Camera Review

 The Sony A33 (A55) Not is not exactly What I expected .... the good and not so good

First of all this camera is a great movie camera with continuous auto focus and an good photo camera.

The reason I say good and not great is because if you intend on shooting in any of the 3 auto modes you are not going to get great photos the same as you would get with a Canon T1I, T2i or canon G10. But the photos are more predictable in auto than with the Canon's

The kit lens is good, does not have much range but works well even though its a cheap kit lens. Better than the t2i

The body is plastic therefore light
The fold down LCD is a winner although a little small.
Viewfinder is a real treat giving you the same read out info as the LCD
Switches automatically back and forth from LCD to viewfinder as you place your eye close or take it away from the viewfinder.
Or you can easily switch between LCD screen and viewfinder by pushing the LCD/viewfinder button.

If you have a big lens or a lens hood the flash may cast a shadow in your photo

I have large hands but the body is very comfortable to hold
Controls are easy to reach but again these cameras are are far to complicated than they need to be need, but that is where technology takes you.

I did not see the battery life as being an issue - My G10 is much better.
Charging takes 4 hours per battery so get yourself a another battery and maybe an extra charger.
I specifically bought the a33 because I did not want the GPS sucking the life out of my battery as I learned on a Panasonic Z10.
My travels do not take to normal tourist data base gps way points so I felt it was of no use to me. Another thing to break down

Used Minolta AF lenses work great and are half the price as new Sony ones and are of equal or superior quality. Many of the Sony lenses on Amazon are just rebranded Minolta lenses.

The a33 and a55 uses Steadytshot an in camera stabilization
Lenses for this camera are not stabilized which is good and bad
Good because the lenses are cheaper and lighter
Bad because the stabilization in the camera is not as reliable as say Canon

When you take a photo you cannot just press the shutter all the way down quickly.
You have to press halfway wait for the steadyshot indicator to drop to one bar, wait for the focus beep and then press all the way
Canon seems quicker?

The A33 could be less noisier (photo wise not sound wise) than the a55 because it packs less pixels on the same size sensor

An Azden SMX-10 mic $65 from Amazon is a great accessory. It takes the mic out of the body to minimize the focus noise of the lenses and adds stereo.
Alert the hot shoe on this camera is a proprietary one meaning you need an adapter to hook on a regular shoal For $12 the Seagull SC-5 Hot Shoe Adapter to Standard Flash Shoe with PC Connection - for Konica Minolta Maxxum & Sony Alpha Digital SLR Cameras works from Amazon

At about 10 minutes of using the video it shuts down from overheating and you cannot film until it cools and then it will only go for a few minutes and will shut down again. I luckily only shoot short clips so its not an issue but Sony made a statement below.

Sony has issued a statement concerning an overheating issue with the new Sony A55 and A33 translucent mirror cameras.
The problem arises from the CMOS sensor overheating in certain temperature ranges. Sony has put together a chart that provides an idea of max recording times under certain environmental conditions. You can check it out on the web. They have no solution only shoot less than 10 minutes with stabilization on.
Image stabilization is a big problem for shooting long clips.
5D Mark II and 7D cameras shutdown from overheating also so it's nothing unique to Sony.

This review could also be for the a55 since they are almost identical except for a55 --
* gives you faster continuous shooting,
* GPS
* higher megapixel.
* price
and a few other minor things

I have come to admire this little piece of techno. I have so many Minolta lenses that I purchased from ebay that I have purchased a second a33 so I must give it a 5 although there is always room for improvement and nothing is perfect.

On Ebay you can get a
Minolta 50MM F/1.7 prime for circa $73
Minolta 100 mm f/2.8 Macro The sharpest lens Minolta has ever made for less than $300
Minolta 100-300 APO Zoom $220
Be careful of the new 8mm Fisheye from Korea that is marketed for Sony under different names for $230-$330 It is not compatible with a33 or a55 VIEW PRICE

Camera Review

 I've had a Panasonic FZ30 "bridge" camera for five years. It is the type of camera without interchangeable lenses and a small sensor. I've really enjoyed that camera as it had good ergonomics, a great 35mm to 420mm 12x zoom lens, shot video, a good set of features, and pretty good stills. However I found it limited me in three areas (there's always something right?):

1) I wanted better image quality.
2) I wanted better low light capability.
3) I wanted better video performance.

Not wanting to carry and change lenses I searched for another bridge mega-zoom type of camera but they all suffered from the same small sensors and limited low light capability. So I decided I had to make the leap to an interchangeable lens camera. I would search for one that had a sort of mega-zoom lens available so I could just have one lens.

I looked at DSLRs but they are so big, so expensive, and so heavy that I shyed away from them.

Recently several micro four-thirds size sensor cameras came on the market, all using a new set of lenses, but I wasn't impressed with them. I thought if the sensor had been the biggest problem in my FZ30 I didn't want just a step up, I wanted a large leap up in sensor size.

Then I saw Sony introduce the A33 and A55. Reading through the specification I was so excited to see it would likely meet all of my wants and then some.

I've had the A55 for just over a week and I am very happy with it. I have the one lens I wanted (sort of) which is the Sony SAL18250 with a 33mm equivalent of 27mm to 375mm, almost as much zoom as my FZ30. I do appreciate the wider 27mm and can crop on the PC to extend the zoom range. Photo quality with this camera/lens combination is a huge improvement, just what I was looking for.

This camera is small compared to most other DSLRs on the market, but it is competitive in photo quality, ahead in video quality, and has some great features not found on even much more expensive cameras.

The sensor used in the A55 is an ASP-C size used in many prosumer DSLR cameras. Sony has done a great job combining advanced features into a small and light body.

As for low light the FZ30 was limited to 400 ISO while the A55 goes up to a somewhat grainy 12,800 and can mimic 25,000 in one mode. So it far exceeds my needs for low light capability. There is little noise up to about 6,400.

The video quality is astounding at 1080i/60fps (captured at 30fps, recorded at 60fps). It is smooth, sharp, and the color is good even in low light. Check it out on youtube.com

There are lots of detailed professional reviews online so I won't go much deeper - and I'm not the one to do that anyway. I'm just an amateur photographer who wants to take good photos of my seven month old grand son, some videos of wake boarders behind our boat, and photos of family gatherings. This camera will do that and much more.

There are many complaints of low battery life but it is better than my FZ30 so I am happy. I have three batteries which should solve any low battery issues anyway. It depends a lot on your shooting conditions. Yesterday I took 700 photos with very little auto focus required; the battery level showed 75% after those 700 shots. This was just a test and the total duration was less than 15 minutes. I just offer it to say that your shooting conditions will dramatically alter battery life.

Pros:
- Light weight, small and easy to handle.
- Great photo quality
- Even better video quality than most.
- Very fast, continuous Auto Focus even during video.
- Level indicator on screen (I can't tell you how many images I've had to adjust photos on the PC for a crooked horizon)
- Fully articulated 2.9" LCD (I won't buy a camera without one of these)
- Very nice Electronic View Finder. Some see this as a "Con" if they've come from an OVF. I've only used EVF for 10 years so this is no big deal for me.
- Nice, sharp, 18-250 lens (an option I purchased separately.
- Panorama mode - take an auto-stitched sequence of photos in one quick motion. Awesome feature.
- High Dynamic Range - Take, for example, a photo indoors with a bright window in the background. HDR will properly expose both the inside of the room and the image outside the window - automatically in the camera.
- Hand Held Twilight mode - take a photo in very dark conditions. The camera will take 6 photos and combine them to achieve amazing 25,000 ISO equivalent photos.
- Night portrait - uses the flash for the person in the foreground but properly exposes the background too.
- Amazing Night View scene mode - take great city skyline photos at night.
- Built in pop-up flash
- Built in GPS records where you are in the photo data. Display on Google Earth
- Face detection
- Smile shutter
- 10 Frames Per Second - yes 10fps. You can't find that in any other camera in this price range. And it will focus during the burst!
- Sensor switches from LCD to EVF when you put your eye up to the EVF. Neat!
- I can have one lens and just leave it there. No carrying two or three lenses and having the frustration of having the wrong lens attached for a given situation. I did the three lens dance many years ago and don't ever want to do it again. With one lens there is no issue with cleaning the sensor if it gets dust on it because I'll never have the sensor exposed to the air.

Cons:
- With the 18-250 lens the camera and lens weight about 2 lbs. That is about 1/2 lb. heavier than my FZ30 and I notice it.
- Lots of shooting, especially long video with the image stabilizer on, can result in an over heat shutdown. I've only had this happen once. Most of my videos are 1-3 minutes, well inside the overheat warning.
- To me the grip is uncomfortable and too small. I have average size hands for a man. After doing some research though I've learned I've been spoiled by my Panasonic FZ30 which had a very nice grip. I've tried a number of DSLRs and it seems many of them have grips that are not as comfortable for me as the FZ30.

If you are the owner of a larger, more expensive, DSLR you may find some things of this camera to fall a little short for your needs. One big issue is the lack of an OVF, another might be battery life. You may find, though, that the Sony A55 is a good addition to your camera inventory that is much smaller and lighter as a carry-around but still has great image quality and features. For you there are a lot of great Alpha lenses available for this camera.

If you are the owner of anything less than a DSLR I suspect you'll find this to be a gem of a camera. It has a lot of features that you can take your time to learn, but it also has several auto modes so you can treat it as a point-n-shoot. My wife picked it up this morning and took several photos without ever having touched it before. She took the lens cap off, turned it on, popped up the flash and took several great photos of me with my grand son.

Don't be scared away by those that tell you Canon and Nikon are the only good digital camera manufacturers. Sony makes sensors for Nikon. VIEW PRICE

Camera Review

 This camera is terrific. I have grand children who are constantly on the move...I have several digital cameras that just capture their blurry forms. THIS CAMERA is soooo fabulous. I am totally sold on it and its super ways!!!! I have used it at horse shows and obviously on the grands...JUST GREAT!!

Just bought this about a week ago and went out shooting night scenes of downtown honolulu. Could not be more happy with my purchase. Absolutely excellent starter dslr. I am new to photography and this camera is simply the best. With a little reading up with the user manual and the auto help menu on the camera makes this dslr easy to use. The bag that came with it is not the one pictured in the description but a different Sony bag, small but well made. Enough space to fit the camera, lens it comes with, battery pack, charger, and SD card. Tripod that comes with is obviously not the best, but definitely works great pastic and some parts metal. Ive used it twice already and everything works perfect and easy to use. Could not be more happy with this package, recommend it to anyone seeking a beginner dslr package. By the way pictures came out amazing.  VIEW PRICES

If you're looking for a pocketable camera that has reasonably high quality images, lets you control aperture, speed and focus and shoot in RAW format, this is it. I bought mine as an upgrade from a previous small but versatile camera, a Canon Powershot S70.

The Powershot S95 was introduced in August 2010 as a slight upgrade to the S90, which was widely praised for its image quality and excellent interface but criticized for being hard to hold ("like a bar of soap in the shower") and for having a control dial that turned too easily. The S95 fixes both problems and adds a couple of other features in a package that fits in the pocket of your jeans (if they're not super tight). The case is metal, and although there are no finger grips on the body, it's not slippery at all. It feels like it's covered with super-fine sandpaper (like 1000 or 1500 grit, for those you who know what that feels like).

The second major complaint about the S-90 was that the function selection ring on the rear moved too easily. The ring on the S-95 has a slight click when you move it, and it doesn't move unless you want it to.

There are a couple of other cameras of this type, including the Panasonic LX-3 and LX-5 and the Samsung TL500. They all have let you control camera functions, and like the S95 they have 10 MP sensors that are almost twice as large as a typical pocket camera, so the pixels on the sensor are larger. That lets them gather light more efficiently, which reduces digital "noise" when you shoot in dim light. Image quality is noticeably better than photos from typical pocket cameras. You can make an 8 x 10 or perhaps 11x14 enlargement, although a digital SLR will be significantly better for larger prints. They also have f/2.0 lenses at their widest angle, although the aperture closes down as you zoom in.

The Canon has two advantages over the Panasonic LX-3 & LX-5. First, you really can put it in your pocket or in a belt case no bigger than the one you use for a mobile phone. Second, the interface is a brilliant re-thinking of how a very small camera with a full set of controls should work. There's not much room for buttons on the small surface, but you don't have to get into a multi-level menu on the LCD, and yet changing settings is fast and intuitive.
For example, there's a ring around the lens that you can grip easily to control zoom, or, shutter speed, or aperture, change ISO, or manually focus. You select what you want it to do by pressing a button on the top, and when you look at the LCD screen you can see what it's programmed for. There's a selection wheel on the back for other functions, and when you move it, a clear set of choices appears on the screen. The selections are context-appropriate, so they change depending on whether you've set the camera for aperture control, "Program" control, etc.

The two Panasonics have the same sensor as their Canon equivalents, but they offer a slightly wider lens (24mm vs. 28 for the S95). The LX-3 has a much shorter telephoto - only 60 mm. The LX-5, which was introduced a couple of weeks before the S95, has a 90mm telephoto, and you can buy an add-on optical viewfinder. It also has a flash shoe in addition to the pop-up flash, although you can buy a dedicated add-on flash for the S-95 to supplement its pop-up flash The LX-5 is about 25% more expensive than the Canon S95 (and 60% more with the optional viewfinder) and while it would fit in a coat pocket, you can't stuff it into a trouser pocket.

If you want a truly pocketable camera that gives you good image quality and full control over your photography, the S95 is an excellent choice.
VIEW PRICES

For the cost of this camera, I don't think you can get anything better. The low light performance is off the charts. As a wedding photographer I regularly shoot with Nikon's high end professional equipment and I was amazed how close this camera is to a pro camera. Now let me get specific. In order to compare I took a look at 100% files out of each camera I own.

Which camera excels Nikon D3100($Cheap) VS. D300($1600) VS. D700 ($2,700):
* Lens = The D3100 is the only camera that comes with a lens at it's normal price
* ISO Performance = Tie between D3100 and D700! (It could be Nikon's new processing but the JPEG looks fantastic I was shooting D3100 on 6400iso with very little noise at all)
* Low Light Focusing = D700
* Focus Speed = D700
* External Buttons & Controls for Pros = D700
* Menu Navigation = D3100
* Ease of Use = D3100
* Megapixel = D3100 (14.2)
* Sensor size = D700 (Much more important than megapixels but I won't get into this)
* Can use older lenses with functionality = D700 & D300
* Video = D3100 of course! 1080P video looks amazing.
* Frame Rate = D300 at 6 photos a second
* Weight = D3100 (light as a feather)
* Ergonomics = D700 (big enough for all my finger)

Lens:
The lens is a kit lens, it will work outside but not so great in low light. The Vibration Reduction will help indoors but Vibration Reduction can't stop a child or pet in motion indoors. Consider buying a 35mm 1.8dx AFS for around $200 and you will be super happy with this camera.

Video:
I purchased the 3100 specifically to shoot video, so I put on Nikon's brand new 85mm 1.4g Nano lens and shot video with it. The lens costs more than double the camera but I wanted to see how the 1080P video looked. It has the look of a cinematic movie. After the 85mm, I put on Nikon's 50 1.2 manual focus lens and was able to take very cinematic video in manual mode. In order to make it brighter or darker you either need to use a really old lens like the 50mm 1.2 and hit the AE-L (auto exposure lock) and twist the aperture to change exposure. Or you can hit the AE-L button when you get the exposure you like. Its not a perfect system but it works well for me. Inside the menu options you can change the AE-L button to hold the setting until you reset which is helpful.

Jello Cam (What's not so great):
This camera still suffers from the "Jello Cam" look in video if it is not on a tripod and you are shaky. The video can look like jello if moved too quickly. Use a monopod or tripod when shooting to avoid this. I'm not sure if a faster video frame rate 60fps would help - but at 24 and 30 it can suffer badly.

Conclusion:
This is an amazing deal! Unless you make most of your income from photography or have a stockpile of old lenses (this camera can only autofocus with AFS lenses) then this camera is the must have camera of the year. If you have good composition skills and an eye for light you can take photos worthy of a magazine with this. Seriously, you won't regret buying this camera. When you do, do yourself a favor and buy an additional Nikon AFS lens that has a maximum aperture of 2.8, 1.8 or 1.4. These lenses will take better portraits and deal better in low light than the kit lens. VIEW PRICES

My only real gripe with the T3 is its lack of a rubberized handgrip. I don't expect posh materials at this price point but some surface providing a better grip would have been nice. One important point though is that because of the materials used, it makes the camera extremely light-weight (although you will find with heavier lenses it will feel out of balance somewhat). However, despite the lack of a rubberized handgrip, you will find it hard to dislike this camera. And it I think it provides an overall better and more straight-forward shooting experience than thte Nikon D3100.

After extensive research on advanced point-and-shoots that use AA batteries (something I require), I settled on three: the Nikon L100, the Canon Powershot SX10IS, and the Fujifilm s8100fd. So you know the perspective from which this review is coming, I'm not an experienced photographer but I'm not clueless either. However, this is my first camera more advanced than a basic point-and-shoot. So I'll call myself an informed beginner.

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