Sony Alpha A200 any good?

[Amoeba]

Pentax lost their way with the pro stuff a long time ago, and most of their big lenses are mile behind Canon/Nikons. Take the pentax 600 F4, totally awful lens, 13lb, no IS, slow AF and soft at F4.

True, the 600mm wasn't amazing, but the FA* 300 f4.5 was pretty good Anyway the FA* series you are referring to is 10 years old now.. Pentax has since updated their lenses in the new ranges.

I have sleepless nights worrying what the light/weather will be like, not whether my lenses are sharp lol.

Precisely. At the end of the day I know I can get the photographs I want from my camera; and that is because of me the photographer, not because of the system I use.

 

[V-Spec]

A lot of the pentax and minolta/sony lens get very poor reviews these day. Just read a review on the Sony 70-200 2.8 Very expensive and very soft.

Ditto on that, some of the Sony telephotos are really expensive, and not that wonderful compared to the same specced Canon/Nikon lens. If they were more people would be using them, that said their normal DSLR stuff I think is just as good as the Canon/Nikon stuff.. They all take good images.

Precisely. At the end of the day I know I can get the photographs I want from my camera; and that is because of me the photographer, not because of the system I use.

Its all just kit at the end of the day, I know it sounds a bit funny coming from myself, who spent £5000 on a lens 2 months ago - but its true. I can't get intimate frame filling shots of wildlife with a 70-200, (most of the time ) although I wish I could, bonkersly expensive, heavy delicate long lenses are a necessary evil, for some people it gets them on the fashion parade!

 

[A.N.Other]

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but on cameras that have moving sensors to combat camera shake, doesn't the fact that the image you see through the viewfinder not being stabilised essentially negate half of the advantage (in terms of the usefulness of the IS system when composing an image)?

 

[Bubo]

The pictures posted by the OP above could have been taken with absolutely any camera system mentioned in this thread with exactly the same quality. This goes to show that unless someone intends to go out and buy the specialist lenses the CaNikon brigade always bring up, with the ascociated price tags, which may or may not have equivalents on other systems, they would have no problems whatever system they had got. And thus any arguments for one system or another are reduntant.

 

[Ixon]

Just to end this aurgument on who has the best lenses It's Olympus Pro range of Glass.

These are tack sharp corner to corner be it F2 to F22 no vignetting & no CA as these are designed from the ground up for Digital.

Canon L glass doesn't even come close & neither does Nikon best range of glass to.

Only downside to this is the price you pay £1500 for the Zuiko 14-35mm F2, £1200 for the 7-14mm UWA ect ect not cheap.

 

[BUFF]

Just read a review on the Sony 70-200 2.8 Very expensive and very soft.

where?
It's usually reckoned to be better than the Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS & debatable whether it or the Nikon VR is better so it's always possible that they got a poor sample (apparently on DPReview's recent test of 70-200mm f2.8s they had to have replacements for 3 out of the 4 manufacturers' lens that they tested).
Pricing on it has now dropped to be comparable with either the Canon or Nikon IS/VR.

Ditto on that, some of the Sony telephotos are really expensive, and not that wonderful compared to the same specced Canon/Nikon lens. If they were more people would be using them, that said their normal DSLR stuff I think is just as good as the Canon/Nikon stuff.. They all take good images.

I did mention that the 1 area that Sony really hurt atm is the "super teles" - about the only "super tele" that Sony kept in the range from Minolta was the 300mm f2.8 & yes, it's an arm & a leg but that's because it's very low volume build (same argument for Olympus') compared to the CaNikon equivalents & neither of those are exactly cheap.
As Sony didn't have FF bodies they didn't need to keep the 400mm F4.5 & 600mm F4.0 due to the crop factor however I would put money on newer versions or similar coming out once the FF body arrives.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but on cameras that have moving sensors to combat camera shake, doesn't the fact that the image you see through the viewfinder not being stabilised essentially negate half of the advantage (in terms of the usefulness of the IS system when composing an image)?

Not really, quite a few people even report feeling seasick when using stabilised viewfinders so you could potentially argue that as a con for in lens stabilisation. It's all down to the individual but by this level we are really nitpicking.

 

[D.P.]

At SLRGEAR and other websites. The Sony 70'-200 offfering is several steps behind Canon and Nikon.The Sigma 70-200 would make a better comparison.


Even looking at the so called Carl Zeiss engineered lenses (16-86 and 24-70 (??) both have very soft images and other optical problems and are clearly several steps behind the competition.


Even the A200 is not that good really. Poor IQ is its main problem, high noise with poor noise reduction. Low contrasts images with poor shadow response. Jpeg to be completely avoided to gain some dynamic range.

 

[V-Spec]

Just to end this aurgument on who has the best lenses It's Olympus Pro range of Glass.

These are tack sharp corner to corner be it F2 to F22 no vignetting & no CA as these are designed from the ground up for Digital.

Canon L glass doesn't even come close & neither does Nikon best range of glass to.

Only downside to this is the price you pay £1500 for the Zuiko 14-35mm F2, £1200 for the 7-14mm UWA ect ect not cheap.

Who cares?

Its like the Lambo/Ferrari owners club, model xyz.000436 has 0.0013 bar more turbo boost, than model abc.00643, hence making it far superior, as it does a lap of the nurburg ring 0.0001462 seconds quicker - Model efg.00011 doesn't even come close because it runs the ring in 0.000687 seconds, hence making it totally inferior.

 

[Mr Jones]

Who cares?

Its like the Lambo/Ferrari owners club, model xyz.000436 has 0.0013 bar more turbo boost, than model abc.00643, hence making it far superior, as it does a lap of the nurburg ring 0.0001462 seconds quicker - Model efg.00011 doesn't even come close because it runs the ring in 0.000687 seconds, hence making it totally inferior.

I have to agree there - try the camera, look into the range of lens available and prices, compare it to the competition. Go for the brand you think is great for YOUR use/pocket best.

I just don't really get the whole debate about which lens for *this* make of camera is better than another lens for another make of the camera. Not everyone agrees to the same point of view.

Think this thread kinda went off the rails after a few post into Sony Vs Canon/Nikon and the OP question wasn't really answered, was it?

Least the OP found a camera, snapped away~
How are you finding it so far?

 

[BUFF]

Even looking at the so called Carl Zeiss engineered lenses (16-86 and 24-70 (??) both have very soft images and other optical problems and are clearly several steps behind the competition.

well, that site (whichever it is as slrgear haven't tested it) is clearly out of the ordinary then as e.g. the 24-70mm ZA is reckoned to be the best of the 3 (Sony, CaNikon) by every other review that I've seen ...

Looking at slrgear's conclusion of the 70-200mm
"There can be no argument that in the Sony alpha lens lineup, the 70-200mm is a lens of the highest quality, offering superb results. "
"This one criticism aside, it doesn't get much better than this".
Doesn't exactly sound bad & they even mentioned that they may not have got the best sample ...

They didn't even get the price right (they said $2000, the list price is $1800 which under Sony SURE programme in the US dealers can't advertise lower than that although that doesn't mean that they can't sell lower than that - they've been selling for as low as $1200 recently.).

The CaNikon's aren't perfect either as you can see from DPReviews recent tests.
At this level they are all excellent though so we are really scraping the barrel to find differences.