Sony A77 review and some videos on ballroom dancing

I had hands on the A77 and the 16-50/2.8 lens today. I can confirm, the body construction is very good, it feels very robust and very safe and good in ones hands! The fold out screen is very practical and has a great resolution, don't know how well it holds up in glaring sunlight because I couldn't take the camera outside. But we have the excellent EVF for glaring sunlight scenarios, I was very impressed with it, definitely the best EVF I have seen on such a camera.

I just examined some videos and photos that I have taken, on a quick note, without any clinical testing I dare say the photos are not that great. (Colour) noise is introduced rather quickly even on not that high ISOs but it doesn't look worse than a Canon 7D although the Sony has 24MP. So relatively speaking still impressive but I'm used to different quality, coming from Canon 5D II and Nikon D700 background.
However, I wouldn't pick this camera primarily for photos but video. Those looked quite impressive, I didn't notice any bad aliasing, definitely not worse than the Canons. Skew is still a problem, at the long end of the 16-50mm lens skew is becoming a real problem even on moderately quick pans so you have to be aware of that while shooting.
AF is pretty fast, I'm sure this camera is a great tool for the field reporter and ENG style shooting in a small and unobtrusive package.
I would have loved to shoot more video and get more into the menus and try different stuff but there just wasn't enough time.
Would love to know if the HDMI out is uncompressed and clean, can someone else comment on this yet?

Final word, the Sony 16-50/2.8 lens... very mixed feelings about this one. I think Sony has to step it up a bit, pairing this lens with the A77 is like serving truffles on a trash bin lid... ok maybe not the same :) I'm exaggerating.
I love the optics, it makes nice images, love the bokeh! Creamy bokeh, yummy. Fast autofocusing. The only real problem with it, although it is a rather big lens, it feels like a toy. It feels plasticky, not super cheap, but rather like a standard low price kit lens. The zoom ring is super stiff, I have used so many lenses, good and bad but I can't remember ever using one with such a stiff zoom ring. No fun at all. Although that doesn't influence the image quality it just doesn't feel quite right. If I really buy a kit I'd immediately go to Sony service centre and ask them to lube it, if that helps at all.
 
My pleasure. I got the A77 with the 16-50/2.8 in the meantime. First I can say that the lens I have is not as stiff as the one in the showroom, but it is still not very smooth, not what one would expect of a lens at this price range. Acceptable though.
Yesterday the rear screen suddenly showed at least 7 dead/hot pixels which was a surprise and it's a bit annoying if you shoot dark scenery. Looks like it's not the sensor as I can't see them in the EVF but I might exchange the camera, will watch it over the next days, hope it's not getting more.
Don't have any of the bugs/problems that have been reported so far from other sites. I will do some video tests in the next days once my schedule allows, won't do any clinical tests, there are enough other websites to address this, I rather like to shoot and judge by eye :) Will post it in a new thread.

As for the HDMI out, you can choose to output 1080i/1080p from the menu. There always remains a square in the center of the frame (focus confirm), there is no way to get rid of it in the menus.
Would be great to know if the output is uncompressed though. I guess we never get a clean HDMI out on these cheap cameras, Sony would cut in their FS100 business I guess.
 
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