[LaurenOE]

Looking at that Sony...I saw alot of Pentax touches. More so than anything from Canikon. Aside from the electronic viewfinder, it has some impressive specs. If Pentax were to disappear tomorrow, I would have to take a look at that camera. Good job Sony. I wonder how many ex-Minolta folks were part of the design.

[uccemebug]

While I can scarely imagine something further from my photography needs, I applaud Sony's work here. It's an impressive feat and they've certainly moving in a very different direction from the indistinguishable market leaders (and at the same time bucking the recent trend of surprisingly expensive introductory prices). The new viewfinder is interesting, I'm glad that Sony is if nothing else pushing that technology forward.

[stanleyk]

Looking at that Sony...I saw alot of Pentax touches. More so than anything from Canikon. Aside from the electronic viewfinder, it has some impressive specs. If Pentax were to disappear tomorrow, I would have to take a look at that camera. Good job Sony. I wonder how many ex-Minolta folks were part of the design.

Agree completely. The NEX 7 is also quite impressive.

[stanleyk]

While I can scarely imagine something further from my photography needs, I applaud Sony's work here. It's an impressive feat and they've certainly moving in a very different direction from the indistinguishable market leaders (and at the same time bucking the recent trend of surprisingly expensive introductory prices). The new viewfinder is interesting, I'm glad that Sony is if nothing else pushing that technology forward.

I'd applaud the NEX 7 also. That one, EPL3, G3, and Fuji X100 makes it a pretty impressive year for mirrorless releases.

[eurostar]

Nobody mentions diffraction? To be able to use effectively all those 24 millions of pixel, you can't stop down more than f/5,6. Impractical on landscapes, the area of use where the 24MP would be most useful...

[rvannatta]

Nobody mentions diffraction? To be able to use effectively all those 24 millions of pixel, you can't stop down more than f/5,6. Impractical on landscapes, the area of use where the 24MP would be most useful...

I'm not sure that the megapixel race has anything to do with 'effective use'. I suspect we passed that point some time ago, but I also suspect
that more MP's will continue to sell cameras for some time yet. After there is scant reason to rush down an buy a new model unless marketing can convince people that it's better than what they have.

[gazonk]

At first glance, I thougt this was a kind of joke, as the shown A77 really looks like a K200D or even more a K20D !

My thoughts exactly, the A77 and A65 are remarkably similar to my K10D in looks.

[gazonk]

I compared the A77 and K-5 jpegs over at imaging-resource, and I think the A77 still looks quite good at ISO 3200. But then at ISO 6400 it's simply disastrous, it has far less detail left than the K-5. Still, given what Pentax what able to do with the 16mp sensor, I wouldn't be surprised if they were able to use this sensor in a camera that will match the K-5 at high ISO, at least when images are viewed at the same size.

[Caat]

I would have thought there would have been some improvement too, but it seems that creeping featurism got ahead of sony in this case. I wonder how much those batteries cost.

Sony is probably able to get away with using the same battery because of incremental improvements in the energy efficiency of the various components since the battery itself was first developed. I imagine they are saving a lot of money by reusing the same design and manufacturing process.

However in general battery technology itself has not developed that much as far as I can tell. Lithium polymer has crept into devices like smartphones over the years but new techs like fuel cells have been in development for an age it seems.

[Jasvox]

not a fan of the short battery life of the A77 - when the battery runs out the blasted thing is nothing more than an expensive paperweight.you can't even look through the viewfinder unless it is turned on - that will take some getting used to for some.

Why would anyone spend much time looking through the viewfinder of any camera with a dead battery? How long does it take to put a charged battery into the camera?

Jason

[Class A]

Nobody mentions diffraction?

Why would they?

The size of Airy disk diameters only depends on the f-ratio, not on the pixel pitch of the sensor.

To be able to use effectively all those 24 millions of pixel, you can't stop down more than f/5,6. Impractical on landscapes, the area of use where the 24MP would be most useful...

While it is true that f/5.6 on APS-C only needs 27MP this

• is only true for green light, blue needs more resolution.
• is irrelevant for lower f-ratios which will benefit from many more MP (f/4 can already exploit 52MP).
• doesn't mean that f/5.6 images on a 24MP sensor will look worse than images on a 16MP sensor.

More MP have advantages such as

• weaker AA filters are possible.
• more cropping potential. Who needs optical teleconverters when one can use "electronic" ones?
• finer noise.

AFAIC, diffraction limits are not really worth talking about. People stop down beyond f/8 with a 16.3MP sensor on APS-C even though f/8 on APS-C only requires 13MP (for green light), don't they? And it makes sense that they do -> DOF.

[gazonk]

Why would anyone spend much time looking through the viewfinder of any camera with a dead battery?

I've shot lots of pictures with a camera with a dead battery!

(...my LX )

[Macario]

Why would anyone spend much time looking through the viewfinder of any camera with a dead battery? How long does it take to put a charged battery into the camera?

Jason

I do it all the time with surf photography. As the action isn't going on all the time and do not have to be focussing constantly etc, the camera does shut it self down after a minute. Then I do look through every now and then, to see if I am still aiming at the right position.

[Rondec]

Why would they?

The size of Airy disk diameters only depends on the f-ratio, not on the pixel pitch of the sensor.



While it is true that f/5.6 on APS-C only needs 27MP this

• is only true for green light, blue needs more resolution.
• is irrelevant for lower f-ratios which will benefit from many more MP (f/4 can already exploit 52MP).
• doesn't mean that f/5.6 images on a 24MP sensor will look worse than images on a 16MP sensor.

More MP have advantages such as

• weaker AA filters are possible.
• more cropping potential. Who needs optical teleconverters when one can use "electronic" ones?
• finer noise.

AFAIC, diffraction limits are not really worth talking about. People stop down beyond f/8 with a 16.3MP sensor on APS-C even though f/8 on APS-C only requires 13MP (for green light), don't they? And it makes sense that they do -> DOF.

People act like diffraction is an absolute barrier like falling off a cliff, but it isn't. At a certain point, photos do looks softer at the pixel level, but even then, it isn't like they will be any softer than a comparable 16 megapixel image.

[Class A]

I just looked at those iso1600 and iso3200 pictures and they are awefull!

What images are you looking at exactly?

I looked at a ISO 6400 image and the noise looked fine to me. I was very impressed by the retention of detail at that ISO setting. The transition from sharp to blurry in a resolution wedge is also very nice. It almost never looks harsh anywhere and there is no spurious reappearance of detail after the resolution limit had been reached already. It seems they've got the AA filter just right.

I might be wrong on all accounts, I haven't given this an in-depth view. Things definitely to bear in mind:

• When comparing 1:1 views with the K-5, you need to scale down the A77 images by a factor of 1.21. This will improve noise levels by more than 1/2 a stop for the A77.
• Or in other words, without scaling, it is like you were comparing an ISO 6400 image from the A77 to an ISO 4347 image from the K-5. Not fair.
• The images are from a pre-production model.
• NR levels may not be comparable. Pentax does apply non-optional NR even to RAW files.
• Maybe Sony's JPG engine isn't that great, I don't know.