Description: Sony's first digital SLR camera has a 10-megapixel sensor with Sony's Super Steady Shot anti-shake system, a full range of exposure controls, and a sensor dust reduction system. Sony offers a full range of lenses and the A100 Alpha is also compatible with all Konica Minolta Maxxum lenses.
Summary: I have this Sony A100K for over 6 months now, i had a chance to do a side by side tests with my Nikon D50, with the same Tamron 28-105mm SP f2.8 lens on both, results turn out as so: sharpness both were sharp, but A100 is a hair sharper( both sharpness set at max), colors A100 turned out better in neutral, more to real life color than D50, D50 seems turned toward reddish neutral, details contrast went to A100, with its extra dynamic range plus A100 Anti Shake really helped, features went to A100, the build is the same differences, i like A100 style better,the noise went with D50 in high ISO. So you can see, i like A100 in everyway, except in noise issue, i can see noise starts at Iso 200 in the sky or grey ereas...
I bought the after market power pack grip to add on my A100, plus a hotshoe adapter to use with any flashes, instead of the only groove hotshoe mount by Sony.
last month, after i got back from my vac with A100, it malfunctioned in many aspects,so i sent it to Sony repair Center in Texas, in 5 days it came back as new condition and free of charges, Sony you are the best.Thnxs.
Rating Reviewed by: Ron Gerard(Unregistered User)
(Intermediate)
Review Date February 26, 2008
Overall Rating 4 of 5
Value Rating 5 of 5
Used product for 3 Months to 1 year
Review 2 of 18
Price Paid:
$350.00
from amazon.co.uk
Summary: The camera has minor faults, but overall does the job well under all conditions. I would only complain about the autofocus hunting and sometimes failing totally under poor lighting conditions.
But the rest is brilliant, especially the anti-camera shake mechanism which works well enough that 2 second hand-held exposures are not bad with a fairly wide lens.
Rating Reviewed by: Michael Herman(Unregistered User)
(Expert)
Review Date January 24, 2008
Overall Rating 5 of 5
Value Rating 5 of 5
Used product for More than 1 year
Review 4 of 18
Price Paid:
$600.00
from online - a store ret
Summary: As an advanced amateur, I have come to enjoy the many capabilities and outstanding images from the Sony A100, and from Sony Corporation support. (See Support below)
On images: The camera delivers outstanding images in general - with good lenses capable of magazine quality portraits. Of course, image quality depends on both settings and subjects, but I typically find these personally best: +2 Sharpness, Red-Eye flash setting (I find this a must for groups or portraits to avoid "lazy eye"), normal DRO (digital range optimization), and Color Saturation +1. The built-in color balances for Sun, Shade, Incandescent, and Fluoresent, Flash, Cloudy all work fine, and it is possible to use a white piece of paper for in-camera sensing of the perfect white balance. For flash, I use an Minolta 5600 unit, purchased earlier for my Minolta 7D DSLR. I do use photoshop for image adjustment and "digital artwork", but it certainly helps to have great raw images coming in. To date, I have not used RAW to store the images, but instead save my images as JPEG normally with the wider Adobe color gamut.
I also like the fact that this camera is light to hold. Though I have some heavy lenses, it is nice to have a light SLR to carry around. I find the continuous autofocus works quite well under normal lighting conditions. I have used this camera with all Minolta, Tamron, Sigma lenses, and even on my astronomical telescope without any problems. The 10.2Mp images have gorgeous color and ... overall I am really very pleased with this camera, and find it a very good value.
Strengths: Image quality outstanding
Anti-shake excellent
Battery life excellent
Light weight camera body
Takes existing Minolta AF lenses
Many same connections as Minolta 7D (e.g. remote shutter cable, CF cards, Flash)
Takes high capacity CF compact flash cards
Excellent exposure sensing - built in exposure range optimization works well
Weaknesses: None with current online available firmware, and proper flash settings (see summary)
Similar Products Used: Konica-Minolta 7D DSLR
Minolta 7000 Film SLR
Customer Service: I was able to get a store returned A100 inexpensively on line, but when it arrived one of the electrical card contact pins had been bent over and thus the camera would store or read images. Still under its 1yr warranty period, Sony repaired this product 100% free, rapidly, and installed the latest firmware at that time. I have since upgraded the firmware myself. So...A+++ to Sony for support - truly an outstanding company dedicated to repeat customers.
Summary: excelent camera, chose this over the Nikon D40, Nikon D40x, Nikon D80, Canon Rebel XTi, and many other DSLRs of its class.
bought the camera as a kit with the 18-70mm lens from circuitcity.com for $589.99 brand new!
so far ive taken over 2300 pictures with this camera over the past 2 weeks and its performed well beyond my expectations.
Strengths:
Super Steady Shot knocks the competition away, and works very well. I can get up to 1second exposures with just my hands using super steady shot.
the Dynamic Range Optimization is also a great feature and does its job very well
most older minolta lenses work great with this camera
Weaknesses: NONE!!
Similar Products Used: Nikon D40x, D80, Canon Rebel XTi
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