My totally indecisive review of the Sony A99 after a week of shooting:
My wife offered me the opportunity to upgrade my camera in the coming months. I've been a bit infatuated with the idea of full frame with full frame prices becoming more accessible, at least aside from Sony dSLRs. For better or worse, my lens collection keeps me pretty faithful to Sony. The A7/7r don't appeal to me, as I have no interest in adapters or less of In-body-image-stabilization.
So I rented the A99 for a week. Knowing I can get it for under $2000 used, decided to take it for a test-spin and decide if it was for me. Knowing that even used, it would cost more than a top APS-C camera. And knowing that I'd be sacrificing some of my lenses -- most notably my Sony 16-50, my Tamon 10-24, and Sony 35/1.8.
So I spent Thanksgiving week with the A99 by my side. Shooting with lenses I already own: The Minolta 35-105 (original version), the Minolta 50/2.8 macro, Minolta 50/1.7, Sony 85/2.8, Minolta 135/2.8, and Tamron 70-300 usd. Also my Sony FM43 flash.
I want to address 2 things in this review: How I found full-frame shooting, compared to APS-C. And the A99 itself.
For those, like me, who have pondered whether it is worth switching to full frame. I'm still not sure. Images certainly seem a bit richer. There is definitely an upgrade in low light performance. Definitely can get much shallower DoF...... but........
At least with the A99, compared to the A55, I found I was getting less than a 2-stop ISO advantage. In terms of pixel peeping, the A99 was clean up to ISO 1600, where the A55 is only clean up to ISO 800. In terms of viewing at more normal sizes, I was finding the A99 fairly usable at ISO 6400, and could squeeze out something passable up to ISO 12800. I didn't really try to go higher. So definitely nice to get the higher ISO range, but only about 1 1/2 stops.
And silly me... with narrower DoF, I underestimated how much more difficult it would be just to focus shots. I don't have steady hands to begin with. I found that even with IBIS, I couldn't really shoot slower than 1/focal length, without really softening the shot. I had to stop down significantly to more reliably get sharp shots. This is largely a matter of practice, I'm sure it's something I would get used to, over time.
Finally, in general terms, it's amazing how wide my 50mm lens felt on a full frame body! And the Minolta 50mm macro is absolutely sharp and gorgeous on the A99.
Moving on to the specifics of the A99:
I mostly loved the camera body. Feels well built. It's big. I was shocked at how big it is next to the A55. But it is solid, with very well laid out controls. Makes changing settings very easy, makes shooting manually very easy. The EVF is large and beautiful. Give it to any CaNikon shooter for a week, and I think they won't ever want to go back to OVF.
I only had 1 complaint about the new body -- The hotshoe and needing an adapter to use my flash. I tried keeping the adapter locked on the camera body, but it kept slipping off in my camera bag. I know I'd lose the adapter very quickly.
Image quality was superb. Amazing dynamic range. Shadow recovery -- already very good in the A55 -- was absolutely amazing. BUT, the caveat being, the ISO advantage is no where close to full frame cameras from other brands. You won't find yourself shooting flashless, carefree at ISO 12800. For top IQ, you'll want to keep the ISO below 3200. Auto WB was very reliable in most circumstances.
The jpeg engine was much better than the A55. I still prefer shooting RAW, but most of the jpegs were very usable. I loved being able to save jpegs to 1 memory card, while devoting another memory card to RAW. In general, I found the jpegs to be best up to around ISO1600. Between ISO 1600-6400, I found that the camera was over-sharpening and applying too much noise reduction, creating some weird splotches in the image quality. At ISO 6400 and higher, you still got the splotches. But not necessarily any better or worse than overall IQ when I processed the noise myself.
One complaint about the 2 memory cards --- A small complaint as I'm sure I just couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out how to erase the secondary memory card, without flipping them within the camera.
Turning to the shooting experience: The camera has no many different focus modes and options, it can be overwhelming. I still didn't entirely figure out the best way to track faces for portraits. But it is great to have options, and when I did have the right configuration, it was fantastic. The button and control layouts do make it very easy to adjust your settings on the fly. I probably could have done an even better custom configuration, but that is learned over time. Face detection works very well. Manual focus and DMF with peaking is fantastic. I had 2 lenses that supported the AF-D feature, which utilizes extra Phase detect points on the sensor itself, the Sony 85 and the Tamron 70--300 (doesn't officially support it, but seemed to work). Both the AF-D and AF-C modes worked well for continuous shooting, as long as you had a good lock on your subject.
The downside of the shooting experience -- Sometimes in Aperture priority mode, the camera chose odd unnecessarily fast shutting speeds with high ISO, instead of just using a more typical shutter speed with lower ISO.
The other complaint, which I've seen voiced often, is that the focus points are all clustered around the middle of the frame. This isn't an issue with locking focus, where I typically spot focus anyway. But in terms of AF-D tracking --- it means that your subject will only be tracked as long as you continue to keep the subject towards the middle of the frame.
I didn't do much action shooting, but tested it out. There is the tele-mode --- Basically turns the A99 into a crop body, shooting 10fps at 10mp. I was pretty impressed with the results. You are sacrificing an ultra-high resolution image, but 10mp is still a good size for very good quality. In full resolution, 6fps felt snappy and responsive. Certainly fast enough for generic action. The buffer refreshed quickly.
I briefly tested my crop lenses are on the A99 as well, where they are auto-cropped into a 10mp image. While I prefer getting a 16mp image out of the A55 with the same lens, the results on the A99 were good enough that I wouldn't feel the need to ditch my old lenses.
The A99 excelled at single-person portraits, where I spent much of my Thanksgiving holiday. I was bouncing the flash very indirectly. So even with flash, the light was low, and I was shooting at ISO 1600 for many portraits. Results were phenomenal. In terms of couple and group shots, I had to train myself to stop down much further than I'm used to to get sufficient DoF. Otherwise, not all faces were sufficiently sharp.
I didn't get a chance to do much landscape shooting, but brief tests were impressive. I enjoy shooting landscape HDR, and the advanced bracketing options on the A99 are great. The A55 limits you to 3 0.7 brackets. The A99 gives multiple options with as many as 5 brackets. So between amazing dynamic range and the advanced bracketing, the A99 worked great.
Kids and pets.... The face detection and object tracking are really helpful here. As well as the fully articulated LCD.
Flash -- I have 2 complaints. The adapter if using older flashes, is apt to come off and get lost. And with the lack of a built-in flash, you also lack a built in trigger for wireless flash. But with a mounted flash, the camera does indeed perform very well.
Among the lenses I tried:
The Minolta 50mm Macro was amazing sharp. Really took advantage of the camera resolution at lower ISO.
I tried the Minolta 50mm 1.7 in some very low light, candle light pictures. It was soft, with terrible ghosting.
The Sony 85/2.8 produced great color and contrast. It was sharp enough for normal viewing. Did soften a little upon pixel peeping.
The Minolta 135/2.8 -- only tried it briefly. Looked great. Probably second to the macro in total sharpness.
Tamron 70-300 usd -- On the A55, at 16 mp, this lens is incredibly sharp. It does not *quite* keep up with 24mp. Still looked very good. Normal viewing was tack sharp. 100% crops started to soften a little bit.
Minolta 35-105 3.5-4.5. This lens has such a great reputation on dyxum. Works great on my A55. And the macro feature, which only works in manual focus, can get some new life from focus peaking. I was considering, if I buy the A99, this could be my walk-around lens. (I'm in no rush to spend another $2000 on the Zeiss zoom lens). Still produced some nice colors. And the 35-105 range is pretty nice on full frame. But alas, it was a bit soft.
If I do go full-frame, I'd have to seriously consider what to do about a walk-around lens. I may just stick mostly to my 50mm macro. What might get me to consider the Sony 28-70 would be the ability to use the AF-D mode fully.
Anyway, my conclusions and will I be buying the A99.
I gave it 4 stars. It lost a star for mediocre low light performance, weird A-priority mode, and PRICE.
If this camera was priced in line with the Canon 6d and Nikon D610, I could easily see rating it 5 stars. It's a phenomenal camera. But right now it is priced about 350% higher than the A77. For the most part, the only really significant gain over the A77 is an ISO advantage of less than 2 stops. Where you can get an A77 for $800, hard to justify paying $2000 more for the A99. Where you can get a Canon 6d, with better low light performance, for about $1500, hard to rationalize paying double the price for a new A99. Yes, there are other trade-offs that make the A99 a better camera then the Canon 6d.... IF it was priced competitively.
So will I buy the A99? I'm not deciding until the spring. In making a decision, I'm going to consider these factors:
-- hide signature --
The Sony A79 -- Does it incorporate the AF-D of the A99? And does the A79 improve it's high ISO performance? (even a half stop would be nice).
-- Where does the price of the A99 stand in the spring, new and used. Especially as compared to the A79.
-- The supposed "new" A-mount full frame. In addition to price, does it improve on the short comings of the A99? Specifically, I'd love to see more focus points over more of the frame.
If I really had to make a decision right now, I'd be torn between paying about $1900 for a used A99, or $800 for a new A77. Or truthfully, I have no qualms sticking with my A55 for now. In many ways, while I loved the A99, it made me appreciate my A55 that much more. For it's nice small compact size, and IQ that is most often quite comparable!
My wife offered me the opportunity to upgrade my camera in the coming months. I've been a bit infatuated with the idea of full frame with full frame prices becoming more accessible, at least aside from Sony dSLRs. For better or worse, my lens collection keeps me pretty faithful to Sony. The A7/7r don't appeal to me, as I have no interest in adapters or less of In-body-image-stabilization.
So I rented the A99 for a week. Knowing I can get it for under $2000 used, decided to take it for a test-spin and decide if it was for me. Knowing that even used, it would cost more than a top APS-C camera. And knowing that I'd be sacrificing some of my lenses -- most notably my Sony 16-50, my Tamon 10-24, and Sony 35/1.8.
So I spent Thanksgiving week with the A99 by my side. Shooting with lenses I already own: The Minolta 35-105 (original version), the Minolta 50/2.8 macro, Minolta 50/1.7, Sony 85/2.8, Minolta 135/2.8, and Tamron 70-300 usd. Also my Sony FM43 flash.
I want to address 2 things in this review: How I found full-frame shooting, compared to APS-C. And the A99 itself.
For those, like me, who have pondered whether it is worth switching to full frame. I'm still not sure. Images certainly seem a bit richer. There is definitely an upgrade in low light performance. Definitely can get much shallower DoF...... but........
At least with the A99, compared to the A55, I found I was getting less than a 2-stop ISO advantage. In terms of pixel peeping, the A99 was clean up to ISO 1600, where the A55 is only clean up to ISO 800. In terms of viewing at more normal sizes, I was finding the A99 fairly usable at ISO 6400, and could squeeze out something passable up to ISO 12800. I didn't really try to go higher. So definitely nice to get the higher ISO range, but only about 1 1/2 stops.
And silly me... with narrower DoF, I underestimated how much more difficult it would be just to focus shots. I don't have steady hands to begin with. I found that even with IBIS, I couldn't really shoot slower than 1/focal length, without really softening the shot. I had to stop down significantly to more reliably get sharp shots. This is largely a matter of practice, I'm sure it's something I would get used to, over time.
Finally, in general terms, it's amazing how wide my 50mm lens felt on a full frame body! And the Minolta 50mm macro is absolutely sharp and gorgeous on the A99.
Moving on to the specifics of the A99:
I mostly loved the camera body. Feels well built. It's big. I was shocked at how big it is next to the A55. But it is solid, with very well laid out controls. Makes changing settings very easy, makes shooting manually very easy. The EVF is large and beautiful. Give it to any CaNikon shooter for a week, and I think they won't ever want to go back to OVF.
I only had 1 complaint about the new body -- The hotshoe and needing an adapter to use my flash. I tried keeping the adapter locked on the camera body, but it kept slipping off in my camera bag. I know I'd lose the adapter very quickly.
Image quality was superb. Amazing dynamic range. Shadow recovery -- already very good in the A55 -- was absolutely amazing. BUT, the caveat being, the ISO advantage is no where close to full frame cameras from other brands. You won't find yourself shooting flashless, carefree at ISO 12800. For top IQ, you'll want to keep the ISO below 3200. Auto WB was very reliable in most circumstances.
The jpeg engine was much better than the A55. I still prefer shooting RAW, but most of the jpegs were very usable. I loved being able to save jpegs to 1 memory card, while devoting another memory card to RAW. In general, I found the jpegs to be best up to around ISO1600. Between ISO 1600-6400, I found that the camera was over-sharpening and applying too much noise reduction, creating some weird splotches in the image quality. At ISO 6400 and higher, you still got the splotches. But not necessarily any better or worse than overall IQ when I processed the noise myself.
One complaint about the 2 memory cards --- A small complaint as I'm sure I just couldn't figure it out. I couldn't figure out how to erase the secondary memory card, without flipping them within the camera.
Turning to the shooting experience: The camera has no many different focus modes and options, it can be overwhelming. I still didn't entirely figure out the best way to track faces for portraits. But it is great to have options, and when I did have the right configuration, it was fantastic. The button and control layouts do make it very easy to adjust your settings on the fly. I probably could have done an even better custom configuration, but that is learned over time. Face detection works very well. Manual focus and DMF with peaking is fantastic. I had 2 lenses that supported the AF-D feature, which utilizes extra Phase detect points on the sensor itself, the Sony 85 and the Tamron 70--300 (doesn't officially support it, but seemed to work). Both the AF-D and AF-C modes worked well for continuous shooting, as long as you had a good lock on your subject.
The downside of the shooting experience -- Sometimes in Aperture priority mode, the camera chose odd unnecessarily fast shutting speeds with high ISO, instead of just using a more typical shutter speed with lower ISO.
The other complaint, which I've seen voiced often, is that the focus points are all clustered around the middle of the frame. This isn't an issue with locking focus, where I typically spot focus anyway. But in terms of AF-D tracking --- it means that your subject will only be tracked as long as you continue to keep the subject towards the middle of the frame.
I didn't do much action shooting, but tested it out. There is the tele-mode --- Basically turns the A99 into a crop body, shooting 10fps at 10mp. I was pretty impressed with the results. You are sacrificing an ultra-high resolution image, but 10mp is still a good size for very good quality. In full resolution, 6fps felt snappy and responsive. Certainly fast enough for generic action. The buffer refreshed quickly.
I briefly tested my crop lenses are on the A99 as well, where they are auto-cropped into a 10mp image. While I prefer getting a 16mp image out of the A55 with the same lens, the results on the A99 were good enough that I wouldn't feel the need to ditch my old lenses.
The A99 excelled at single-person portraits, where I spent much of my Thanksgiving holiday. I was bouncing the flash very indirectly. So even with flash, the light was low, and I was shooting at ISO 1600 for many portraits. Results were phenomenal. In terms of couple and group shots, I had to train myself to stop down much further than I'm used to to get sufficient DoF. Otherwise, not all faces were sufficiently sharp.
I didn't get a chance to do much landscape shooting, but brief tests were impressive. I enjoy shooting landscape HDR, and the advanced bracketing options on the A99 are great. The A55 limits you to 3 0.7 brackets. The A99 gives multiple options with as many as 5 brackets. So between amazing dynamic range and the advanced bracketing, the A99 worked great.
Kids and pets.... The face detection and object tracking are really helpful here. As well as the fully articulated LCD.
Flash -- I have 2 complaints. The adapter if using older flashes, is apt to come off and get lost. And with the lack of a built-in flash, you also lack a built in trigger for wireless flash. But with a mounted flash, the camera does indeed perform very well.
Among the lenses I tried:
The Minolta 50mm Macro was amazing sharp. Really took advantage of the camera resolution at lower ISO.
I tried the Minolta 50mm 1.7 in some very low light, candle light pictures. It was soft, with terrible ghosting.
The Sony 85/2.8 produced great color and contrast. It was sharp enough for normal viewing. Did soften a little upon pixel peeping.
The Minolta 135/2.8 -- only tried it briefly. Looked great. Probably second to the macro in total sharpness.
Tamron 70-300 usd -- On the A55, at 16 mp, this lens is incredibly sharp. It does not *quite* keep up with 24mp. Still looked very good. Normal viewing was tack sharp. 100% crops started to soften a little bit.
Minolta 35-105 3.5-4.5. This lens has such a great reputation on dyxum. Works great on my A55. And the macro feature, which only works in manual focus, can get some new life from focus peaking. I was considering, if I buy the A99, this could be my walk-around lens. (I'm in no rush to spend another $2000 on the Zeiss zoom lens). Still produced some nice colors. And the 35-105 range is pretty nice on full frame. But alas, it was a bit soft.
If I do go full-frame, I'd have to seriously consider what to do about a walk-around lens. I may just stick mostly to my 50mm macro. What might get me to consider the Sony 28-70 would be the ability to use the AF-D mode fully.
Anyway, my conclusions and will I be buying the A99.
I gave it 4 stars. It lost a star for mediocre low light performance, weird A-priority mode, and PRICE.
If this camera was priced in line with the Canon 6d and Nikon D610, I could easily see rating it 5 stars. It's a phenomenal camera. But right now it is priced about 350% higher than the A77. For the most part, the only really significant gain over the A77 is an ISO advantage of less than 2 stops. Where you can get an A77 for $800, hard to justify paying $2000 more for the A99. Where you can get a Canon 6d, with better low light performance, for about $1500, hard to rationalize paying double the price for a new A99. Yes, there are other trade-offs that make the A99 a better camera then the Canon 6d.... IF it was priced competitively.
So will I buy the A99? I'm not deciding until the spring. In making a decision, I'm going to consider these factors:
-- hide signature --
The Sony A79 -- Does it incorporate the AF-D of the A99? And does the A79 improve it's high ISO performance? (even a half stop would be nice).
-- Where does the price of the A99 stand in the spring, new and used. Especially as compared to the A79.
-- The supposed "new" A-mount full frame. In addition to price, does it improve on the short comings of the A99? Specifically, I'd love to see more focus points over more of the frame.
If I really had to make a decision right now, I'd be torn between paying about $1900 for a used A99, or $800 for a new A77. Or truthfully, I have no qualms sticking with my A55 for now. In many ways, while I loved the A99, it made me appreciate my A55 that much more. For it's nice small compact size, and IQ that is most often quite comparable!
I did use it recently for some family shots but its just a lens that sits in my bag most of the time. I had the Sony 50mm f/1.8 but sold that since I rarely used that. On dark rides it didn't give me enough in frame so it took a back seat to the 35. 50 on a FF work out fine. So I would probably go for the 50mm f/2.8 first since you say it is a lot sharper and that im more interested in. 
