Sending DSC-828 to the locker room.

Yup.

Into the showers.

Michael

[volker]

Hi Michael,

and first of all thank you very much for this very
detailed and helpful web-site of yours.

I am in the process of making a decision whether
I want to buy an F828 or an A2 and read both of
your reviews. In a local shop,  I had the chance
to take some test pictures with both cameras and
came to the conclusion that the F828 indeed seems
to be a lot faster at locking on the focus (I have to
admit that so far I am only familiar with the F717
but none of the Minolta 7x/Ax series).

May I ask you for what specific reasons you would
send the F828 into the shower in favor of the A2?

Unfortunately, no reviews of the A2 have been
published on dpreview or imaging-resource yet, so
I am looking for any information I can get in order
to make that decision.

Regards,
-Volker

[volker]

Hello Michael,

and thanks for the quick reply! Looks like I am fortunate
to live on the "right" side of the earth, time-shift wise (I am
located in Switzerland).

Yes, I have read your A2 review, too, and in fact I have
been pondering both cameras' advantages and disadvantages
for quite a while.

As for image stabilization, I have tested it in the shop
and it seems to work quite well. However, if you have
moving objects (like people) to photograph, being able
to take pictures at 1/20 s or slower does not really help
blurring. And even though carrying along a tripod can be
annoying, it still is an option.
Talking about low-light situations, my impression is that
the A2 does not focus very accurately. As a novice to the
A2, I may have handled the camera incorrectly, but I
found it difficult (even in spot focus mode) to get an
accurate focus lock in low light. Some people in the A2
forum on dpreview also complain about this problem.
And what does an image stabilizer help if the object
already has left by the time the camera got the right
focus? OK, one could use manual focus and - thanks
to anti-shake - a smaller aperture in order to increase
the probability of having the object within the focus range.

On the other hand, after some research I find both the
noise and purple fringing problems to be correctable in
software. For this, a better RAW support would be great
on the Sony. On this point the A2 clearly is preferrable.

However, as a current F717 owner I have learned to live
with the EVF/LCD switching, so this would not really be
an issue for my.

Sure, the higher resolution EVF of the A2 delivers more
detail, but it also seems to suffer from "overexposed"
display under bright conditions.

As for optical resolution, I am not quite sure about the A2.
It seems to me that the F828 captures somewhat more
detail and delivers less soft images - this might be due to
in-camera sharpening, though.

Two more questions I have:

Did you notice any difference in dynamic range between
the F828 and the A2? According to specifications, the
F828 uses 14 bit A/D-conversion, whereas the A2 only
uses 12 bit.

After your field testing, how would you compare the responsiveness of the A2 with the F828 with respect to
focus and shutter lag?

Sorry for this long explanation, but this decision really
matters to me - and I really appreciate your advice.

Greetings to Canada,
-Volker

[Spyro]

Micheal has mentioned the on of the new 8mp all in one cameras he is reviewing would send the 828 to the locker room. Would that be the A2?  

[Digi-T]

I'm anxious to read some reviews on the A2. I really wish that the features of the A2 were in the body of my F707. I handled an A1 a litle bit this weekend and had mixed felings about the feel of it. If fealt like a box with a bunch of buttons all over it. I was sort of afraid that I would accidentally push buttons when I was trying to use it. I am comparing it to my F707 which I still love because of the feel of it. However I like how light the A1 was and it had a comfortable grip. I just don't think you can beat the speed and convenience of being able to simply twist the Sony's camera body to get those overhead or ground level shots.  The Minolta cameras tend to look like a hot rod car that has things ackwardly bolted onto it. The new A2 does have some impressive features so it looks like a camera worth looking into. I can't wait to see through the EVF in person.

T

Have you read my review of the A2?

Its main advantages over the 828 are...

- Image stabilization

- automatic LCD / EVF switching

- 3 frame RAW buffer

- high resolution electronic viewfinder

Michael