...Capability, continued from page 1

The DRO can adjust the brightness level of photographs before being converted to JPEG. The DRO is designed to help with dynamic-range problems. Recall that a camera can only capture a small dynamic range compared to reality. The DRO has 3 modes: Off, Standard and Advanced. Obviously, in the Off mode, the DRO does nothing. The Standard mode adjusts the brightness levels of the image based on the overall image contrast and brightness. The Advanced mode analyses the image and adjusts it differently depending on local brightness and contrast.

The DRO is both powerful and dangerous. The power of the DRO is that it can easily produce pleasing images from high-contrast subjects with shadow and highlight details. The weakness of the DRO is that its effect is hard to predict and may be detrimental to the mood of an image. For example, a high-contrast scene can be rendered relatively flat, thus removing some of the photograph's punch. Also, the DRO cannot fill-in details which have not been captured. Note that the DRO works by modifying the camera's internal RAW conversion used to produce JPEG images. Hence, DRO does not affect RAW images.

The white-balance options of the Alpha A200 are similar to most digital SLR cameras. The automatic white-balance option is fixed while any preset and even Kelvin white-balance can be adjusted on a green-to-magenta scale. The presets have 7 positions along the scale, while the Kelvin white-balance has 19. When calibrating custom white-balance, this camera actually reports the Kelvin temperature and the Green-to-Magenta bias. This is useful to return exactly to a previously measured white-balance.

The exposure-mode-dial of the Sony Alpha A200 has 12 positions. Among those are the typical Program (P), Aperture-priority (A), Shutter-priority (S) and Manual (M) modes. There is also an Auto mode which is similar to P but prevents access to some functions. The last remaining positions are for the following scene modes: Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, Sunset, Night portrait and No-Flash. These scene modes affect the way exposure is chosen and image parameters such as color-mode, contrast, sharpness and saturation.

The Auto-Exposure-Lock (AEL) button can be customized to either hold or toggle the exposure-lock. In Hold-mode, the exposure is locked until the AEL button is released. In Toggle-mode, the AEL is locked until the AEL button is pressed again. The Toggle-mode is the easiest way to expose for stitched panoramas. Unlike the A100, entering playback mode does not cancel the AEL. Other missing features include spot-metering using AEL and the option to control whether EC affects ambient-lighting only or ambient-plus-flash.

The popup flash is fairly standard among DSLRs but the hot-shoe is not. The Sony A200 supports only flashes designed for the Minolta hot-shoe, just like the rest of the Alpha line. Naturally, Sony flashes are compatible. The built-in flash can be controlled with Flash-Compensation in 1/3 EV steps from -2 to +2 EV. Unfortunately, the camera menu must be used to set Flash-Compensation. This is most likely a serious limitation for frequent flash users.

This DSLR supports the standard drive modes plus 3 bracket modes. In continuous drive mode, it can shoot an unlimited number of JPEG images or up to 6 RAW images. Continuous shooting speed is always 2.8 FPS. The self-timer can trigger after 2 or 10 seconds. Sadly, the 10-second self-timer no longer resets after each use to avoid the common mistake of forgetting to reset it. The bracketing modes are: single-step exposure bracket, continuous exposure bracket and white-balance bracket. Each bracketing mode takes 3 shots with either a small step or a large step. The small step is 0.3 EV for exposure-bracketing and 5 mired for white-balance bracketing. The large step is 0.7 EV for exposure-bracketing and 10 mired for white-balance bracketing. Single-step bracket requires the shutter to be pressed for each image in the bracket. Continuous bracket takes all 3 images continuously while the shutter is being pressed. The white-balance bracket is done virtually by taking a single shot and saving it with 3 different white-balance biases.

This is one of the few DSLR cameras to provide control over dynamic range. While the Alpha A200's DRO uses processing to attack the problem, the Fuji Finepix S5 Pro's SuperCCD SR provides a hardware solution.

Usability – How easy is it to use?

The shutter-release on this DSLR is a standard 2-stage release. The halfway point is distinct with a moderate amount of travel until the shutter is released. Some like this because it is hard to accidentally take a picture, some do not because they feel it takes longer to release the shutter. In single-shot focus, half-pressing the shutter locks the focus and exposure. Focus can also be locked separately by using the spot-focus button located at the center of the 4-way controller. There is also an AEL button to lock exposure before the shutter is half-pressed.

Ergonomically, the Sony Alpha A200 is decent. It has a deep hand-grip with a small recession to provide a solid grip. On the camera's rear, an inwards curvature prevents the thumb from slipping off to the side. Together this makes the camera quite easy to hold. The A200's only control-wheel is located just in front of the shutter-release.

On the rear, the very important EC and AEL buttons are reachable with a small movement of the thumb. These buttons are unfortunately quite small and almost flush with the camera's body. The drive-mode and ISO buttons, on the camera's top, are bigger and protrude more. However, reaching them while looking through the viewfinder does not feel so comfortable. The entire camera feels solid and well balanced though.

The A200 has an average size penta-mirror viewfinder with a bright and clear view. The eyecup is large and also surrounds the previously mentioned eye-start sensor. The eye-start sensor ensures that there is no bothersome LCD glare when looking through the viewfinder. This is one feature that is hard to live without once you get used to it! All Sony DSLR cameras have it.

Exposure parameters are changed using the control-wheel. In P mode, the control-wheel selects between equivalent aperture and shutter-speed combinations. In A, S and M modes, the control-wheel changes a single exposure parameter. In M mode, the other parameter is changed by turning the control-wheel in conjunction with the EC button. In all other modes, this combination is used to apply exposure-compensation. The AEL button can also be used to modify aperture and shutter-speed simultaneously to maintain the set exposure.

The Function (Fn) button brings up a menu that controls metering, flash-mode, focus-area, focus-mode, white-balance and the DRO. The camera's remaining features must be controlled by its efficient-to-navigate menu-system.

Like all modern DSLR cameras, the A200 has a dedicated playback button and an image review option. When an image appears for review, it can be immediately deleted, zoomed-in or have its RGB histograms displayed. All the same options are available in playback mode as well. During image playback, the control-wheel can also be used to iterate through images without changing the zoom or display options. This is an effective way to compare the same area across a series of shots. The A200 offers two ways to zoom into an image. First, there is the traditional way which is operated by directly changing the zoom factor and scrolling around the image. Second, there is an area-navigation way which works by moving and resizing a selection rectangle over the image. When the selection rectangle is in the desired position, the LCD can be made to see only the selected area by pressing a button. This approach allows zooming into a specific feature more rapidly than the traditional way.

There are three options for the LCD (which serves as a status display in shooting mode): off, simple and detailed. Obviously, when off the display shows nothing. The simple display shows basic shooting information using a very large font. The detailed display uses a medium font to display a bit more information. A display button to the left of the LCD iterates through all three modes. Our impression is that photographers will either be interested in the simple mode or the detailed mode, but rarely both since the latter is a superset of the former. For that reason it would be better if the display button was simply an on/off switch and the simple or detailed view could be chosen via a setup-menu option. Presently , when switching between the status display and having the LCD off, the user is required to press the button an extra time to bypass the undesired mode.

The Alpha stores images in sequentially numbered folders. Each folder can contain 9,999 images but a new folder, numbered sequentially after the last one, can be created at any time using the setup-menu.

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