for about 2000 frames on a battery that is over 3 years old, the A33 will go through a charge in very short time. On top of that, a depleted battery takes several hours to charge, unlike any of the other 6 different type DSLR system cameras I have owned. Fortunately, I use this camera only for incidental purposes to my primary Canon system and secondary Pentax system. Otherwise, I would need at least 4-5 batteries and a charger for every battery to complete a long day of shooting in the field, and get ready for the next day. LEVEL The A33 has a very nice level in the camera that shows up on the display if you want it to. This is very useful for leveling superwide angle lenses, video work, and keeping the camera level when shooting sweep panoramas. DURABILITY I doubt this camera is a very durable device. The rear swivel screen has a great view, but is very fragile. This is no hockey puck. This camera should be handled with care. CONTROLS Accessing most functions on this camera is fairly easy. The menus are all easy to get to. The placement of the button controls on the top plate leave a lot to be desired though. I've never accidentally hit the movie record button while trying to fumble my way to the exposure compensation button, but I can see it happening. The ex comp button is difficult to feel for without taking your eye from the viewfinder. Other than that, this camera is easy to use. Overall, the A33 is a novel and useful camera with excellent video features. I highly recommend it for video, and as an incidental or secondary still camera to a better still camera system. I would give it higher marks if it didn't have the serious purple fringing problem in backlit conditions. I would recommend it to anyone as a vacation or travel camera. If you want to shoot video, get good stills, and shoot some quick panoramas, I can't think of anything that would perform better at this time. And you should get great video.

SCOTT K.

2010-11-16T19:00:00

This is one great little camera. Beautiful picture quality, very speedy focus,menu is easy to use and the price is right for what you get. The big two better watch their back. There is new kid in town.

LLOYD H.