I have used a Sony SLT-a55 for the past year and a half and purchased a number of the Sony and Zeiss professional lens. This combination has produced very good output. Some of the finest pictures I have ever taken were with the a55. However I was annoyed that the camera was not as responsive as my a700 and the overheating problem during video recording. So I preordered the SLT-a57 March 18th and it arrived yesterday. I have only had the camera one day and I am very impressed and think the upgrade from the a55 is very good. I think the Sony SLT cameras offer an excellent feature set. I am a fan of the EVF technology. Much of my photography is done shooting stage events where the lights vary greatly across the stage. I love being able to see the adjustments of the camera setting in the EVF and shoot without needing to refer to the output on the LCD screen. What you see is what you get. I can concentrate on the subjects and wait for just the right moment in the action. I prefer to compose the scene through a VF anyway. I no longer take an OVF camera to stage events. Getting the right exposure is so easy with an SLT camera. The exposure on stage can easily vary from 1/30 to 1/640 sec at F4 depending upon the subject position relative to the lighting, especially spotlights. I no longer do any exposure bracketing. I also enjoyed the continuous focus during video recording (DLSR AF during zooming while video recording is poor), and in camera HDR feature that works very well. I do prefer an OVF camera for studio work with strobes. I have been very impressed with two other features of the SLT-a57 already. The first one is focus peaking during manually focusing. I have poor eyesight and could no longer manually focus a scene. But with the focus peaking feature my manual focusing that been restored. It is like a part of my vision has been restored. I now would buy a Sony SLT or NEX camera just for this feature alone. The other feature that appears very impressive is the clear zoom feature where the picture quality is processed and improved over what one usually gets from a digital zoom which degrades the IQ. You can zoom up to 2.8x on any lens attached to the camera. I have uploaded two pictures for you to see the magnification of my CZ 16-80 zoom lens at 80mm while lighting the subject with bounce flash (These are jpg pictures right out of the camera. Notice the knots on the beaded jug as a reference). I now will have a very nice combination with my a77 for event photography with some SSM lens. I want to thank the engineers at Sony for this feature set. In the past I felt that Sony offered some excellent lens but that each of their camera models was lacking an important feature. Now I feel that Sony has produced two excellent cameras in the SLT a77 (I bought it for its AF system (which is great) and the ability to micro adjust lens focus) and the SLT-57 model. They are very fun to use with a super feature set. They are fast, feel good in the the hand and produce very nice pictures indeed.
I tested the clear zoom feature further tonight and I think that it works as advertised which is amazing. You can digitally magnify the image up to 2.8x more while still retaining very good image quality through Sony's image enhancement feature. I included some pictures taken with my telephoto lens on the Sony a57 product page here on Amazon shot at an 8 Mp resolution. Look for yourself. I made my 200mm telephoto lens a 400mm with the push a button. There is a picture taken with my 400mm lens for comparison. It doesn't look like a gimmick to me. 4-29-12 I uploaded more pictures to the Sony SLT-a57 product page after a trip out "birding" with an 400mm lens. I think people interested in photographing wildlife should consider this camera.
Update: 5-23-12. Recently, I shot 3 stage events and I am satisfied that this camera's clear zoom feature works just as well indoors as outdoors. I was very impressed with the reach of this camera and the IQ of the images using it with a Tamron 70-200mm f 2.8 lens. I did not need to go above 1600 iso to get the shutter speeds I needed even with dancers and felt no need to do any noise removal in post proceeding. The feature set of this camera gives one so many options. Using the focus peaking feature with manual focusing more and more.
Another problem that is resolved when using the SLT-a57 when shooting stage events (formal concerts like choir or orchestra) or weddings is how quiet the shutter is. It is almost silent. In the past using a OVF camera with a moving mirror I could not get the shots I wanted for fear of causing shutter noise at a time when everyone in the audience should be quiet like when a soft song was being played or sung or when the couple is exchanging vows during the wedding. I would have to wait until a rise in volume occurred so the shutter noise would not be noticed. Often during concerts I shoot video and take still pictures (with two different cameras) at the same time. Then when I played the video back I could hear every shutter click when using the OVF camera like my a700 or a580. What a pain. Now I record video and shoot with the SLT-a57 at the same time and I do not hear the shutter in the video at all. Now I shoot whenever I want during the event. I love the freedom a quiet shutter mechanism gives me. The a77 also has a very quiet shutter as well. I am very happy with this purchase.
Update 10/27/12. I have shot with this camera for another 6 months and my satisfaction has only grown. I love the focus peaking feature for manual focusing. It is the best focus assist system for manual focusing in the world. I have shifted over to become a full manual mode shooter. I now have raised my photography to another level. Another feature have works excellent as well is sweep panorama. My sunset pictures are even better. I do agree with other people that Sony needs to improve the jpg engine of all their cameras especially with shooting in the shade. Anyway this is a class leading camera. An excellent choice for someone starting photography.
I purchased this from another retailer before it was available from Amazon. I needed it in a hurry because my A100 failed. The a57 is a very good camera but it took some getting used to.
This is my first SLT so I found the LCD viewfinder to be a bit strange at first when using a DSLR. It is very bright, and has a bit too much contrast when shooting in very bright sunlight. The LCD multiple angle live/playback/menu screen is great. Easy to see even in bright daylight. Being an SLT (single lens translucent mirror) camera, the a57 is extremely quiet when taking pictures. I use the Intelligent auto mode or the P mode most of the time as opposed to the Superior mode. I don't want the flash to pop up on its own when shooting in low light, which it does very well. All my older Minolta AF A mount lenses work well with the camera, including my Sigma 28 f2.8 macro lens. My older HVLF36am flash is completely compatible with the a57 as well.
The camera body is the same size as the a100 although a bit lighter in weight. It has a comfortable grip with room for all my fingers (no pinky hanging off like with earlier Sony DSLR models). The controls are layed out logically. There is one minor problem...it is possible to hit the movie button by accident. I would prefer a slide switch to start a movie as opposed to a button. You can eat up your memory card without even knowing what happened if not careful.
I am still a guy who misses film (I had my own color darkroom) I shot mostly 200 ASA negative film and 400 ASA in very low light conditions. So at 16 MP I feel that the A57 takes very sharp pictures in all conditions. I took a look at the a65 with its 24 MP and its brighter OLED View Finder but really did not see enough advantage to the camera to spend an extra 200 bucks. I think Sony had that in mind when they replaced the a55 with the a57. If you really want the extra MPs then 200 bucks is not bad, but you don't sacrifice much if you go with the a57. As a matter of fact you get a couple of new features with the a57 not available with the a65. One is Auto Portrait Framing. When taking a picture that captures a face, you can center and snap and the camera will automatically save a second image, re-frame the shot using the rule of thirds. Pretty cool I think. Also, if you are willing to shoot at a smaller picture size, the a57 will fire at 12 frames per second. At the largest pic size it will shoot at 10fps. Not bad for action shots. Last the a57 will shoot at 16000 ISO which for all of us old film buffs translates to a lot of pushing in the darkroom.
Not having used an SLT with electronic viewfinder before, I found out that there are things I like... such as the level indicator, and things I don't like..like too much info cluttering up the viewing area. Fortunately info displayed is optional and you can change how much you want to see.
The a57 uses the larger M size battery, the same newer battery for the a100. The a55 which the a57 is replacing uses a smaller battery, which doesn't last as long and tends to get hot as well.
The Pros of this camera are many....sharp pictures even in low light. Records movies easily (also a con)
Terrific number of auto shoot modes for all kinds of conditions including portrait re-framing and auto HDR along with multi frame exposure for low light conditions.
Uses the large M batteries.
Bright LCD multi angle live/review/menu screen.
Cons (keeping the camera from getting a full five stars)
View Finder screen has too much contrast when shooting in bright daylight, .
Easy to hit the movie button by accident...with a finger or against your chest.
The camera has some fun things I have not used yet..such as the panorama sweep mode, both 2d and 3d. Not having a 3d television I doubt that feature will get used much.
All told I look forward to using this camera for a long time to come. I will say this...I still like looking through an optical VF so my a100 is going in for repair. Using the a57 and the a100 together should allow me to do just about anything including shooting HD movies.
I am updating my review, now that I have learned a bit more about the camera and giving it five stars.
Buy Sony Alpha SLT-A57 16.1 MP Exmor APS HD CMOS Sensor DSLR with Translucent Mirror Technology and 3D Now
Sony a57 is a really fantastic camera.
Handling of the camera is excellent and the way better than any competitor.
Its design and built quality are simply perfect, it fits in hand ideally. Not only that it's easy shooting with various settings with a57 but it's also very pleasing.
The shutter is really quiet and smooth. The electronic first curtain shutter significantly decreases sound and vibration caused by shutter mechanism.
Articulating screen is very useful and once you get used to it's a very comfortable and necessary feature to have.
Viewfinder is more than good enough, although it's not as good as OLED EVFs we have seen in high-end SLTs but it's much better than competitor's small OVFs. Most important thing is that with EVF "what you see is what you get" unlike OVFs where you have no clue what your final image is gonna be like.
One more thing, manual focusing with traditional DSLRs is a really headache, it's almost impossible to get accurate shot since the OVFs of entry-level DSLRs are ridiculously small, but with EVF you can use MF magnification or Peaking feature and never bother again how accurate focus will be.
Autofocus is really fast, unlike nikon competitors you have built-in AF motor that you can use with old excellent minolta lenses. Face detection, object tracking and AF area features are on board, so you have great ability to customize Af behavior. The shooting speed is excellent, at least twice as fast as rivals and a57 has a HUGE BUFFER SIZE (21 raw+jpeg) that takes fast shooting experience to a higher level. Video quality is outstanding, full HD 60fps is really enough for even advanced video shooters and customization of video is much better than firs generation SLTs. One downside is that if you shoot with AF you can't go wider than f3.5 and it's a shame but with excellent peaking feature you can shoot with manual focusing without any trouble.
There is not reason to talk much about image quality. It's excellent and it's not big news that 16mp sony sensor is really great. I think everyone is aware of that, since D5100 D7000 A580 A55 A35 nex-5n etc. have the same sensor. Some people claim that a57 sensor is improved over a55 but it's not true. Raw image quality is exactly the same. The one thing sony is still behind from canikon is it's jpeg engine. While White Balance colors and contrast are very good, sony a57 still fails to get as clean and detailed jpegs as the sensor allows. At low iso images are fine but at high iso NR shows its ugly head (I always keep it at Low setting).
I won't talk much about features. Clear image zoom is really gimmick and does nothing useful and auto portrait framing is only for kids under 10, it uses RULE OF THIRDS composition and crops picture, if you can't do it yourself and if you don't enjoy framing during taking pictures then why you should buy 700$ camera? So those are features that I turned off the second I got the camera and never turning them on again. Peaking, HDR, panorama and painting effect HDR are really useful features.
Before the listing of cons I want to say why this camera is better than Cnikon rivals.
WHY YOU SHOULD CHOOSE A57 OVER NIKON COMPETITORS:
A57 has much better handling experience, is much much faster, has Larger buffer size and much more features.
A57 has Built-in focus motor and Built in image stabilization so you get IS and AF with every lens you attach and with nikon you get neither of these with old lenses.
People say that nikon has the same sensors and recieves extra half stop light but come on, while nikon gathers 1.5x more light sony has steadyshot and can shoot at least 3-4 times longer with any lens, so you can get at least 2 times more light, so in most cases(except you're using stabilized lens on nikon) you get at least one stop ISO advantage with sony.
OVF technology is really old and uncomfortable and it's obvious that with SLT you have much more chance to get right shot than with SLR.
OLD minolta lenses are soo cheap and so good, you can get under 100$ some excellent lenses and have full functionality.
much better video with full-time PD autofocus.
WHY YOU SHOULD CHOOSE A57 OVER CANON COMPETITORS:
canon has fallen behind in sensor technology. Image quality of Sony sensor's are much superior to canon's.
even with extra half stop light canon iso performance is no better than sony
in terms of Dynamic range and color depth sony really puts a shame even canon's pro sensors.
much better video with full-time PD autofocus.
much better build quality, much faster, and 5 times larger raw buffer kicks canon out of game.
Cons of A57:
can't choose ISO other than power of two (x 100).
Not-so-good Jpeg engine without opportunity turning of NR.
No auto ISO in manual mode.
No hope that sony will ever do firmware upgrade.
EVF refresh rate still has to be improved.
EVF dynamic range isn't match of sensor's DR.
Aperture limitation on Video (when using AF).
Bracketing has only two options 0.3 and 0.7 EV.
Most of features doesn't work when you shoot RAW+jpeg (it's soo distracting).
ISO buttons location is far from perfect.
Why the "?" button isn't customizable and who needs the button that doesn't do anything but showing guide?
To sum up a57 is a great tool for photographer and it not only does many things but does everything well. This is a camera you'll fall in love with and this is camera that shouldn't be pared with crappy 18-55 kit lens. I highly recommend to everyone buying this camera. Cheers!
Read Best Reviews of Sony Alpha SLT-A57 16.1 MP Exmor APS HD CMOS Sensor DSLR with Translucent Mirror Technology and 3D Here
I am a photographer with more than 20 years of experience, and I was looking for a near-professional camera and great walk-around lens. i evaluated the Canon T3i/T4i, and Nikon 5100... all of those are good cameras, but the price/features is biased by the "pedigree" of the brand.
The Sony A57 is a great camera, feature rich, the body looks great, it takes great pictures, and the battery last over 500 pictures.
Why Sony?
Pros:
LCD viewfinder, finally on the viewfinder all the relevant info is available, this camera is not a DSLR, but a "translucent mirror", which removes part of the vibration of physically rising the viewfinder mirror on each picture. on this the Sony is way more stable and less prone to vibration when taking pictures, the only "moving parts" are the sensor stabilization, and the sensor curtain.
High ISO sensor, and multishot Noise reduction (takes several pictures and combine them to remove image noise of high ISO settings)
12FPS at 8MP o 8fps at 16MP. no other "pedigree" brand beats that.
Great Lens. the 18-135 F3.5-5.6 is a great walk-around lens.
Great on body features, like HDR, Panoramas, 3D panoramas, fullHD 1080P videos in 24fps, 30fps and 60fps.
On body image stabilization: this means that you can use any old Minolta AF lens and get the benefits of the image stabilization found on the Alpha Body. On Canon or Nikon, if you need image stabilization, you need to buy expensive new lenses.
Cheap and available Minolta AF (Maxxum and Dynax) lenses, flashs and accessories. I bought out from ebay 6 near mint different lenses for less than 300$, and 2 Minolta Flashes for less than 100$
On body motor for lens AF. (Sorry Nikon I still have a grudge on you for the motorless bodies, many of my old Nikon AF lenses are now manual focus, and on Ebay to buy additional Minolta/Sony lenses).
The body embedded flash, is good for 25-30ft pictures, good for indoor pictures.
The camera has all the wireless flash features on the body to fully take advantage of any Minolta wireless AF D flash or new Sony flash.
Cons?
No grip (official or 3rd party) available for the camera yet
APS-C sensor crop hits you on the fish-eye/wide angle lenses, killing a 1/3 of the view angle. this is a common problem for all cameras not full frame.
Side comments: if you buy a DSLR/SLT camera (any brand) make sure that you buy a cleaning/dust removal kit (sensor, mirror and lenses). my pick?:Giotto's Rocket-Air Blower Professional AA1903 Large (Red) + Lenspen Lens Pen Cleaning System + Lenspen Digi-Klear LCD Monitor Pen Digital Display Cleaning System + Accessory Kit for Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax and Sony Digital SLR Cameras this worked wonders cleaning some dandruff off the mirror (windy day lens change)
UPDATE after 3 months of usage:
The camera performs great, after learning more of the options, the camera keeps impressing me. With a Minolta 50mm 1.7 lens, at night, with the light of only a single birthday cake candle i shot a great sequence of a friend blowing his birthday cake candle, amazing stuff, no flash, 12fps, and lights where solid and warm. camera is great. buy it now that the price dropped a few hundred dollars.
UPDATE after 8 months of usage:
This camera still amazes me, solid performance... I had the opportunity to play with 3 wireless flashes (2 Minolta HS5600D and one Sony 5600)... amazing results and the camera has the wireless built in... Chalk that one up for the A57 against "entry" same price range on Canon or Nikon.
I also added a few "expensive" lenses to my bag: a Sigma 170-500 F5.6 Super Tele-zoom. great for long range outdoors. the A57 performs awesome, the built in motor on the camera allows to use those oldie but goldie glasses.
Latest Firmware also adds on camera corrections for additional new wide angle lenses, to correct chromatic aberrations and distortions.
Don't buy the new A58 as a replacement of the A57, since is a more of a mix between the A37 + A57, not an upgrade... if you are looking for a upgrade, check the upcoming A7x when available, or wait for the A77 to lower the price.
Want Sony Alpha SLT-A57 16.1 MP Exmor APS HD CMOS Sensor DSLR with Translucent Mirror Technology and 3D Discount?
OK, so this review isn't going to be anywhere near as technical as most I see posted. And it won't have a lot of direct comparisons of competitive cameras. What it WILL have is my opinion of this amazing camera after using it for a month, and how I wound up choosing it.
To begin with, I used to do a fair amount of SLR photography back in the 80s and 90s. I was never all that serious about it, though, and switched to point and shoot digital cameras in the late 90s. And until recently, we've been perfectly happy with the good quality digital cameras we've invested in. The one exception has been for taking pictures of my son's basketball and daughter's volleyball games. No matter what we did, we couldn't seem to avoid blurry pictures where you can barely make out faces.
After some research, we decided that going back to SLR was the way to go. But coming back to a big camera isn't enough in itself. You really need to buy lenses with f-stop ratings at 2.8 or lower (2.2, 2.0, 1.8, 1.4, etc). Some of this can get expensive quickly. But luckily, Sony has a couple of very nice lenses (the 50mm 1.8, the 85mm 2.8, and the 35mm 1.4) for not a lot of money. I skipped the kit lens.
So how did I end up buying this camera? Kind of by accident. Starting out, I was convinced I was looking at one of the Canon Rebels. Then I read great things about the Nikons in their D-series (D3100, D3200, and D5000). So I was focused on picking one of those. Then I read an article saying that the new Sony cameras can use older Minolta autofocus lenses, which piqued my interested. I have some old Minolta AF lenses, and it would be nice to be able to use them again. But that alone wasn't enough.
So the research began. At first, I was put off by how many people had really negative things to say about the Sony cameras. But eventually, it occurred to me that almost everyone who was slamming them DIDN'T ACTUALLY USE THEM. Most were people with long-stated preference for Canon or Nikon. Which is fine, but not really helpful. Once I focused on reviews from people who are actually using the Sony cameras, it became clear that people who own them love them. That, combined with the wealth of features (big, bright, pixel-dense display, easy to use auto and program modes, great video capabilities, ability to use Minolta lenses) left me favoring the Sony slightly before purchase.
Now, after using the camera for a month, I can say without question that we made the right decision. We've already taken hundreds of photos in all kinds of situations, and without fail this camera delivers. Granted, it sometimes takes a little playing around with the settings to get what I'm looking for, but as I'm learning there's less and less of that. If you're new to digital SLR cameras, the Sony does a decent job explaining itself to you, and there are plenty of online resource (youtube videos and the like) to help you figure out the features and make the most of them.
So my recommendation? Unless you just have a preference for Nikon or Canon, you will likely love this camera. It takes excellent photos, and that's what it's really all about.
This device works, but if you disable one of the monitors it may not function properly.
