Sony A99 - My first road test

[silawre]

I have just got back from a long weekend in Polperro, Cornwall.  The trip was planned for two reasons, firstly it was my birthday on the 25th of this month and secondly it was the first opportunity to give my A99 a good workout.  The weather gave my plans a battering but floods aside I did manage to get in a days worth of photography with this amazing camera.

I have attached 5 photographs from the weekend, I hope you enjoy them, it is early days with the A99 but I am already very impressed with it.  It is so flexible and easy to use, it is allowing me to spend so much more time on my subject and not worrying about what the camera is doing.

Thank you Sony.

Kind regards

Si

[Thalamus.]

Thanks for sharing your photo's & happy birthday for the 25th..:smileyhappy:

[silawre]

Thank you very much.

Si :smileygrin:

[rogkent]

Very good pictures, thank you for sharing them, what lense were you using on your a99 please. Roger

[silawre]

Hi Roger,

Thank you for the complement that is very kind of you to say.  The lens that spends most of its time on my A99 is the Sony 16-35mm F2.8 ZA but I also use my Sony 24-70mm F2.8 ZA, 135mm F1.8 ZA and the 70-400mm F4.5/5.6 G series.  They all shine when used with the A99.

Kind regards

Si

[blaireau_photo]

Hello again

I echo these sentiments - great pics! I hope that you were able to take advantage of that 'gulf stream' weather as well while you were down there as it is positively freezing here on the 'Essex Riviera' these days.....

Simon

[silawre]

Hi,

Thank you very much.  The weather not to bad most days but the temperature was getting colder each day!

Si

[BrianB32]

Hi Si,

I also have an A99 which I bought hoping to overcome the poor noise performance of my A77, compared with my friends Canon and Nikon cameras. I like the camera as I do the A77 but I am still disappointed with the noise performance. Having noted this in normal photo taking I did comparison shots using the same lens on both cameras (Sony 16-50 2.8f) and using a tripod for both sets of pictures. Even taking into account the different magnification
factors between the two cameras I find it very difficult to separate the two, and even when I can my preference isn't always for the A99. I take all my pictures in Raw so wondered if you do the same, on the off chance that thereported noise improvement mentioned in camera test actually comes from the jpg processing in camera.

Brian.

[silawre]

Hi Brian,

I always shoot RAW and I am very surprised by the fact you cannot see the difference between your A77 and A99 at the same ISO levels, mine are like night and day with the A99 beginning day.

The link below is to a photograph taken with my A99 at ISO 4000, there is no way that my A77 would have taken such a photo for sure.  I had my A77 calibrated by Sony this last too so I know it is working well.

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8068/8151259617_4b73a3ca81_c.jpg

i have not shot the same photograph with the same lens and both cameras but I doubt it will change the result.

For me the A99 is a very big step up from the A77, in fact it is the camera the A77 should have been.

Si

[BrianB32]

Hi again and thanks for replying. I have now repeated the test at ISO4000 and this time the A99 is definitely preferable in most circumstances but at other times in mixed light the differences are not so apparent. Also it is difficult to make comparisons with your photo because of the need to reduce the size of the images to post them to this site. Your pic still looks much clearer than I can get in reduced light using the Sony 2.8/16-50SSM lens on either camera. Also can you confirm that your image is as taken apart from the size reduction.

Thanks,

Brian...

PS. otherwise the A99 is an excellent camera. I do agree as someone else suggested that it could benefit from being able to turn off review in the viewer when you want to take a quick series of shots.