any sony 550,500 or 700 users here?

evilonion

evilonion

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Dave Peacock
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I'm interested to know how well the cameras cope at high iso?
My a200 copes very poorly... which i expect from a budget/entry level slr... but what are these more mid range cameras like?

The sale of all my gear fell through so im considering just selling the a200 body and grip which i have a buyer for an upgrading to a better sony body.

Decent low light performance would be good...
I was considering moving to the nikon d90, but read a review saying the sensor in the d90 is made by sony, and is also in the a550?
 
evilonion said:
I'm interested to know how well the cameras cope at high iso?
My a200 copes very poorly... which i expect from a budget/entry level slr... but what are these more mid range cameras like?

The sale of all my gear fell through so im considering just selling the a200 body and grip which i have a buyer for an upgrading to a better sony body.

Decent low light performance would be good...
I was considering moving to the nikon d90, but read a review saying the sensor in the d90 is made by sony, and is also in the a550?
Click to expand...

well not a lot of help for you but I just upgraded from the a200 for exactly the same reason, I was tempted with a higher model of sony but could not find the answer to your question. I ended up selling the sony kit & getting a nikon (d700), but any nikon/canon just felt so much better made & quality.

Hope someone answers your question better, but I was left wondering! (not a member on this forum then)
 
Thats the thing. I'm not a pro, i don't make much money from taking pictures (make a bit doing bits and pieces) so this is more of a serious hobby for me... but the a200 suffers massively in low light. to the point where if the sun is setting even slightly with the tamron 18-200 lens the camera just hunts for focus.

Then when i take a picture its grainy.
I took some pictures the other week at iso 400 of a jet plane and it was really quite grainy as well.

I looked at a comparison online and it said the d90 was the best for low light... it scores something like 900 points, the a550 scored around 800 and the canon 50d was around 600.

Trouble is so many reviews, would be nice to get some real user input.
I just wonder wether to sell off my sony bits on ebay bit by bit and get a decent nikon and lens to start with.
 
evilonion said:
Thats the thing. I'm not a pro, i don't make much money from taking pictures (make a bit doing bits and pieces) so this is more of a serious hobby for me... but the a200 suffers massively in low light. to the point where if the sun is setting even slightly with the tamron 18-200 lens the camera just hunts for focus.

Then when i take a picture its grainy.
I took some pictures the other week at iso 400 of a jet plane and it was really quite grainy as well.

I looked at a comparison online and it said the d90 was the best for low light... it scores something like 900 points, the a550 scored around 800 and the canon 50d was around 600.

Trouble is so many reviews, would be nice to get some real user input.
I just wonder wether to sell off my sony bits on ebay bit by bit and get a decent nikon and lens to start with.
Click to expand...

Well thats the conclusion I came to, but like said I never knew of this place then so maybe better hanging on for a another sony owner.
You are spot on with the a 200 though, iso 400 was just about bearable anything over was impossible!
 
Yeah hopefully a few sony owners will be able to give me some input.
I dont post on any other forums and i know a few people here use them.
The thing that appeals to me the most keeping with sony is the built in image stabilization... I havent got the budget for top of the range vr lenses etc so it may suit my budget better to stick with sony.

Not sure which of the 3 models is best though as a few people rave about the much older a700.
 
The A700 is a bit better than the A200, but the A200 is better at low ISO.

A700 is identical in performance at raw level to the D90 and D300 (same sensor)

Can't comment on the A550, never seen it.

I've had no problems with noise from the A200 so I'm not sure where I'm going wrong there - got a nice A4 ISO1600 print that looks great. Out of interest, how big do you print? Don't shoot JPEG on the A200, use Lightroom 3 or Capture 1 4 to process, and don't underexpose. Make sure you have fast lenses, ie something like a Sigma 30mm f/1.4 before you upgrade a body as that lens will give you many more "stops" than a body change.
 
The A700 with v4 firmware is much better than the 200/300/350 at high ISO, the v4 firmware was a big upgrade in terms of high ISO IQ on in camera JPGs, but for the highest image quality you would be better off shooting raw and converting on the computer, at least that is my experience. I also found the a700 auto-focuses faster than the a300.

You might wish to consider faster lens(es), that Tamron is always going to be a massive compromise no matter what body you attach it to.
 
I dont find noise a problem when light is ok.... its when it gets darker that im having issues.
Maybe this is down to the lens then?
I also found it an issue focusing whilst indoors when it was dimly lit...

I have a sony 50mm 1.8 and the tamron 18-200
I was considering selling both of these and getting the sigma 18-50 2.8 and the sigma 70-200 2.8 ?

What appealed to me with the a550 was the cmos sensor...
the a700 i can get for £500 secondhand and i have someone interested in buying my a200 with grip for £300 so it wouldnt be too bad on the wallet to upgrade a step...
 
I mainly use the A700, and find it is significantly better than my A200 at higher ISO, BUT that may be in part due to my now shooting RAW and PP using LR 3 (whereas when I first had the A200 I was shooting Jpeg).

If you are not doing so currently, download the LR3 beta (it's free) and shoot a few higher ISO shots in RAW, and see how they come out.

Having said that, an upgrade to the A700 is well worth doing anyway :thumbs:
 
evilonion said:
Would the a550 be a better investment than going with the older 700?
Click to expand...

I've not seen the A550, but it seems to be aiming at a different market with "smile mode" and loads of buttons and controls removed, such as mirror lockup.

I wouldn't look at either as an "investment" because neither will hold any value long term.

Although I hardly use my A700 as I have an A900, the A700 is very close to the Nikon D300 in performance (D300 has better AF), IQ is the same.
 
yeah thats one thing that has made me hesitant about the 550, even though on paper it looks better they have added lots of gimicks such as hdr effects and smile mode which makes me wonder what bits have been compromised.

from your previous post though im wondering wether i should even look at upgrading or maybe sell the tamron and upgrade to a better lens instead.

so hard being able to decide on anything... and being a man i want it all...!
 
evilonion said:
from your previous post though im wondering wether i should even look at upgrading or maybe sell the tamron and upgrade to a better lens instea
Click to expand...

Changing your Tamron 18-200 to a Tamron 17-50 will buy you 2 stops of light at 50mm. This will allow you to drop your ISO from 1600 to ISO400 while maintaining the same shutter.

Folks often look at body upgrades when the problem should be addressed with a lens change.
 
im am perfectly happy with my a300 which sometimes i shoot at deliberate high(ish) iso's to get a nice grainy feel in my B&W images. i hear that the a500/550 is actually quite good at high iso's and it has an iso rating of 200-12800 which means that lowers iso's should be better quality eg. 3200
 
I had the A200 as my first DSLR combined with a Sigma 28-70mm F2.8 and was also unimpressed with the Grain at anything over ISO400

I sold all my Sony Kit and got a 450D which is still entry level but even using the Kit Lens, I find at max ISO (1600) the grain is noticibly less than the A200.
 
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