Re: Sony A77 - It is working for me.
Well, only 3 days and 300 shots with an A77... side by side with my D7000 both with identical lenses, Tamron 17-50mm 2.8.
Preamble: I have to say, after moving from a D300 to the D7000 I was very quickly disenchanted with many issues, my issues not the plethora of comments from DPR members about oil spots, dead pixels, overexposure etc, but things that annoyed and frustrated me. I tried the GH1, GH2 for a year and then purchased a D7000 for the IQ and Speed.
After a couple of weeks fighting the lack of results from the D7000 with Out of Focus and Overexposure etc, when I could nail 90% of the shots with the D300, I went back to basics and tuned it to what had worked best in the D300.
That worked for me, and with the focusing now set to Single Point only and exposure to Centre Weighted I was close to getting the results I expected... mainly in the exposure area, it was very close now where overexposure had been the norm. Don't even talk about the matrix metering.... a bunch of other tweaks along the way and 7 months later it is doing the job ok.
The A77 by comparison, out of the box felt and worked much better than the first experiences with the D7000. Exposure and focus worked well, although better with the similar settings to the D7000, so much so after a couple of hours I did not want to put it down.
Many are talking about the noisy sensor at high ISO... I have tested both cameras, this is my opinion for what it is worth... there is little if any difference in the quality of a simple jpg out of camera with default P mode settings in either the A77 or Nikon. In good light, they are both excellent...some colour differences but that is normal. As the light degrades and shadows deepen, and the ISO goes up, the D7K has a slight edge at from 400 to 800 ISO, and gains more edge over the A77 which is still reasonable up to 1600 ISO and generally recoverable in RAW up to 3200 ISO... then, well we know the facts after that, reality kicks in.
But seriously, how many serious photographers shoot at higher ISO than 1600 regularly, most I know and semi pro photogs, use the lowest ISO they can... 100-200 if possible.
I use up to 1600 ISO when shooting birds in flight to get the shutter speed, but for most of my work I use 400 or less.
I really like the EVF, articulated LCD and the general responsiveness.. so far it is doing what I need. The focus and exposure is spot on in my opinion, I have not spent much time yet with the RAW and Capture One 6, no time yet but I am sure the IQ will be better.
Phil
A few out of camera JPG example shots:
SONY SLT-A77V, f/3.2 @ 17 mm, 1/60, ISO 400, No Flash
SONY SLT-A77V, f/8 @ 35 mm, 1/320, ISO 200, Cropped 20% No Flash
SONY SLT-A77V, f/7.1 @ 45 mm, 1/250, ISO 200, Cropped 60% No Flash