Digital Trends

Sony Alpha DSLR-A700

November 27th, 2007 | by David Elrich

Features and Design

Pick up the DSLR-A700 and immediately you’ll know this a heavy-duty camera, not like the much lighter entry-level—and cheaper--D-SLRs such as the Canon Rebel XT or Nikon D40. Not that these are bad cameras just they’re in a different league. The alpha weighs 24.3 ounces for the body only (no battery or lens). When combined with a high-quality lens like the Carl Zeiss T* 16-105mm zoom and battery, you now have close to 3 pounds hanging around your neck. Like all D-SLRs carrying one is a commitment, not a spur of the moment thing like a Canon ELPH. Yet ELPHs and their ilk are for very different people—if you’re spending $1,399 USD for a camera body, you’re really into photography, expect a high-quality instrument and sore arms are just part of the fun.

The A700 looks like every other top-level D-SLR with its all-black magnesium alloy body and very comfortable indented hand grip. The front is dominated by the lens mount which is based on the Konica Minolta bayonet format. Along with the vast majority of older Minolta lenses, there is also a good selection of Carl Zeiss glass to choose from However you won’t find any ultra-expensive image stabilized lenses since this camera—like the A100—has built-in image stabilization, helping to eliminate blur from shots taken in low light. This money-saving feature is terrific and also found on the Olympus E-510 and Pentax K10D.

Beyond a few logos on the front you’ll also find an AF illuminator sensor, a depth of field preview button and a focus mode lever so you can switch between a Single shot, Continuous, Auto and Manual. Surprisingly Sony didn’t hype the 12.24MP resolution as manufacturers do with point-and-shoots. Guess there’s no need to brag…The camera
uses a newly-designed Exmor CMOS sensor that conducts analog-to-digital (A/D) signal conversion and dual noise reduction on the sensor itself. Noise reduction is applied to analog signals before A/D conversion and the resulting digital signals are then subject to a second round of noise reduction. The digital signals are then sent to the newly developed BIONZ processing engine. Sony claims the resulting images are incredibly noise-free but as always, the proof is in the prints (see Testing and Use). 

The top of the –A700 is very nicely laid out with dedicated buttons for key settings such as white balance, ISO, drive mode and exposure compensation. On the pistol grip are the shutter and a scroll wheel to also make menu adjustments. The flash cover has to be manually raised and acts as the pulsing illuminator lamp in low light. There’s a cover on the hot shoe and on the far left is a large mode dial. Here you can move into Auto, Manual, Aperture- and Shutter Priority as well as six scenes modes (portrait, landscape, macro and so on). You’ll also find a Memory Recall option so you can quickly return to three favorite settings with 31 options for each one. Whew!

Image Courtesy of Sony

The back is also loaded with options. There’s a nice 3-inch LCD screen rated a fine 921K pixels for reviewing your shots. This camera does not have Live View as do many competing D-SLRs in this price range and for me that’s no great loss; I’m not a big fan of the way Live View is currently implemented—way too slow although I haven’t used Canon’s new EOS 40D which supposedly does it better.

Flanking the LCD on the left are the usual D-SLR controls: dedicated menu, display, delete and playback buttons. The power on/off is on the top left. Moving to the right of the screen are Function (Fn) and C buttons. Function moves you through the setting options (too many to list here) and the C (for Custom) key takes you to Creative Styles (Standard, Vivid, B&W and so on) plus you can assign a specific control to it. Next to these controls is the Super SteadyShot on/off switch. This camera has image stabilization built into the body itself so every lens you attach is stabilized; no need to spend a fortune on specific stabilized lenses a la Canon and Nikon. You’ll also find a four-way controller with joystick control, an AEL button and toggle to change between three metering modes (multi segment, center weighted, spot). There’s an AF/MF button that also enlarges images when you’re in playback mode. The viewfinder has a diopter control as well as sensors that power down the LCD when you lift the camera to eye level.

The right side has the memory card compartment with separate slots for CompactFlash and Memory Stick Duo cards. The left side has a compartment for HDMI and USB out, as well as inputs for a remote control, DC-in and a flash sync terminal. On the bottom is the battery compartment.

Bottom line? This is an extremely sophisticated D-SLR as one would expect for $1,399 USD list for the body alone. 

The alpha DSLR-A700 comes with the basics including the battery, charger, strap, body caps and cables (not HDMI, of course). It has a decent 180-page printed User’s Guide. The CD ROM includes Picture Motion Browser, Image Data Converter SR, Image Data Lightbox and Remote Camera Control programs. Image Data Converter “develops” your RAW files.

Sony supplied a Carl Zeiss 16-105mm lens that translates to a 25.6-168mm because of the 1.6x digital factor. This lens costs $579 by itself or $1,899 USD when bundled with the A700, an $80 savings. Nothing to sneeze at but we’re in Lexus territory here along with EOS 40D and Nikon D80. After charging the battery and loading an 8GB 133x Kingston CF card it was time to see how the camera performed.