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Sony A900 Digital SLR Camera Reviews: Highly Recommended

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Posted by Patrick on Oct 23, 2008 in Cameras, Reviews

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If you were expecting a dud, it hasn’t happened, thus far. In two reviews from Camera Labs and DPR, the Sony A900 gets high marks. Scoring “Highly Recommended” from both reviewers, the A900 is the resolution king right now, but those “Highly Recommended” comes with several caveats, including cost, potential competitors, and ISO performance which starts to really suffer after ISO 400.

Measured noise as you move up the ISO range is broadly the same for all cameras, though one glance at the crops above should be enough to tell you that Sony is making increasingly desperate attempts to control noise through pretty brutal noise reduction as you head up the scale. By ISO 3200 the result is a blurry mess with little fine detail – with the added insult of visible chroma noise in the shadow areas.

-DPR

The A900 does sport impressive resolving power, but not so much that it is visually distinct from the Canon 1Ds Mark III:

The A900 may sport slightly higher resolution than the Canon 1Ds Mark III in terms of total pixels, but there’s little between them in terms of real life detail in the crops below. Side-by-side the Canon’s default JPEG output looks a little crisper and it enjoys a small advantage in the mountain ridge crop where it’s retained some highlight detail that’s been lost on the Sony, but it’s still a very close-run.

-Camera Labs

Or that much different from the output from the Nikon D700:

With roughly half the total Megapixels, the Nikon D700 is unsurprisingly not delivering the same degree of fine detail as the Sony and Canon flagships, but considering the difference in numbers, the results aren’t bad at all. It’s also worth noting the Nikkor lens used here was at the long-end of its range, while the Sony and Canon lenses were at their short ends. These lenses were however selected as some of the best quality optics available for each system which shared identical coverage at some point in their range.

-Camera Labs

Still, no question the Sony A900 is a fine camera, and Sony has gone out of their way to make a very serious performer for the serious photographer. Pro quality build, in camera stabilization, and by the sounds of it, one of the best viewfinders in any camera, combined with incredible resolution all adds up to a great camera. Unfortunately it is going to be absolutely overwhelmed by the Canon 5D Mark II. Just my opinion of course.

Camera Labs review of the Sony A900 here.
DPR’s review of the Sony A900 here.

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One Response to “Sony A900 Digital SLR Camera Reviews: Highly Recommended”

John says:
October 26, 2008 at 3:03 pm

Thanks for the info on the new Sony. Do you think DSLR cameras are worth the price? I found this site that gives some info on them. Just trying to decide whether to buy a DSLR or point and shoot. Thanks for any advise.
http://www.dslrcamerareviews.com

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