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Old 01-10-2012, 04:04 PM
ozskywatcher (Josie)
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Is a Sony Alpha SLT-A57 DSLR worth buying?

Hi,

I am looking into buying a new DSLR with video recording capacity (with an external microphone plug). I don't want to go overboard money wise as I don't do much photography.

The Sony caught my eye on the Kogan website at $699 with a 18-55mm lens. At Ted Camera store, the body by itself is $750. The link to the Kogan website is: http://www.kogan.com/au/buy/sony-alp...-sam-lens-kit/ I recently bought an unlocked mobile phone from Kogan and am very happy with their service.

I am thinking also of purchasing a fisheye lens so I can do timelapse all sky photography. Recommendations are also sought for an affordable fisheye lens.

I would appreciate any feedback on the cameras suitability for general daytime photography, a bit of astrophotography and some videoing.

Thanks in advance.

Paul Floyd.
www.nightskyonline.info
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Old 01-10-2012, 04:21 PM
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gregbradley
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A good site to compare cameras is dpreview.com.

No doubt they have reviews of this camera and its competitors which would be Canon 650D and Nikon D3200 or D5100.

The usual complaint about Sony DSLRs is a lot don't like the electronic viewfinder (EVF). The latest model is the A99 and it has an improved EVF.

The other usual complaint (probably not a valid objection for you if don't intend to do much photography) is the limited choice of lenses. The plus though is some of the lenses they do have are apparently pretty nice (Zeiss).

But in low light and moving the older models can be lagging and noisy.

As far as image quality goes I don't know and you'd be best reading reviews on the DPreview site. Most likely Canon and Nikon competing models are ahead of the Sony who is the "new" kid on the block in DSLRs.

The latest Sony A99 seems to be ahead of both Canon and Nikon in DSLR videos with a 60 frames per second slow motion and image stabilisation built in to the camera which makes video much much nicer plus a nice autofocus that works well with video. But that is a $3000 camera.

Greg.
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Old 01-10-2012, 07:10 PM
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mithrandir (Andrew)
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That Kogan price is amazing. I had to go to DWI to get that sort of discount on an SLT-a77V. I'm quite happy with that one. Interestingly the a99 has the same number of pixels in a full frame the a77 has in its APS-C.

The a57 mainly seems to differ from the a77 in being 16Mpx instead of 24Mpx, having a 2-way rather than 3-way rear LCD, and 10fps rather than 12fps.

These SLTs have no mirror slap, which is helpful when you don't have mirror lock up.

The one thing Canon has that Sony doesn't is the computer control SDK. Sony does if you fork out for one of the full frame ones like the a850 and probably the a99, but I haven't seen any astrophoto software for them.
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Old 07-10-2012, 09:28 PM
ozskywatcher (Josie)
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Purchased Sony a57

Hi,

The positive reviews I found about using the Sony a57 as a video camera tipped my hand. I placed my order with Kogan a couple of days ago.

I will post some simple star trails hopefully in the next week.

Regards,

Paul Floyd.
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