...Capability, continued from page 1

Unique among Sony cameras, the DRO can adjust the brightness levels 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 four modes: Off, Standard and Auto-Advanced and Manual-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. In Manual-Advanced mode the DRO processing can be applied in 5 different levels. When not certain which level would be better, there is also a 3-frame DRO bracket which brackets the Manual-Advanced DRO parameters with single or double increments.

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 good 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. Often a scene can be rendered quite flat when too much DRO is applied. 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 A700 are similar to most digital SLR cameras. The automatic white-balance option is fixed while any preset and even custom 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 A700 has 12 positions. Among those are the typical Program (P), Aperture-priority (A), Shutter-priority (S) and Manual (M) modes. There is a Memory-Recall (MR) mode to store up to 3 sets of camera settings.

There is also an Auto mode which is similar to P but resets all its settings each time it is accessed. Strangely, Auto mode resets image parameters (contrast, saturation and brightness) but not image resolution. This means that it cannot satisfy those looking for a mode where the camera is completely reset to its default and those who dislike the camera's default JPEG rendering.

The last remaining positions are for the following scene modes: Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, Sunset and Night portrait. These scene modes are basically presets for options which can otherwise be selected in automatic and semi-automatic modes.

The Auto-Exposure-Lock (AEL) button can be customized in 4 very useful ways. It works either by holding or by toggling. In Hold-mode, the exposure is locked until the AEL button is released. In Toggle-mode, the AEL is locked until either the AEL button is pressed again or the camera enters playback mode. The Toggle-mode is the easiest way to expose for stitched panoramas. The AEL can either use the current metering-mode or spot metering. Having the AEL-button use spot-metering provides a quick way to access spot-metering when faced with difficult lighting. Relative to exposure, a brilliant option is whether Exposure-Compensation (EC) affects ambient or flash+ambient exposure. In ambient-only mode, EC brightens the entire scene including the background. In flash+ambient mode, EC can affect flash output to change the illumination of objects within its range.

This DSLR supports the standard drive modes plus 4 bracketing modes. In continuous drive mode, it can shoot an unlimited number of JPEG images, up to 18 RAW images or up to 25 compressed-RAW images. Shooting speed is either 5 or 3 FPS. The self-timer can trigger after 2 or 10 seconds. With the 2-second self-timer, the mirror is automatically locked-up. Sadly, the 10-second self-timer is not reset after each use, as it is with the A100. Automatically resetting the 10-second timer avoids the common mistake of forgetting to do so manually.

The bracketing modes are: single-step exposure bracket, continuous exposure bracket, white-balance bracket and the already mentioned DRO-bracket. Both types of exposure brackets produce 3 or 5 images with 1/3, 1/2 or 2/3 EV steps. Single-step bracket requires the shutter to be pressed for each image in the bracket. Continuous bracket takes all images continuously while the shutter is being pressed.

White-balance bracketing and DRO-bracketing produce 3 images from a single shot. These two drive modes support either a small step or a large step. The small step is 5 mired for white-balance bracketing and a single step in unspecified DRO-units for DRO bracketing. The large step is 10 mired for white-balance bracketing and 2 steps in DRO-units for DRO bracketing.

This DSLR is one of the few to provide some control over dynamic range. While the Alpha'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 rather soft, so it is easy to miss it and unwillingly take a picture. Some like this because they feel it takes less time to release the shutter. A possible advantage of this is that it reduces vibrations to the camera. In single-shot focus and DMF, 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 A700 is great. It has a deep hand-grip with a small recession for the index-finder to keep it securely in place. The camera's rear has a small grip to prevent the thumb from slipping off to the side. Together this makes the camera exceptionally easy to hold. The A700's two control-wheel are located opposite to each other on the front and back grips. The very important AEL buttons is reachable with a small movement of the thumb. The focus-override button is located under-your-thumb. This button serves either to lock focus or switch between auto focus and manual focus. Speaking of buttons, every one except the focus-override button is relatively large and has a durable feel. Understandably, the focus-override button is smaller and recessed, so that it is not often accidentally pressed. The entire camera feels solid and well balanced.

The A700 has a moderately large pentaprism viewfinder with a bright and clear view. The eyecup is large and also surrounds the 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! Unfortunately, very few cameras implements this feature.

Exposure parameters are changed using either control-wheels. In P mode, one control-wheel activates shutter-priority shift and the other activates aperture-priority shift. In A and S modes, both control wheels control the same parameter by default. However, one control wheel can be configured to access exposure-compensation directly. In M mode, one control-wheel changes the aperture, the other changes the shutter-speed. The AEL button can also be used to modify aperture and shutter-speed simultaneously to maintain the set exposure.

The control-wheels are also used with 4 top-mounted buttons: exposure-compensation (EC), ISO, white-balance (WB) and drive. While these parameters are being changed, an indication of the selected value appears in the viewfinder. Metering is controlled by a ring surrounding the AEL button.

Like all modern DSLR cameras, the A700 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 luminance and primary-color histograms displayed. All the same options are available in playback mode as well. During image playback, any control-wheel can be used to iterate through images without changing zoom-levels or display options. This is an effective way to compare the same area across a series of shots.

The A700 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.

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 more information including modified image parameters. 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. When playing back images, the display button optionally allows to display a row of thumbnails above the current picture. The AEL brings up a thumbnail view that allows to navigate between folders.

The LCD itself appears very impressive. At just under one megapixel, this is an incredibly precise display. Images appear quite sharp on this large and bright 3" LCD. Visibility is excellent, both outdoors and indoors. We have two gripes with the LCD: images are overly yellow and overly sharp. Indeed, all images we reviewed on the LCD were noticeably more yellow there than on a calibrated CRT. This has not been the case with other DSLR cameras before, so keep that in mind when trying out white-balance settings. It also seemed like Sony applied strong sharpening to image previews. The result was that some unsharp images appeared sharp on the LCD.

There is a menu item which selects the memory card to be used since the Sony Alpha A700 directly supports both Compact Flash and Memory Stick Duo cards. When only one card is present inside the camera, the proper card type must be selected, otherwise an error message is displayed. We have no idea why it simply does not detect which one is there and only use the menu system when two cards are present.

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