Quality product for the serious amateur photographer

I'd like to start by saying that I'm not a professional photographer but rather an average photographer at best. I bought and reviewed the Sony alpha 200 (a few days ago) which has officially now become my wife's camera.

I decided to purchase the a700 after playing around with a friends Nikon D300 which I loved and the a700 seemed to offer many of the D300 advantages without being too expensive. The price paid would seem quite high but that's only because I purchased the kit (a700P) which includes the Sony DT 16-105 lens. This review is based on using the camera with this particular lens.

I don't have a lot of experience with DSLR cameras so I will at times compare the a700 to the a200, which is not a fair comparison, just because I have them in front of me, side by side. Some readers may also be interested in why there is a huge price discrepancy between the a200 and a700.

For anyone who's read my a200 review, every single negative about the a200 has been completely addressed with the a700, and then some.

Build Quality:

The a700 feels quite a bit heavier, and of course larger, than the 200. The camera has a metal body wrapped in plastic, as opposed to the all-plastic entry level DSLRs. It feels like a tank with zero give anywhere and absolutely no creaks whatsoever. The camera feels like it was designed for people with larger(r) hands (like me). The hand grip area is an absolute joy to grab with a very comfortable ergonomic design.

The body has semi-environmental seals for keeping out moisture, dust etc... from the camera innards. This is a feature commonly found in high-end and professional DSLRs. The seals are applied to all surfaces, seams and controls (buttons and dials) but for some reason Sony left the battery and memory card compartments with no seals, hence the "semi"-environmental seal. I don't think it could have cost Sony that much to add those so it's a little disappointing not getting the complete body treatment.

View Finder:

This was one of the most impressive things about this camera. Once my eye looked through it the first time I was blown away by its size, sharpness and brightness compared to the entry level DSLRs. In fact the difference is so big that it's as though a blindfold was taken off my eyes looking through it. Just wow.

This is in part due to the a700 using a penta-prism system as opposed to the cheaper, smaller and more common penta-mirror system.

The information displayed in the VF match those from the a200. Still missing is the ISO information which could have been very valuable.

LCD Display

This is another feature that blew me away. The 3" LCD is not only larger than most entry-level DSLRs but packs three times the resolution (921K pixels vs the typical 230K pixels) and it really shows. The images are very crisp, almost negating the need to zoom in for focus confirmation after the shot is taken. Incidentally, this is the same LCD found on the Nikon D300.

Memory Cards

The camera has two slots supporting both Compact Flash and Sony's Memory Stick Duo. The memory card compartment does not house the micro-USB connection (unlike the a200) which means you no longer need to open this door to connect the camera to PC. The memory card compartment door feels a little out of place as it's the only part of this camera that feels somewhat flimsy.

I am using a Sandisk 8GB Ultra II rated at 15mb/sec which seemed fine as far as speed although I never really went far into the burst mode. I would guess a faster card might be better suited for high-speed photographers. Surprisingly the 8GB card can only fit about 700 JPEGs in Extra Fine mode.

Everything else

The a700 has a 12MP CMOS sensor (unlike other Sony DSLRs using CCD-type sensors) which is (almost?) identical to the one in the Nikon D300. I'm not sure why Sony switched to CMOS but it appears to be a good decision. Canon has been exclusively using CMOS in their DSLRs which in part has given them the reputation for noise-free high ISO capabilities. I have so far been impressed with the noise levels from the a700, a clear advantage in my opinion over the capabilities of the a200, where anything above ISO 400 would show quite a bit of noise.

The shutter release on the a700 is also very responsive and snappy. Also seems to be slightly dampened as far as noise and vibration are concerned. A definite plus compared to other DSLRs.

The built-in flash rises higher than the a200. This reduces the shadow area from the lens (obstruction) which affects macro photography. Also the flash has to be manually lifted (no release button).

The camera includes a mini remote control for controlling the camera while playing back pictures, as well as remotely controlling the camera for image taking.

Unlike Nikon, Sony does not include the (in my opinion, mandatory) LCD protector. It can be purchased for anywhere from $11-$20 (model PCKLH1AM). It would be a shame to scratch or damage that beautiful LCD, not to mention how expensive it would be to have it replaced.

The a700 employs the same dust protection system as other alphas which includes shaking the sensor on every shut-down, the anti-static filter over the sensor repelling dust and finally the cleaning mode which vigourously vibrates the sensor while locking the mirror in the Up position allowing the user to manually clean the sensor with a blower or by other means.

Sony claims that the in-body image stabilization system in the a700 is slightly more advanced than those found in the lower-end alphas. I have so far not been able to ascertain one way or another whether this is in fact true or marketing talk. But certainly the in-body stabilization works as advertised and the in-viewfinder 5 level shake meter is also a very handy feature to have.

The Auto Focus system employs an eleven point, with centre dual cross AF sensor which in my opinion has proven much faster and easier to get focus lock in low light situations than the AF system found in the a200. The AF has been superb, fast, consistent and reliable. The AF is so good that I have not found the need yet to use manual focus.

The kit includes the USB cable, standard video cable and the power cable for the battery charger. Unfortunately, one cannot charge the battery inside the camera but instead would need to take out the battery and place it in the included charger. The AC adapter is also an optional extra.

Missing from the cables is an HDMI cable which the camera supports to display pictures on a compatible HDTV. This is one of the few DSLR cameras that has an HDMI output. Even though I have an HDMI equipped TV, I'm not sure if this will prove to be a great feature.

A more advanced version of the Dynamic Range Optimizer (DRO) is in the a700 compared to those found in other alpha DSLRs. The DRO is also much more customizable.

The Sony info lithium battery has excellent battery life and shows precise percentage of the battery remaining. It also charges to 80% capacity very quickly, and achieves full charge a mere 1 hour after that. A spare batter so far for me has proven to be quite redundant.

Conclusion

This camera is a lot of fun to use. Its capabilities far exceed my own. It's a tool that is every amateur photographer's dream in that it's so well designed and built, incorporating state of the art photographic technologies. It also feels to snappy and ready to shoot that in most cases the limiting factor from getting the absolute best shot would be the user behind the lens. It's a camera that could easily grow with the photographer as they improve and advance.

Nothing is perfect however. Sony should have sealed the battery and memory card compartments in order to qualify the a700 as a completely environmentally sealed body. They came so close to achieving that which is all the more disappointing.

The a700 view finder is such a pleasure to look through but it could have been that much better had they incorporated ISO information in there.

And finally, Sony should have included the LCD protector with a camera in this price range.

Apart from these minor annoyances, this camera is as close to perfection as I've seen from any digital camera I've used. Easily highly recommended.