Hands-on preview: Sony's full-frame DSLR-A900

(Credit: Sony Electronics)

We've seen prototypes under glass and been hearing rumors for months, but Sony's Alpha DSLR-A900 became official September 9 at 9 a.m. ET. The A900's main claim to fame is its 24-megapixel full-frame (the size of a 35mm frame of film) sensor, the highest resolution in a digital SLR to date.

Sony makes a point of not calling this a "professional" camera, instead referring to it as the "flagship" model of its dSLR line. However, it's priced like a pro model, and its competitors--the Nikon D700 and the we-expect-soon-to-be-replaced Canon EOS 5D--are widely used by professionals. We've had one for a few days and have had a chance to run it through our lab tests and shoot with it long enough to develop some preliminary opinions.

First, some comparative highlights:

	Nikon D700	Sony Alpha DSLR-A900	Canon EOS 5D
Sensor	12.1-megapixel CMOS	24.6-megapixel CMOS	12.8-megapixel CMOS
Sensitivity range (expanded)	ISO 100 - ISO 25,600	ISO 100 - ISO 6400	ISO 50 - ISO 3200
LCD	3-inch/920,000 dots	3-inch/920,000 dots	2.5-inch/230,000 dots
Continuous shooting frames best quality JPEG/full-size raw	5 fps/8fps with optional battery grip 100/17	5 fps 11/12	3fps 60/17
Viewfinder	95% coverage 0.72x magnification fixed matte focusing screen	100% coverage 0.74x magnification interchangeable focusing screen	96% coverage 0.71x magnification interchangeable focusing screen
Autofocus	51-pt AF 15 cross-type f5.6 and wider	9-pt AF center dual-cross type with 10 assist points; center cross type to f2.8	9-pt AF 7 center cross-type f2.8 and wider; single center cross-type f4 and wider
Live View	Yes	Yes	No
Shutter durability	150,000 cycles	>100,000 cycles	100,000 cycles
Price (body only)	$2,995	$2,999.99	$2,499.99

Unlike its competitors, which use lens-based image-stabilization systems, Sony opts for in-body sensor-shift image stabilization, now dubbed "SteadyShot Inside." As with other Sony models, the A900 remains compatible with Konica Minolta lenses. The camera's design is reminiscent of, but not identical to, the A700. It has a small status display on the top that provides some limited information, while the rest appears on the back LCD. Like the A700, the A900 allows you to access and edit all your settings directly via that display, which I happen to like. The controls take a bit of getting used to, since many of them look and feel the same, making it hard to remember their locations. It does provide three custom setting slots on the mode dial, which I really like, and the large, bright viewfinder is a pleasure to use.

One of the A900's distinctive features is Intelligent Preview; hitting the depth-of-field preview button shows a temporary capture of the scene on the LCD, where you can tweak parameters such as exposure, white balance, shutter speed, aperture and so on and get a live-ish preview of the changes. It's quite a neat idea, but in practice I found the LCD didn't represent the image accurately enough to make all but the most basic judgments.

To support the huge bandwidth required by the large images, Sony supplies the A900 with not one but two of its Bionz image processors. That helps the A900 maintain its respectable close-to-5fps burst rate (though even with a UDMA card the buffer fills pretty quickly) and keeps high ISO shots from taking too long to process and save.

A camera in this price range doesn't really need to have great burst performance, but I do expect it to have fast autofocus and single-shot speed. Unfortunately, the A900 doesn't always meet expectations in this respect. For instance, its shot lag under optimal conditions tends to be inconsistent, ranging from as fast as 0.3 second to as high as 0.5 second--the former is quite good, the latter just OK. But my biggest gripe is with the relatively slow autofocus (at least with the 24-70mm f2.8 lens provided by Sony) in dimmer conditions, like indoor lighting. It's slow enough that I missed several shots of active kittens, and tests out at about 1.2 seconds to focus and shoot; that's about the same as a sub-$1,000 dSLR. The Nikon D90 feels more responsive.

I've only shot indoors thus far, but have to admit to some disappointment in what I've seen. (Here are a few sample photos.) Photos aren't as sharp as I'd like, though the high resolution lets you get away with a lack of sharpness, to a certain extent, since you don't have to crop in as far to get the same size print. Photos get noisy and a bit mushy starting at ISO 1600, but standards here depend on how well the competition does, and I haven't seen the test shots for the D700 yet. Color is good, but I've seen surprising posterizing in deep shadows that bears further scrutiny. The bottom line is that when you look at shots from a camera in this class you should have at least a few "wow" moments, and that hasn't happened yet.

Sony expects to ship the camera in November for around $3,000. My final review should be up in the next couple of weeks.

[One-Eared Gundark]

Twenty-four megapixels?! Do we really need that much in a DSLR?

I'd rather see a full-sized sensor with 'only' 12 MP. Each pixel would be bigger to allow more light to be collected. This would increase the sensitivity of the sensor, resulting in lower noise at high ISO.

That's just my two cents, though.

[ADWD]

LOOKG GOOD UP FRONT, BUT AS YOU SAY THE PHOTOS ARE MUSHY, SO IT'S A WAIT AND SEE WHAT FURTHER DEVELOPS FROM THIS CAMERA

[dc2141]

Wow, 24 whole megapixels....and in a sensor the size of a 35mm piece of film. Ever heard of Mamiya? Hasselblad? Pretty important names in photography but easy to skip for people who want to pretend that Canon, Nikon, and Sony are the end-all of camera makers.

Compared to what Mamiya and Hasselblad digital equipment captures, the image quality of Sony's new "flagship" (as well as that of Canon's and Nikon's) will be a complete joke, not only because 24 megapixels is underwhelming to the medium format crowd, but also because those megapixels come packaged in a sensor that's dinky, comparatively.

True, digital medium format equipment can be outrageously expensive, but then Canon's 1Ds MK III isn't exactly cheap, either, particularly when you factor in the cost of 35mm-esque premium lenses compared to medium format lenses. And this Sony won't go for cheap, either.

[emph]

Not sure what the issue was with that camera but check out some samples here:

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/sony/dslr_a900-review/gallery.shtml

[emph]

"Compared to what Mamiya and Hasselblad digital equipment captures, the image quality of Sony's new "flagship""

Lets put this into perspective; the A900 retail price is under $3000 dollars. The street price will likely be $2500 in a few months. The studio cameras your comparing it to cost 30 to 40 thousand dollars, and are designed to sit on a tripod in a studio and generally have a limited iso range. Sony is pushing the price/megpixel envelope on full frame DSLR's. The other manufactures will respond with compareable prices cameras driving the priced of full frame sensor DSLR's down. Perhaps in a year or two we will see these cameras at the $1000 dollar price point, thats when most non-pro photographers will buy one.

[dedalus6]

"Compared to what Mamiya and Hasselblad digital equipment"
Funny that you can make such comparison, Medium format and DSLR are two totally different categories of camera.
It's like compared a rapid firing, portable automatic rifle to a big artillery gun mounted in a bunker, each designed to do a particular job and each has its pros and cons. Which one would you choose if you go in to a fight? I choose the rifle anytime although you can probably kill more people with artillery guns.

besides, would any photographer take a medium format camera to Iraq, or jungle in the Amazon? would it survive the environment if you can manage to transport it? Have you seen any photographer in Beijing covering the Olympics carrying a medium format camera?

It wouldn't surprise me in a couple of years Medium format cameras will completely disappear, once all camera companies make sensors that are good enough....