A850, I went for one

[cosmonaut]

After several days of negotiating, bartering and wheeling and dealing I have found a Sony a850 and I may have in in a week or two. I sold my E5 and 12-60mm lens and, bought the A850. It comes with two primes 50mm and 28mm but I also ordered the 28-75mm. Not the best lens but it's a start. The 28-75 still gets good reviews. This will be my landscape rig and I will use the NEX 7 and a77 for family things, parks, fairs ect. Maybe a Carl Zeiss this summer. I have been shooting with Olympus since day one so I feel like a trader. With that said I think they are moving away for traditional DSLRs and I can't hang my hat on an uncertain future

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Shooting at base ISO, i'm not totally sure what advantage the A850 has over your NEX7 or A77 for landscapes..

The A77 has live view which is great for ensuring critical focus, is also 24MP, has better low light performance, and i'm sure has just as wide of FOV as the 28mm on the 850.

 

[SJGordon]

Actually the a77 is a APS-C sensor and the A850 is a full-frame sensor. The FOV is not the same with the 28mm lens, even though they both have 24 MP. Looking at RAW images, I wouldn't want the high ISO performance of the a77 as it is much nosier than the a850 past ISO 200. It only has better high ISO when shooting jpeg images and the camera adds it's noise reduction. Plus the a850 has much better image quality than the a77 due to the loss of light through the translucent mirror.

There are numerous comparisons online already and they all show the same thing. Check out DxOMark for a side-by-side comparison.

 

[cosmonaut]

The advantage I want is off tripod night shooting. The DXO marks for low light on the a850 is almost double that of the a77, which I could have lived with but the Olympus E5 was quickly becoming a grandfather that I had no use for anymore. I really wasn't using it and when the opportunity presented itself I just couldn't turn it down. Between the Sony's I have I am done upgrading for a long time. That's my goal anyway.
I find the low light DXO marks accurate for the cameras I have owned in the past. Some disagree with DXO marks. Most times they just don't want to face the facts that they present, denial.

 

[kassad]

I have been watching the ebay price drop on a850 and a900 for a couple of weeks now. I'm really want one. Let's us know what you think of the a850

 

[cosmonaut]

I have been watching the ebay price drop on a850 and a900 for a couple of weeks now. I'm really want one. Let's us know what you think of the a850

I will it's coming from over seas it will be a couple of weeks. I know it can't touch the Nikon D3x.

 

[jrobert]

Good one, I am sure you will love the A850. Just as an aside, I have a strong feeling that in time the full frame issue will not be a problem as technology is improving at such a rapid rate that you won't be able to tell the difference between an APS or FF ,

I would not mind guessing that even now not a lot of people can spot the difference .

 

[OLaA]

Good one, I am sure you will love the A850. Just as an aside, I have a strong feeling that in time the full frame issue will not be a problem as technology is improving at such a rapid rate that you won't be able to tell the difference between an APS or FF ,

I would not mind guessing that even now not a lot of people can spot the difference .

This thread is over a year old. And technology can't change the fact that a sensor is smaller than another. Crop factor and dof are two things to consider when choosing a body.