Sony gate-crashed the consumer DSLR market in May 2008 with the release of three models. The Alpha 200 was a 10.2MP model with basic controls for the entry-level user. The Alpha 300 was a slightly more advanced version of the 200, giving more controllability than the “point and shoot" 200. It also had the addition of one of the latest features in DSLRs, live-view. The third model in the range had plenty of controllability for the advanced amateur and semi-pro photographer and also featured live-view. The Alpha 350 boasted 14.2MP on an APSc size sensor.
In September 2008 I reluctantly had to accept that my beloved KonicaMinolta Dynax 5D had become obsolete. I was advised by several image libraries that they were no longer accepting digital images from sensors of less than 10MP, I opted for the Sony Alpha 350 as a replacement; with a decent amount of control and the “future-proofing” of a high pixel count, I figured this was a good buy. The magazine reviews were favourable and the price was affordable. I paid a shade under £500 for the camera, kit lens and a spare battery.
Unlike the implementation of live-view introduced by other manufacturers, the Sony version does not use the camera’s sensor to provide the image feed, so there are no delays moving the mirror up and down and the camera is able to continue using the phase-detect autofocus algorythm to prevent focus lag in live-view. Sony have a small CCD chip inside the pentaprism housing and flicking a switch on top of the camera operates a small mirror, which diverts the image from the viewfinder to this secondary CCD. As a consequence, there is no focus lag at all and all focusing points are available in live-view. This makes the camera very useable in live-view mode.
The camera is a reasonable size and the grip feels secure in the hand, however, using the camera in normal viewfinder mode is a different kettle of fish to live-view. The tilting screen protrudes a couple of millimetres from the back of the camera, making it impossible to avoid “nose grease smears” when using the viewfinder. The viewfinder itself is quite small, though not so small as to make it too awkward or difficult to use and it does have dioptre adjustment for spectacle wearers. On the plus side, Sony reintroduced the “eye start” focusing which was popular on Minolta film SLRs. This uses a small sensor to activate the autofocus as soon as the camera is raised to the eye, giving a faster response when attempting a “grab shot”. The “menu”, “display”, “delete” and “preview” buttons on the left of the screen are extremely small and positioned too close to the edge of the protruding screen, making them fiddly to operate but the biggest blunder seems to be the position of the exposure compensation button. Applying exposure compensation involves holding the button, whilst scrolling the control wheel; no problem there. However, because the button is positioned right next to the pentaprism, unless you have the thumbs of ET you will not be able to reach it when shooting in viewfinder mode. Strangely enough, the slightly different hand-hold used when shooting in live-view mode brings the button into the perfect position! The function button, which brings up a selection of menu items for adjusting flash mode, HDR, metering, autofocus modes and white balance settings is a decent size and well-positioned to the right of the screen. Below this is the joy-pad used for selecting menu items and focus points. Unfortunately, this is positioned too close to the edge of the camera, making it possible to accidentally alter your focus point selection with the pad of your thumb when holding the camera to shoot in viewfinder mode and there is no option to lock your selection point. The position of this and the exposure compensation button suggest that Sony had paid a lot of attention towards the ergonomics of using the camera in live-view mode but this appears to have been at the expense of attention to the ergonomics of using the camera normally with the viewfinder. There is one other button on the back of the camera, which is referred to colloquially by Sony users as the “invalid operation button”.
This is a digital crop button that allows in-camera cropping of images but it only works when shooting jpegs in Program mode. Press it at any other time and the screen goes grey with an “invalid operation” message!
With 14.2 Megapixels crammed onto an APSc-sized sensor, the biggest problem could be noise and that is indeed the case. At high ISO, this camera was never going to compete with some of the best performers in dealing with noise but the noise levels it produces are a big drawback. At ISO 100 the noise levels are barely perceptible. At ISO 200 the levels of noise are already intruding and at ISO 400 the noise is starting to seriously interfere. At ISO 800 colour noise especially is beyond the limits of acceptability. At ISO 1600 the noise levels are completely unacceptable and although the camera has an ISO3200 setting, there is little point in using it as the images are just a mush of noise. The biggest problem with the noise in this camera is the level of colour noise, which is very destructive of detail.
Whilst preparing this review, I made a schoolboy error and left my exposure compensation at minus 2 stops, giving me horribly under-exposed shots. This did, however, give me the chance to see how well the images stand up when you do need to make serious adjustments in Photoshop and the answer was “awful”. Making such a booboo with my old KonicaMinolta 5D, with its 6.1MP sensor, I would still have been able to rescue something but with this many pixels crammed onto the sensor, there is no room for exposure error. When I boosted the exposure in Photoshop on the under-exposed test shots, the noise levels went through the roof, making even ISO 100 unusable if you have not got the exposure right.
The level of detail the camera is able to capture is superb, provided the lighting conditions are optimal, the ISO is set to 100 and a decent lens is attached. The kit lens that came with the camera, the Sony DT 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 was absolutely diabolical. At f8 and 50mm it was pretty sharp and gave reasonable shots, though with some colour fringing in high contrast areas, but when I shot a view over Edinburgh at 20mm and f22 from the top of the Scott Monument I was shocked to see that NOTHING was sharp and the distortion levels were so bad that buildings on either side of the shot were tilted up to 20 degrees off vertical!!! Once I put a Sigma 18-50 f2.8 EX DG Macro lens on the camera it really started to sing though, as you will see from the detail captured in some of the test shots. However, over time another major problem became apparent: the camera has some serious back and front focus issues with every lens.
The Sony Alpha 350 has the feel of a “concept camera” rather than one designed with pure functionality in mind but overall it is a fun camera to use, albeit with some serious limitations. With a decent lens and good light, this camera is capable of producing quite stunningly detailed images.
All of the test images below were taken using the Sigma 18-50 f2.8 EX DG Macro lens, as I had already sold the kit lens on Ebay before I had time to do these tests!
All of the noise test images below have been shot on Auto White Balance and Aperture Priority; they have been resized for the web in Photoshop but no noise reduction, colour-correction or sharpening has been applied. They have been saved at jpeg quality 7 in Photoshop. Each noise test image is shown as the full image, followed by a section of the image at 100% magnification at each ISO setting. As you can see from the outdoor noise test image, the black door on the building shows a marked increase in colour noise even at ISO 200 and detail throughout is already suffering.
Noise Test Image 1: Mobile Phone taken at f8 on a tripod with natural light
Noise Test Image 2: street scene taken at f11 on a tripod
The detail test images below have been sharpened using the "Smart Sharpen" tool in Photoshop set at the default setting of 100%, radius 1 pixel, lens blur mode with the "more accurate" checkbox ticked. Sharpening was applied to the full-resolution image only, prior to cropping or re-sizing and no other sharpening was applied. They have been saved at jpeg quality 7.
Detail Test Image 1: Kinloss Abbey taken at 1/125th sec at f11 on a tripod; late evening light
Detail Test Image 2 (image edge sharpness): Kinloss Abbey taken at 1/13th sec at f11 on a tripod; late evening light
| About Us & Contact Info | Commercial Photography Services | Photography Training and Information | Private Commissions | Wedding & Social Photography | Home |
VAT Number GB 929 6484 73