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Photography Monthly

27.01.09

Sony Alpha 200 Review

Words by Julian Lass

Sony claims the A200 is smaller, lighter, faster and easier to use than the now obsolete Sony A100. It certainly feels light in the hand and there are no scary-looking buttons for newcomers. Switch the camera on and a user-friendly menu pops up after a small vibration that is the sensor clean system at work.

Battery life remaining is measured as a percentage, a precise indication that will be familiar to laptop users. Turn the mode dial to Auto – highlighted in green – and put the camera up to your eye, which starts the autofocus. Sony claims AF is 1.7x faster than the A100 and indeed it’s very swift.

Press the shutter button and a soft clunk indicates the shutter’s fired, which Sony says is quieter than the A100’s. If it’s dark, the flash pops up and in low light, Sony’s Super SteadyShot kicks in to ensure images will be sharp down to around 1/20sec. Meanwhile, auto white-balance and the 40 segment honeycomb metering will take care of most metering situations. You can choose between taking JPEG and Raw, or both together, at either a standard 3:2 ratio (10.2-megapixels) or a widescreen 16:9 (8.4-megapixels).

The BIONZ processor at the heart of the camera is said to offer minimal digital noise and great detail in a fast time. It’s simple to take a picture. There’s nothing to confuse the novice as there is with more complex cameras like the Nikon D300. Most inexperienced DSLR users will already know something about ISO and white-balance from compact cameras, and these can be accessed quickly via the ISO button and the Fn button.

It’s a comfortable camera to hold, even with one hand, weighing 900g with lens, battery and card. Lighter cameras do tend to mean less substantial build quality. It’s true that the A200 is not as solid as the Nikon D60, for example, but if you don’t want a tank, it’s fine.

I found the control dial a tad small and you’ll have to do some finger gymnastics to press the ISO and drive buttons on the top fascia while shooting. The good news is some controls can be customised. For example, the shutter release can be set to shoot before a sharp focus is acquired, useful in fast-shooting conditions. Press the rear AF button to activate AF and the AEL button, which doubles as the magnification button in playback, will also function as an exposure lock while the button is held down or until it is pressed again.

Which option you select depends on the menu setting. In manual mode, you can also opt to change the control dial to adjust aperture or shutter values. I would have liked more options. There’s no mirror pre-lift on the two-second self-timer option and the A200 loses the A100’s direct button-press spot metering shift and depth-of-field preview. Overall then, handling is good but let down by build quality and the stretch to press those ISO and drive buttons on the top-plate of the camera.

How did the camera fare in full Auto? Very well in most situations is the answer. The auto white-balance did a fine job even in mixed lighting, as did the metering. Of course, as with most cameras, metering was fooled by very white or very dark subjects. That’s when it’s time to add some manual control and the good thing is the A200 lets you do this.

Either dial in some exposure compensation using the AV button on the back or turn the camera to manual mode. This is my preferred mode of working, and it’s simple to change aperture and shutter values, though like all budget cameras with only one control dial, you have to press a button to change aperture values.

At ISO 100, image quality is great and JPEGs are colourful, vibrant and accurate. Straight from the camera, images really have some punch. Noise creeps in at ISO 400 and above, despite Sony’s claims for reduced noise, but at ISO 1600 and above this can be corrected by selecting noise reduction. Be aware that although this will blur pixels, it is subtle. Compared to a camera like the Nikon D60, there’s not much difference.

I tested the Sony with the supplied kit lens, a 18-70mm zoom (that’s a 27-105mm full-frame equivalent) that is lightweight so doesn’t add much to the overall weight of the camera. I’m disappointed by the kit lens’ quality, though.

There’s little point in having 10.2-megapixels when a lens is a compromise between weight, quality and cost. But to be fair, it’s on a par with other manufacturers’ kit lenses. Edge fringing is a problem at the wide end but improves at 70mm and sharpness is acceptable rather than outstanding.

You can always upgrade your lens; it may be worth it considering the body and a top-notch Carl Zeiss optic to go with it. The general rule is, the more money you spend on an optic, the happier you’ll be in the long run and a very high level of image quality is possible with this Sony sensor.

The A200 also accepts Minolta AF lenses, so if you invested in a Minolta Dynax 7000i back in 1988, your lenses will work. In fact, that goes for all lenses back to 1985. There are also many independent lenses (Sigma, Tamron etc) in Sony/Minolta fit.

Convert a Raw image from the A200 in Adobe’s Camera Raw to an 8-bit TIFF file and you’ll end up with an uninterpolated file 22x33cm at 300ppi. This can happily be interpolated up to A3 (30x42cm) without losing image quality.

So, the A200 performs well in all areas. I do feel that the Nikon D60 has the edge, though, especially with white-balance. The A200 seems to plump for the most common settings, rather than the precise fine-tuning the D60 offers. Do bear in mind that Sony makes the sensor for the D60 and it could even be the same one. So any differences come down to processing, white-balance and metering.

The camera’s designed to attract compact users, many of whom are used to Live View and can’t understand why DSLRs don’t have it. So it seems an odd omission here. Compact users are more likely to opt for the forthcoming A300 or A350, both of which have Live View. This begs the question: why does this camera exist at all? It’s been released before the other two, so I can only guess that Sony is eager to divert sales away from Nikon and Canon in the meantime. When the A300 and A350 are introduced, it will most probably drop in price, leaving it as the budget option.

And so as a budget alternative to the high-end DSLRs on the market, the A200 is a great camera for those who haven’t invested in a system yet. It’s let down only by its lack of Live View. I think this camera offers great value for money – it’s great for photography starters who won’t worry overly about lens quality, and by the time they do, they’ll be ready to upgrade or invest in a better optic.

In conclusion, the A200 is a great camera for those who haven’t invested in a system yet. But it faces stiff competition from the Nikon D60 and Canon EOS?450D. If the price drops, it will become a very attractive buy.

SONY D-RANGE OPTIMIZER

Dynamic range optimisation is a popular feature offered by DSLRs that only affects JPEGs. All the information is found in the Raw file. The reason for this is the extra information held by a 12-bit Raw file that must be converted down to the 8-bit standard of the JPEG. In this process, shadow and mid-range detail can be boosted.

The A200 has easy to understand off, on and advanced settings. In standard, you’ll see around a one-fifth increase in brightness in shadow areas and a one-third stop increase in mid-tones. In advanced, shadows are boosted to a one-quarter increase in brightness. This can also be done with a Raw file using software like Photoshop.

SPECIFICATION

Price:     £450 with 18-70mm kit lens
Distributor:    sonystyle.co.uk
Resolution:     10.2 million effective pixels
Lens mount:     Sony Alpha/Minolta A-type
Magnification:     1.5x
Sensor:     23.6x15.8mm CCD
Autofocus:     9 points with eye-start
Exposure:     40-segment honeycomb system pattern, centre-weighted and spot
Exposure modes:     Program, shutter-priority, aperture-priority, manual; compensation +/-4EV in 1/3EV steps
ISO range:     100-3200 in steps of 1EV
Shutter:     30-1/4000sec, flash sync speed 1/160sec, plus B
White-balance:     Auto, six manual modes settings with fine-tuning and preset
Monitor:     2.7in 230,000pixel TFT LCD
Integral Flash:    Yes, pop-up with button flash release, GN 12
File formats:     JPEG (Fine, Standard), Raw (ARW, 12-bit)
Image: BIONZ Processor
Storage:     CF media
Drive:     Up to 3fps system
Interface:     USB 2.0
Battery:     Rechargeable Li-ion NP-FM500H
Dimensions:     131x99x71mm (wxhxd)
Weight:     900g with lens, battery and memory card

PROS AND CONS

Great-looking images, good price, ease of use, decent system to buy into

No Live View, menu options restricted, build-quality could be better

THE VERDICT

The A200 is a great camera for those who haven’t invested in a system yet – it’s great for photography starters. If the price drops, it will become a very attractive buy.

At only £450 with kit lens, the Alpha 200 measures up well against Nikon’s D60 and Canon’s EOS 400D. Together, these three cameras offer pretty much the same spec on paper but the Nikon D60 wins on build quality. Like I said though, most starters won’t need a tank and will be thinking more about weight, which is good because the A200’s very light on the shoulder.

An obvious omission is Live View. There’s also no depth-of-field preview and options to tailor the camera to your needs are restricted to essential features. So, no mirror pre-lift for long exposures like on the A100 or assignable spot metering to the AE lock button. But these won’t bother entry-level users. Recommended.

from £547.96 at

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