Photo-facts A-Z

Sony Alpha A200: Review

Tuesday, 13 May 2008

The Alpha A200 is the cheapest Sony D-SLR in the range and is a replacement for the A100. It might be the least expensive digital SLR on the UK market, but it’s nevertheless very well-specified, with a 10-megapixel sensor, an anti-dust mechanism and Sony’s Super SteadyShot anti-shake system built into the body. It doesn’t have a Live View (where you can compose shots on the LCD as well as the viewfinder) but apart from that it does everything that more expensive cameras can do, offering easy automatic modes for beginners and the more advanced manual controls that enthusiasts will demand.

What’s special about it?

★The Super SteadyShot anti-shake system works very well, offering a claimed 2.5-3.5 improvement in ‘safe’ shutter speeds. It makes a quite a difference for low light or telephoto shots, though it doesn’t steady the image in the viewfinder like lens-based stabilisation systems do.
★The 2.7-inch LCD is bright, crisp and saturated, and gives a good indication of the picture quality, brightness and colour in playback mode.
★The claimed 750-shot battery life is well above average for a budget digital SLR, and Sony’s InfoLITHIUM technology displays an estimate of battery life remaining (in minutes).
★The optional D-Range Optimiser sets out to lighten darker areas in high-contrast scenes, though its effects are sometimes quite hard to spot.
★The maximum sensitivity is ISO 3200, though by this point the image quality is pretty poor.
★The 9-point AF system is pretty sophisticated in a camera of this price, especially when compared to the simpler 3-point AF in the Nikon D60.

What’s it like to use?

The A200’s plastic finish does feel a little cheap, but the overall construction seems solid. The controls are clearly labelled and work well, with a good, positive ‘feel’. The layout’s a little awkward, though, and while there are ISO and drive mode buttons on the top of the camera, for other routine adjustments (flash mode, metering mode, autofocus mode, AF area, white balance, D-Range Optimiser) you have to press the Fn button on the back and navigate an on-screen interface. The control dial on the top of the grip is a little too deeply recessed for easy operation, too.

There is a pretty agricultural feel to this camera at times. Startup is accompanied by some coarse mechanical ‘shunting’ (presumably related to the anti-dust/anti-shake mechanism), and the autofocus is quite noise and rough-feeling (Canon and Nikon are still largely out on their own here).

Despite all this, though, the A200 does handle pretty well, especially for such an inexpensive camera, and it’s very much on a par with other entry-level SLRs.

What are the pictures like?

The A200’s picture quality is extremely good, with excellent colour rendition, accurate exposures in all but the most difficult situations and good levels of detail. The picture quality does drop off at high ISOs, though, and ISO 1600 is as far as most people will want to go. At the ISO 3200 maximum, there’s just too much noise and too much of a drop in picture quality.

The 18-70mm kit lens is the main weak point, though. The zoom range is longer than average, but the definition drops off towards the edges of the frame, where there’s also a good deal of colour fringing (chromatic aberration). Nikon and Canon kit lenses are a little better than this, though the differences are not huge. At this price, of course, you can’t expect perfection, and you can always upgrade to a better lens later.

The A200’s colour rendition is excellent, and there’s not much wrong with the exposure system either. Images have real ‘punch’, and the definition is good too, though the 18-70mm kit lens doesn’t make the best of this camera’s abilities.

Should you buy it?

At current prices, the A200’s value for money is astonishing. Not only is it the cheapest D-SLR on the UK market, it’s competing on price with many less sophisticated non-SLR cameras. If you’re looking for a low-cost introduction to digital SLRs, you could scarcely do better. On the other hand, if you plan on investing in a larger camera system in the years to come, Nikon and Canon do offer a better ‘upgrade path’ into professional photography.

What are the alternatives?

CANON EOS 450D: The 12-megapixel sensor gives the EOS 450D a 2-megapixel advantage over the D60 and the Canon has an excellent Live View mode for composing shots using the LCD. The picture quality is average, though, with subdued colours and indifferent fine detail rendition – to get the best results you need to shoot RAW files rather than JPEGS.

OLYMPUS E-410: The smallest SLR of all, with an expecially neat and compact kit lens. The E-410 has been around for a while but it’s still an excellent choice. It has built-in dust removal, an excellent Live View mode and great photographic controls which are easier to get to than on rival cameras. The new E-420 is very similar but has an improved Live View mode.

NIKON D60: Small and light, with a good VR (image stabilised) kit lens, the D60 combines attractive design with a beginner-friendly interface and some extensive in-camera image-editing tools. Some adjustments can be laborious, though, and it’s a camera you could outgrow fairly quickly as you gain experience.