Sony Alpha A350 Comments

Ooh, interesting.

When the day comes that I can afford an SLR...

It's a shame you didn't publish any pictures of the guy with the kite.

I was interestingly challenged with taking photos of a few people playing frisbee a few weeks ago, which I'm sure would have been much easier with this.

The main problem with the high ISO shots I've seen from this camera so far, is not the noise, but the extreme lack of detail. Just look at the letters on the tyre in the crop, they're almost completely gone already at ISO 800! This camera seems to be made for P&S wanting to upgrade, but it lacks the good high iso performance that many hope for when they upgrade from today's pixel-packed P&S cameras.

A good review Cliff. I am glad the score was reasonable, having bought the camera a few weeks ago. I was interested in your hope that a firmware upgrade would tackle the studio flash problem for live view. I am not so worried about that, but could a firmware upgrade improve the high ISO performance or is that a permanent feature of the 14.2MP?

I may have missed it but I didn't see anything like "detail was fantastic but images were a tad soft" as I have seen in a couple of others. Did you notice anything there? I am pleased with my images but it is easy to become preoccupied with such comments.

I tried the 450D in the shop and it is smaller than the a350. I found the 350s grip worse than the 350 so I wonder how you will get on.

Finally, I am not so sure that I understand the difference between detail and sharpness. Surely you need the latter to get the former. Yet reviews seem to confirm the detail but refer to soft images that I read as lacking sharpness. Admittedly, the tests used mainly JPEG, but I think you used RAW.

I have a Cyber-shot W-200 and i have the same problem with the exposure preview on that! It was one of the main letdowns of the camera, but for a compact it does a decent job! I think im just gonna get the A-200 or 700 without the live view.

Well this review has thrown the cat amongst the pidgeons for me, I'd hoped this was going to be 'The-One' as I am a big fan of the articulated 'live-view'. I considered the Fujifilm S9600, then the S100FS but the Sony A350 promised it all! Alas, there's always a downside. I want great pics but with the simplicity and usability of a compact - is this it? I think maybe its time to toss the coin, unless I get a push in the right direction. Comments very much appreciated.

I already have the S9600 and the a350, Johnboy. I love them both. The live view is excellent. I don't use the a350 for studio photography although I do use the Live View a lot. There have been occassions when the light conditions make it difficult to see the screen, but not many. Cliff's evaluation is right but it has not been an issue for me. The a350 live view is excellent (as are the Fujis').

As far as the noise is concerned. Cliff's pictures demonstrate the noise very well but he still gives image quality a 9/10. The detail is excellent. I have read about the noise on many other sites. However, I have taken many pictures at high ISOs and have only considered one or two pictures to be unacceptable. Yes, some things are noticeable at high ISOs with large single colour surfaces, but many photos do not really show it unless you look really closely. My colleague, who has the Canon 1d MkIII and lots of expensive lenses is very particular about image quality and considers most of my higher ISO photos acceptable. The noise is greater than others, but others have noise too, so it is a matter of scale. Of course, if someone is going to use the higher ISOs a lot, then this may not be the camera for them, but otherwise it is a great camera.

Not sure how much money you have, but the s9600 is great and gives a good zoom range for about £200. You would need to spend 3 or 4 times the amount of the a350 to get the range of performance. I have both and intend to keep both.

Good review. But I'm not completely satisfied with this DSLR, it doesn't seem to live up to the 14 megapixels. Anyone who shares my opinion? But the price is still good if you consider what you get. Anyone who has any ideas of what to buy if you don't buy the a350?

Yup - I have one and I love it too.
The supplied 18-70 lens is far superior to anything that Canon provides with the EOS 400D and similar models.

I bought an a350 earlier this year and took it back to the shop as I was extremely dissapointed with it. The very helpful (indipendant) camera shop assistant spent an hour attaching different lenses, even putting £700 worth of Ziess lense on which made a slight but not acceptable difference. I compared it at work with a colleagues Cannon powershot (£120) and his came out better on saturation, detail (especially at full zoom & macro)and sharpness. I eventually took home a Fujifilm s100fs. I think there is a clear case of paying for the name here which is a shame as I have a Sony DSC W1 compact which is excellent. Caveat Emptor.

Cliff, can I ask if your assessment of ISO/noise performance (and other aspects of image quality) are based purely on standard Jpeg output, or also on RAW? I ask because the Pentax K20D (with a similar pixel count) benefits from minimal noise reduction, so it retains quite a lot of detail. The A350 seems to go the other way, smearing detail away... but would this still happen if you shot in RAW? Can noise reduction be turned off? I understand the target market is far more likely to shoot in Jpeg with default settings - I'm just curious.