REALLY IMPORTANT! About sony alpha digital slrs?
Posted on Jan 25, 2009 under Digital news and reports |How come everyone has a canon or a nikon? i know they're the more popular brands and they have more lense but do the take better pictures. i've had my mind set on a sony alpha a300k for a long time now and i'm now having second thoughts. i really don't want to buy it and have my pictures look like crap. helphelphelp please and thanks
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
my nikon takes better pictures
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Whether or not your pictures look crap depends on you and not on your hardware. The Sony Alpha series are great cameras (being, in fact, Minoltas). The reasons many use Nikon and Canons is due entirely to cleve propaganda, supported by the photographic press. They do not take better pictures
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Sony are one of the leaders in DSLR sensor development and supply other DSLR makers, including some Nikon and Pentax models.
They also have a range of top quality lenses including designs from the legendary Carl Zeiss organization
http://photography.suite101.com/article.cfm/new_carl_zeiss_classic_lenses
It also has in-camera image stabilization so you do not need to buy special lenses
http://photography.suite101.com/article.cfm/pentax_dslr_shake_reduction
It is important you feel comfortable with your camera choice so you can concentrate on the important stuff - taking pictures.
so if your heart says Sony, then go with it.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Finally a buyer who doesn't care what everyone else has. I have to commend you on that. I actually am coming from Canon to Sony. I have already bought an older 35mm Minolta Maxxum with a Minolta 50/1.7 lens. It is quite a nice camera. I am soon getting an a700.
Sony actually has quite a lot of lenses. If you look at B&H, you will see that there are 26 made by Sony, (avoid Phoenix), 33 by Sigma, 16 by Tamron and 2 by Tokina listed, but that is not all the lenses, just the ones they have available.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/shop/9266/SLR_Interchangeable_Lenses_for_Sony_Minolta.html
To add to that, you can find great older Minolta lenses used on ebay, craigslist, amazon, etc. Good lenses, if cared for, can last indefinitely.
Now, to the alphas, the a300 is a great choice. It is basically the same as the a200, except that it has live view. If live view isn't really important, then you might look into an a200 because they are about $100 cheaper and have exactly, and I do mean exactly, the same features with exception to the live view.
The a300 and a350 are very similar as well. Both have the tilt-out live view. But the a300 gets 3 frames per second, while the a350 only gets 2.5, although this is not a huge difference. The biggest difference between the a300 and a350 is the a350 is 14MP while the a300 is 10MP. Now, this is not really that much of an advantage unless you want to buy the lenses to take advantage of the 14MP.
So, if live view is important, then the a300 is a great camera. You can get it on B&H with the 18-70 lens for $599.
But if you don't care about live view, then go for the a200 with the 18-70 (the exact same camera without live view) for $499.
Both great cameras. Send me a message if you like.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Here is the deal.
At this time, professionals use Nikon and Canon cameras. There is a reason for this, but mainly they have the longest tradition of providing professional quality cameras and support to working pros. This includes rental equipment for those times a photographer needs a specialty lens for one shoot and cannot justify spending over $5000 on a one time assignment. Only Nikon and Canon equipment is available as rental equipment.
While there are some excellent alternative DSLR's available including Olympus, Pentax and Sony, none of them have the number of lenses available to support the range of lenses professionals need in their day to day work. Are they any less able to provide "professional" images? NO. They are excellent cameras and have excellent glass … just not enough of them.
So what happens to a young photographer, without much money who decides to take a class or two in photography and later finds that they have both the technical mentality as well as an artistic eye and decide to continue with their education, focusing on photography only to find out that their first choice in a camera system has limited growth potential? Now at the beginning of their careers, they not only are still poor because they have student loans and are starting out at the "bottom" of the photographic food chain, but that they have to replace all their cameras and lenses with a Nikon or Canon system.
Why not just start out with some affordable,good used Nikon or Canon equipment in the beginning and then as they can afford it, add to their system?
I studied the various SLR systems for nearly three years before I made my choice. It was just after Canon made a big push from being the camera that JC Penney sold, to a camera company that was being aggressively promoted as the contender to the (at the time) two big news and sports camera companies, Nikon and Pentax. Canon's were around a 30% less investment and had been designing new FL lenses which were on par with the Nikon ED lenses but at a fraction of the cost.
I owned two bodies and five nice FD lenses when in 1988, Canon dumped that system in favor of the current EOS system. So, I know the financial pain of having to replace all my fine equipment with some other brand. At the time I was working for a paper who used Nikon equipment, so instead of sticking with Canon, I moved over to Nikon. It took me nearly four years to recover from the financial hit by having to change systems.
Bottom line? If you are absolutely sure, you are never going to turn pro, by all means buy the camera system that suites your photographic needs both in cost and design. If you know you want to go pro or even think you may want to go pro, stick with Nikon or Canon systems.
Here is just one case that came up recently. Someone here purchased one of the first Sony alpha DSLR's and later decided they wanted to become a professional sports photographer. The problem is Sony does not make lenses in the length sports photographers use … basically 200-400 mm f/4 zoom, 400 mm f/2.8 and 600 mm f/4. The longest and fastest lens they make is a 300 mm f/2.8 … that is it. So if anyone wants to be a sports or wildlife photographer and has the begining of a Sony camera system, they will have to sell it and buy either Nikon or Canon systems. At the minimum it will be a $1000 hit.
Pros do not fall in love with Nikon's or Canon's. They just cannot afford to flip from one camera company to another. It is pure economics. Those who answer the question, "which camera is better?" with "Nikon or Canon" are probably not pros. They are most usually someone who loves their camera and their choice in buying cameras.
You have to decide what you want to do with your skills as a photographer before you start building a system. There was a time when a photographer was expected to have some kind of view camera, a medium format camera and a 35 mm SLR system. That has been changing over the past few years with the introduction of professional quality DSLR's and the acceptance of the digital image file as the product of the photographer instead of chromes ranging is sizes from 8×10 inch to 35 mm.
So to answer your question. The only reason your pictures will look like crap, will not be the fault of the camera system you choose. The fault will fall squarely on your shoulders.
Here is a link that will explain why that is true.
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/notcamera.htm
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
Always remember this: "Its not the camera, its the photographer."
If you are knowledgeable about light, composition, f-stops, shutter speeds and ISO and skilled in their use then you can make good pictures with any camera.
Although someone mentioned that Sony makes sensors for other DSLRs, I'll expand on that. Sony makes the sensor used in the wildly over-priced Nikon D3x (approx. $8,000.00 for the body only) and its the same sensor Sony uses in their full-frame DSLR, the A900 (approx. $3,000.00 for the body only).
Also, don't worrry about lens availability. Every Minolta Maxxum AF lens made since 1985 is compatible with the Sony DSLR cameras.
So go ahead and buy the A300 and enjoy it.
January 25th, 2009 at 10:50 am
The make of camera has little effect on picture quality, lens quality is all important.
You have two choices when buying a camera, you can go with an electronics manufacturer and have the latest cutting edge functions, or you can go with an established lens manufacturer, as lenses are all important to image quality I chose the latter and chose Pentax. Samsung are the exception to this rule as they opted for a tie up with Pentax and use the Pentax K mount.
Pentax were late on the digital scene, before then they were the leading brand for quality and range of lenses. They paid the price by loosing the top slot to Canon and Nikon, both giants in camera manufacture, the advertising budget for Canon is greater than the total budget for Pentax camera division. They are still missing a full frame sensor in their camera range - watch this space…
Pentax make more lenses than any other manufacturer, if you wear glasses chances are you are using Pentax lenses, they also manufacture the lenses used in medical equipment and even for the periscopes of submarines, so they know a thing or two about lenses. Indeed lens manufacture is their core business, making cameras is only a small part of their turnover.
They have the largest range of lenses that can mount on your DSLR from any manufacturer, any K mount lens made since 1975 can be directly used on your Pentax DSLR all will have anti shake as its built into the camera. Lenses in their range include an 8mm 'cloud lens' to a massive 5000mm f4, both of these are like hens teeth to find and are in the hands of collectors.
To get back to your original question Sony cameras fall into the 'electronics manufacturer' category unfortunately they use the Minolta range of lenses which when compared to the lens manufacturers are only mediocre, and have a limited range, though 3rd party manufacturers such as Sigma are helping to fill this gap. Currently Sigma make the sharpest production lens from any manufacturer in their 105mm f2.8 EX Macro check the reviews. You won't get a bad lens from any in their EX range. Theres a lot of lens 'snobbery' out there.
Canon make fine cameras, its the way they 'maximise profits' that gets my goat, they are the only company that charge extra for the lens hood for instance. Its definitely the most expensive system to buy into, but it is good when you get above the entry level. The entry level models all have to go into menu for even the most basic adjustments such as exposure correction which makes them a pain to use.
The same could be said of Nikon their entry level D40 and D60 are woefully inadequate on the number of functions available (no bracketing for example) and you have to buy the more expensive motorised lenses if you want to retain auto focus, which undermines the cheap initial price. Picture quality is fine though and their lenses, though expensive, are very good.
Chris
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