Sony Alpha A100K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 Lens
by Sony
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Our Price: $295.00 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Digital Camera See more product details |
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Sony Alpha A100K 10.2MP Digital SLR Camera Kit with 18-70mm f3.5-5.6 Lens
Customer Review: Happy Photographer is enjoying his A100
Summary: 5 Stars
Ace Digital did a fine job in getting the order and sending the camera the same day. Tracking on UPS worked fine. It arrived in good order.
The A100K is a great camera. I have been a SLR photographer for a long time, pleased with the switch to PHD cameras generally (push here, dummy), but longing for the control and especially the accuracy of focusing that an SLR provides. The A100 does the job beautifully. Pictures are crisp and predictable. The 3 FPS cycle is fast. Battery life is awesome, including the sleep mode it drops into even when the flash is up. The literature claims 750 photos per charge, with every other shot using the flash, and I believe it.
The only thing I have found is that the Auto setting on the guide wheel is not what you want to use for everyday photos. If you are takng landscape shots, use the landscape setting. Ditto for portraits. Ditto for close ups. Auto does not do the best job for any of these conditions. In fact, I try to stay away from Auto, and I have found this curious. The problem is in focusing more than exposure.
The focus evaluation setting is really helpful. You can see if you had shake or subject movement very easily. The anti-shake function is really hard to evaluate: if the subject is a bit blurry, does this mean that the anti-shake didn't work, or that the subject moved? Tripod use improves focusing accuracy, but then it would on any camera.
I added the Sony 70-300 mm telephoto lens and I am really happy with that as well. Great resolution, especially at max tele settings. I live 30 miles away from a mountain with a lookout hut on top, and I can see the hut clearly at the 300 setting, using a tripod.
One last comment about tranferring photos. The Sony-supplied cable connection is 20x faster than removing the CF card and using the card reader on my HP computer. Since the 10 MP photos are 2.3 MB each, this time savings is considerable.
This is a great camera. I am very happy with it.
Customer Review: Minolta in Sony Clothes
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm sooo happy I managed to get one of these before Sony made all their changes. It acts just like my Minolta Film cameras, the venerable 9000 and the newer 5 Film - easy to use menus, controls where I want them and that wonderful lighting fast autofocus. I'm not a fan of anything Sony proprietary (like the battery) but so far it's been good to me. I bought this to take pictures of my newborn son - cause face it, no P&S will ever react fast enough to catch the boy with his eyes scrunched up and tongue hanging out.
One serious con is the sheer bulk of the thing. My wife LOVED the Maxxum 5 Film, lightweight and thin for her little hands. She needs to use two hands almost exclusively for this beast. It's not a weight issue either, it's the shape of the grip. I find my fingernails grinding into the body from the way I hold the camera one handed. Better grips could be had.
There are certainly fuller featured models out there, even in this manufacturer, but really, how often do you use all those features? I know what I'm doing, I'm a photographer from way back with a Pentax K1000 knock off from Cosina, but about all I ever do is change the flash or exposure compensation settings, and usually I get better results if I use the pre-programmed modes anyway.
Takes a darn pretty picture in plain old automatic, too. Just like the Maxxum 5, if you can teach a 5 year old to frame and compose, the camera will do the rest.
Of course there's the compatibility issue with all my old Minolta glass... eh... some of it plays nice, and some of (and particularly my portrait lens) will not work in anything other than full manual. Which is okay really, better than purchasing an entire new library of Nikkor lenses.
Oh, the image stabilization program in the body? Works like a charm.
Customer Review: Sony has revived Minolta with the A100
Summary: 5 Stars
The Sony Alpha A100K is a fantastic camera. The included lens is extremely versatile. Battery life is superb (hundreds of shots before a recharge, at least 400 in my experience, possibly many more as I'm still on the first charge).
The Alpha Mount system allows me to use all my old lenses from my Minolta Maxxum 5 35mm camera. Also, Sony kept the standard Minolta hotshoe (the flash-mount-point that resides above the lens), and simply rebranded the Minolta flashes, so my old flash works too.
If you are a fan of Minolta cameras, and have been looking for a new DSLR, this camera is a great choice. If you need a bit more professional a setup, and can afford $1500, consider the A700 instead.
I have absolutely no complaints. Normally, I hate Sony products, but this camera doesn't feel like a Sony. It feels like a Minolta. The camera doesn't take Memory Stick, it takes Compact Flash. This is a move Sony has almost never done before. They love their proprietary formats. This time, they went with the industry standard, however.
You'll want to pick up a 55mm UV Filter (multicoated if possible) to protect the lens coating. The added effect of this is that cleaning or replacing a filter is much easier than cleaning or replacing a lens. The UV filter I've described can be had for between $3 and $20 depending upon brand and store.
Also, a 2GB card will give you 460 JPEG images at full quality, or around 100 RAW images. If you're going to shoot JPEG, 2GB should be all you'll need for a while. If RAW, look into a 16GB card (can be had for $120).
One last tip: this camera has a very fast write speed, so using older slower flash memory devices will only impede performance. Get at least a 133x (20 Megabytes per second) CF card.
Customer Review: An excellent choice
Summary: 5 Stars
The reviews below this one are thorough and written by professional-sounding photographers. So I'm going to give you my brief impression as an amateur. I have had this camera for 2 months now and use it regularly (several times a week). I am a flatwater kayaker and I use it mostly to take pictures of wildlife--shorebirds, deer, other critters--from the kayak. I purchased the 75-300 zoom lens to go with it. I also have the lens that comes with the kit, which I use for scenics or pictures around the house, etc. My previous cameras included the Sony DSC-H5 and the Canon S2 IS, both with teleconversion lenses.
Obviously, this being a DSLR camera, the pictures are crisper with better color. The image stabilization is effective enough to give me sharp pictures of birds taken from a kayak on moving water. While the 10 mp factor is usually (I gather) desirable from a printing standpoint, I find that it is helpful from a cropping standpoint. The zoom lens will only take me so close to a bird in a tree--cropping the photo enables me to, in effect, zoom in further on the picture itself, so the end result is that the little dot in the original picture can be cropped and zoomed to show up clearly and sharply as a belted kingfisher.
It's heavier than regular (non DSLR) digitals, a fact that put a friend of mine off it. It also has an unusually loud shutter noise (not the satisfying *click* of other models). I wish it used plain AA batteries instead of rechargeable--I am used to being able to replace the batteries on the go if necessary (instead of being SOL if they run out while I'm on the water).
But the fact is that you can't beat the price and I find the quality of the pictures I get with it to be excellent. It's my first DSLR and I am very pleased with it.
Customer Review: Fine camera, works well with my old Minolta lenses
Summary: 5 Stars
Echoing what most others have said, this is a great camera. It's a dream to use, and the pictures are stunning.
Since it's based on a Minolta design, it accepts the lenses from my old Minolta Maxxum 9000 (circa mid 1980s). This is a huge benefit to me; I now have an excellent quality 70-210mm zoom lens for my new Alpha-100 for no additional cost! The auto-focus and TTL metering work properly, and since the anti-shake hardware is in the camera body, that works with the old lens also. Even my old Minolta cable release (a switch on the end of an electrical cable with a proprietary rectangular plug) connects and works fine.
I'm very happy with the camera. That said, there are a couple of annoyances. One of them might be significant to you, depending on how you want to use the camera.
First, noise. Not picture noise, as in grainy low-light photos, but acoustic noise. The shutter mechanism is *loud*, much louder than my old Maxxum 9000. If you want to be an unnoticed photographer taking discreet pictures like Cartier-Bresson with his Leica, this isn't your camera.
Second, the lens shade. This is a nit, but I find it more clumsy to use than the lens shade on the old camera. The old one was held on by a spring clasp; you just squeeze on opposite sides to install or remove it, or to reverse it for storage. The new one has to be positioned precisely so that tabs will lock into place when it is turned. Not as quick or as easy to use, but not really a big deal. I suppose it saved a couple of dollars, as the new one is one piece of plastic while the old one had several parts.
On the whole, an excellent product. I'd buy it again in a heartbeat.