On this page

The Sony A77 is here! Is it any good? :(( See here:

August 24^th, 2011

by Sebastian WöberAugust 24^th, 2011

The much anticipated Sony Alpha 77 was finally announced today in conjunction with a bunch of reviews and alongside the also much anticipated large sensor video camera VG-20, but more about that later on. Now let’s face the first question: Will the A77 be the next great hdslr? No comment. (… but no).

Read much more after the jump:

How is it that these first reviews are always made by semi professionals who don’t have experience shooting HDSLR?

It’s frustrating to say the least and in a way for me it also puts across that the company might not believe in its product. Do they have something to hide not giving it to the pros for evaluation?

So how is the A77 for filmmakers? It’s hard to tell from the review above. If what I see up there was the best the A77 could do it would go from it’s packaging right into my trashcan, but I presume that in the right hands this camera can do much more.

The person in the video above starts his review with the words “A year ago I advised participants of my video workshop against HDSLR” followed by some revealing claims like “it is virtually impossible to determine focus manually (there was no autofocus)” and “these cameras had great heat problems”.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that the camera introduces an autofocus feature (sound issues though) and doesn’t have heat problems, but the major topics that are important to filmmakers and videographers like aliasing, moiré, compression, hdmi out and rolling shutter are totally left out and the samples at the end are leaving us with a weird impression of extreme ghosting effects, amateur shakyness (where’s that image stabilizer?), bad compression, some sequences that could have aliasing (the ship and the windows at 5:55-6:02 for example) and no samples of the much praised full HD slomo.

Here is more info from several sites about the video in this camera:

Autofocus (unfortunate downside)
by image resource
The most unusual capability of the Sony A77’s video mode is enabled by its translucent mirror. The Sony A77 can continue to use phase detection autofocusing during movie recording, allowing swift adjustments to focus as your subject moves. Since standard Alpha-mount lenses are used, this focusing action is accompanied by significant levels of autofocus drive noise.

Here’s the official press release of the A77.

And if you would like to preorder this camera you can do this via amazon.com at this time. A77 body only will costs $1399.
The α77 and α65 Translucent Mirror interchangeable lens digital cameras by Sony are available from October 2011.

Find the new cinema5D forum camera categories Sony Alpha 77 and Sony Alpha 65 here: