Sony A55 – How Does It Rate Against Canon and Nikon?
Why was the Sony A55 digital SLR voted the Camera of the Year by Popular Photography Magazine? what about all those Canon and Nikon models that are getting all the attention?
Well, to put your mind at ease, the Canon Rebel T2i and the Nikon D3s were runners-up to the winner. the win really says something for the Sony A55 when you consider the competition and the recent advance in image quality and added features by the big two camera manufacturers.
Back to the question at hand. Why did the A55 win?
The Sony engineers get an A+ for ingenuity and guts. they tried something new. In fact they put several somethings new into this camera.
The first piece of new technology is the mirror system. Technically this camera is not a single reflex lens camera, because those cameras have a mirror that swings out of the way when the picture is taken. this camera has a stationary mirror that is semi-transparent. You don’t have to know what that is, just understand that it is the reason for some of the great features that are thus far unmatched by the competition.
The Sony A55 is the first camera of this type in which the auto focus works while zooming. If you read the user reviews, that is one of the things that buyers gripe about in their new DSLR cameras. not so with this one, though.
Another advantage of the fixed mirror is the ability to take 10 frames per second in burst or continuous mode. That is the fastest speed of any DSLR. this thing is lightning fast.
It also sports a movable LCD screen that photographers love when shooting video or still shots from awkward positions.
Auto focus is also the fastest around, again due to the new mirror. the camera has an electronic view finder instead of the normal optical viewfinder which allows auto focus to work all the time, whereas normal DSLRs can’t auto focus when the mirror is in the up position while shooting.
A couple of features are very advanced. one is a panorama mode. this is where the camera will put together a series of images to create a wide panorama shot. another is the HDR mode which takes several shots and combines them in-camera to get that wide range of light and color that is becoming so popular now.
Checking the user reviews at the Amazon online store, there is not even one post that expresses dissatisfaction. Now that is amazing.
It looks like the Sony A55 is headed for the top 10 Digital SLR Cameras list. As of this writing, it was not there yet, simply because there are not enough reviews to qualify.
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- Difference among Canon EOS 60D, Canon EOS 7D and Nikon D7000 – panasonicmod
- Sony Alpha A55 review – Digital Lifestyle – Macworld UK