With the Alpha A700, Sony continued to build on its Minolta heritage and produced another great digital SLR with good ergonomics and a rich feature set aimed at advanced photographers. It also does not hurt that Sony delivered to themselves what appears to be their best sensor yet.

 

DSLR manufacturers keep improving image quality with each new generation despite also increasing sensor resolutions. The Sony Alpha A700 is no exception as it delivers excellent image quality with good control over noise and image details. This digital camera is a fast one too.

 

At this point, there are tons of reasons to choose the Sony Alpha A700 and very little reasons not too. Its feature set includes body-based stabilization, hardware dust-reduction and tone-mapping. With body-based stabilization, all lenses automatically benefit from stabilization, even ultra-wide-angle and prime lenses. One feature that separates this DSLR from professional ones is that it is not really weather-sealed. The A700 is designed to keep dust out but the lens-mount is not sealed and the user manual clearly states that the camera should never get wet.

We can easily recommend the Sony Alpha A700 for any type of photography. There are faster or higher resolution cameras but those are much more expensive and do not feature built-in stabilization. For ultra-low-noise images, the full-frame Canon EOS 5D is worth considering. In terms of features and price though, the Sony A700 is significantly ahead. For a full weather-sealed digital SLR, the Pentax K10D is a great option, plus it preserves more details in very low light. It remains to be seen how the Nikon D300, which presumably uses the same sensor, will compare to the A700.

 

Read the full Sony Alpha A700 review here.