Buy Discount Sony Alpha SLT-a35 16 MP Digital SLR Kit with Translucent Mirror Technology and 18-55mm Lens – Deal
- Sony exclusive Translucent Mirror Technology enabling simultaneous focusing and capture.
- Up to 7 frames per second continuous shooting and continuous auto focus
- Main Sensor Live View with Phase Detection auto focus (Quick AF Live View)
- Phase detection-the highest-precision auto focus-available at all times, even Live View and Movie modes
- 15-point Auto Focus w/ 3 cross sensors so the subject need not be in the center of the frame
Sony SLTA35K Digital SLR Camera (Black)
Sony Alpha SLT-A35,
Sony Alpha SLT-A35 16 MP Digital SLR Kit with Translucent Mirror Technology and 18-55mm Lens
I’ve had the Sony SLT-A35 for a couple of weeks now and after some testing and two in the field photo shoots, I think I’m ready to review it. I’ll outline Pros, Cons and Matters of Preference.
Pros:
The photo quality is very good, what you would expect from a 16MP camera.
The colors seem accurate and true to me.
While the menu system is fairly deep, it seems well organized. Key features (Shutter Speed, F-Stop, WB, ISO, Bracketing/Self Timer, Screen Display Toggle, Focus Zoom) all have buttons within easy reach. A programable button can be set for easy access to one of many additional feature sets like HDR, Filter Effects, etc.
If you use Auto Focus, it is extremely fast. Manual focusing is a snap and the 7.5X and 15X focusing zoom helps a great deal for distance details.
While the battery life isn’t great, compared to reviews of the A33 and A55, it is improved. I was able to shoot for about 4 hours and still had about 30% of the battery charge remaining. Still, a second battery just in case seems like a must.
The 18-55mm kit lens (SAL1855) seems solid as an all purpose lens.
Cons:
Biggest flaw so far is lack of Camera RAW support from Adobe/Lightroom. The Image Data Converter SR software that comes with the camera is lacking at best. I’m shooting everything in RAW + JPG so that I have something to play with until the RAW files are useable.
There is a strange chromatic effect through the EVF when the camera moves or even when you blink. It’s somewhat mild and I’ve gotten used to seeing it pretty quickly, but it was startling at first.
I haven’t captured a quality image with the Panoramic sweep after about 20 attempts. The file size is around 3MB, so it’s capturing significantly less data than even a fine JPG at full resolution.
Matters of Preference:
The camera body is very light. People taking the camera on long treks will probably find this to be beneficial as every ounce of weight you can shed matters. Those who like a more substancial feeling in their hands as they shoot may see that differently.
So far this camera is near useless for Infrared Photography. It lets through very little IR light. With a 720nm filter on a bright sunny day, a 4-5 second exposure shows almost no IR light. Adding a ND 8 filter allowed for longer exposure time but very little additional IR light. What you get is a very orange cast image with proper IR sky but foliage retains it’s greens. With a 950nm filter, finally IR light came through but on the same bright, sunny day, an exposure of 1 minute or more was necessary. It’s very difficult to get quality IR shots over that long a shutter. If you don’t shoot in IR, this is a non issue, obviously.
Conclusion:
I’m very satisified with the camera. Although it’s IR capabilities are non existent so I have to carry my old setup out on shoots I may want to do IR work on, the image quality and basic functionality of this camera are spot on. The annoyances will either be sorted out soon (Adobe RAW support) or are in the extra features that are non-essential.
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|Best entry-level camera, missed a few features,
The primary advantage of A35 over A55 except price(price difference is $100 at this point) is the overheating issue with A55. A35 being a second-generation model using Sony’s 16.2mp sensor, Sony claim the improved version is more efficient, hence has longer battery life and less heat. Other than this, A55 is a more feature packed camera. Except the obvious feature differences (articulating screen, GPS, continuous shooting speed…) you can find on major camera review website, here are the minor ones:
1. No support for the wireless remote (infrared), Noted both the description on Amazon and Sonystyle.com state the RM-DSLR1 infrared remote works with A35. IT DOESN’T!! it is one feature missing from A55 you don’t see anywhere. Not that it is critical, but this should be noted and corrected.
2. No digital level
In the end, I don’t think I will return the A35 for an A55, even though the price difference is only $100 and much more were packed into A55. In my opinion, an A56 with the heat issue fixed but retains all the A55 feature and price point will be killer. But since that is not available at this point, I would settle for A35 without the overheating problem over A55.
[Update]
After owning this camera for about 2 months and several hiking trips, I can attest that A35 is a solid performer, lightweight with output quality rivaling cameras costing $1500. When you think about the same/similar Sony 16.2mp sensor is used in Nikon D7000 and Pentax K5 (both are about $1500 at this point), the $700 A35 is truly a great bargain. Things I like most are its: LCD resolution (921k is just so clear), responsiveness, lightweight. What can be improved upon are: battery life, somewhat grainy EVF. I really shouldn’t complain given its price point.
By the way, you can get excellent Minolta AF mount lenses for your Sony Alpha camera. I recommend, as a new user, Minolta 50mm 1.7 (or Sony DT 50mm 1.8) for A35. Both are inexpensive (Minolta used can be had for well under 100), but very useful for low light photography. The image quality is amazing. Plus, they are compact and fit well to the A35 body. People often recommend Minolta 70-210 F4 (beercan) and 28-105 (secret handshake). All of these are solid, inexpensive lenses with low price.
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|almost perfect entry-level DSLR (SLT),
Sony alpha slt-a35 is certainly one of the best camera under 800$. it has bunch of cool features and neither of them will disappoint you.
I want to start with “multiframe noise reduction”.(this is iso setting and you can choose any iso up to 25600) this is the feature that gives you 1-2 stops advantage when shooting at night without tripod. It works amazingly (takes 6 pictures sequentially and then micro-aligns them). even when subject is moving you can get very decent results.. sweep panorama is very funny and really useful feature. Despite that a35 has the best dynamic range among its rivals and DRO(dynamic range optimizer) is very effective, sometimes its necessary to use hdr and sony-s auto-hdr will give you excellent result.
many people complain that the body of camera is too small or lightweight and they don’t lie, but i havn’t seen anything more comfortable before. If you have extra large hands maybe it will be distracting but for normal sized hands (or smaller) holding the camera is a big pleasure. You can control everything rapidly, all the buttons are there where they should be. controlling your camera gets even faster with using elecrtonic viewfidner. The EVF is really great and in terms of visibility almost matches the ovf-s we have seen in other entry level dslr-s and outperforms them in any other aspect, at first its larger (1.1x vs 0.78x magnification) and has 100% coverage vs 95% of competitors. You can do everything without taking eye from viewfinder and this really matters. I found manual focus magnification very helpful. To be honest before I got my a35 I used to say that I’d like to have an ovf rather than evf, but now i must say i can’t imagine living without EVF.
Of course the most important thing is image quality of camera. I must say the 16mp exmor-R sensor is really excellent, 2000$ nikon-d7000 has the same sensor and with this everything is said.
image quality of raw files are perfect and jpegs are also very good (sometimes strong NR of sony is very annoying). Metering is almost unmistakable, colors are true and dynamic range is excellent as I’ve already mentioned. Hight iso performance is best-in-class and it gets far better with multiframe iso. Video is great, although there are limited control but its enough for most I think. Phase detection AF during video (and stills) works amazingly you cant see same thing in any camera of other manufacturer.
image stabilisation (steadyshot inside) does job very well. you’ll get sharp images even in 1/2 second at 18mm and good thing is that lenses without stabilisation costs less.
Battery life isn’t as bad as predecessor’s, I usually take up to 500 image per charge, its pretty good result since there isn’t OVF and sensor always has to work.
Overall a35 is excellent all-round performer, it has great IQ, great features and bunch of advantages that gives translucent mirror technology.
cons:
Nose Reduction cant be turned off in jpegs.
automatic white balance could be better (but it isn’t worse than competitors)
kit lens feels very “plastically” (but optically its very good)
no digital level gauge (we have seen in previous models a33/a55)
no switching button between raw/jpeg. (many cool features works only with jpeg so you often have to switch between raw and jpg)
sensor gets only 70% of incoming light (because translucent mirror doesn’t move)
EVF visibility isn’t great in lowlight (there’s significant noise but not so much to worry about)
overall a35 is certainly one of the best camera for the price, it delivers everything that promises and I hardly recomend it for everyone who is looking for entry-level dslr with excellent image quality and many cool features.
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