Votre Coeur: One Good Thing and One Bad Thing About the Sony Alpha 100

One Good Thing and One Bad Thing About the Sony Alpha 100

Posted by Mastermind at 7:47 pm

This is part of my random user review on the Sony Alpha 100 camera system. As and when I find something interesting about the Alpha, I may or may not share it here. So do not stay tuned for any updates regarding the camera but do stay tune for more photographs.

Let's see the bad thing.

ISO 800, the master starting on the ritual.

ISO 1600, the master still starting on the ritual.

See the colour difference? No, it isn't any supernatural forces taking over the universe during the ritual but just that the Alpha 100 share the same problem like the Sony W50/W70 where the colour saturation suffers at the highest ISO. Not a big problem though since ISO 800 is very usable and I have the benefits of Sony's Supersteady Shot (SSS). a deadly combo for most situations I would say.

Now hear only the good stuff
SSS works. I did a simple test and it works to my satisfaction (I know there are people who are nitpickers and may not be entirely convinced with my test results)

Experiment Procedures
I shot 3 handheld shots using my cheapo telephoto lens (KM 75-300mm 4.5-5.6 (D) lens) and 1 tripod control shot using similar settings except for shutter speed (hence aperture) difference. 100% crops of those shots are provided for comparison purposes here. All shots are taken at 300mm (or 450mm equivalent) focal length. In layman terms, that's more "zoom" than my H1 (w/o the 1.7x tcon of course)

The kind of test shot I have

The Results

The tripod shot (or the control shot) at 1/10 seconds exposure, f8.0 (with mirror lock-up)

Handheld 1: 1/20 secs @ f5.6

Handheld 2: 1/10 secs @ f8.0

Handheld 3: 1/5 secs @ f11.0, visibly softer than the rest

Can't see too much difference with your bare eyes eh? Remember these are 100% crop and any subtle differences would not be visible in your everyday 4R prints. For those photographically challenged, the results shown here show that the Alpha manage to capture shots that are 5 stops slower than the common acceptable limit of 1/focal length (or 1/300 s). In ISO terms, that's ISO 100 versus ISO 3200. Of course, I used techniques to hold my camera still which accounted for that extra 1-2 stops gained so I cheated a bit but SSS works and still rocks!

Updated (6/9/06)
Here's two handheld photos at 1/10 secs with SSS off just for comparison...