First actuation on my a700

[unpopular]

Complete with massive desk clutter and "I wonder what it sounds like" under exposure. THIS is what a proper first actuation looks like, 2wheel.

 

[skieur]

Considering that you bought an A700, I assume that you feel that it is better than your A350. What features make the A700 better? (curious)

skieur

 

[unpopular]

Image quality-wise they are pretty similar. Resolution is almost identical, so if you took an a700 image and scaled it up to 14mp, they'd look very close - keeping that in mind, the a700 is a bit sharper right out of camera. Real-world noise performance is a bit better than the a350. I know that DXOmark doesn't really reflect this, but the noise quality on the a700 is much tighter and resolution is better preserved at higher ISO's. Bear in mind, I'm using both cameras with a RAW processor that handles noise better than most. AF is much faster and miles and miles more accurate. It feels more responsive, and I feel like I can just lift it to my eye and take a snap, with the a350 I kind of had to orient myself first. The a700 has a good feel to it, feels sturdy and solid and the buttons feel more like a camera and less like a video game controller. The control wheels also have better feel, tighter, if not a little too tight.

Overall, the a350 isn't a bad camera except for two things that really drive me nuts. I shoot almost exclusively in manual mode, mostly because that is what I am used to, so the lack of a second control wheel is awkward, but the placement of the aperture button is just terrible for anyone that doesn't have extremely large hands. But the biggest problem I have with the a350 is that absolutely LOUSY viewfinder. The a700 has a viewfinder *almost* but not quite as good as my last 35mm SLR.

So the a700 had everything I needed, a brighter viewfinder and better ergonomics with similar or better IQ at the very low price I can afford. For the money I payed for it, it's a pretty good deal.

 

[unpopular]

High ISO tests at 6400. Pretty noisy by today's standard, probably similar SNR as film. I don't shoot at high ISO, but the images are more than useable. NR turned off:





Seems that until you get below Zone III or so, the noise is primarily luminance. This may be bad news for people who do NR, but for me this is a good thing. Chroma noise is really ugly.