The Sony A77 Review! [Part 2]

Since we started with the features, let me add something pretty important.

Those who came from the A33/55/35 line of cameras had difficulties with wireless flash or studio triggers since their EVF/Live View would always show the scene as the camera would interpret them according to the settings and not take into account external flashes/strobes. This was changed with the A77 when they added the feature to turn off Live View Display: Setting Effect at OFF.

This basically allows you to use the camera in a studio setup without much trouble. Just remember though, you EVF has basically become an OVF [that's even a bit brighter in really dark settings] that will not show how your pictures will come out.

An important feature I'd like to discuss is about one of the things that makes the A900 and A850 such good camera's, its called AF Micro Adjust. This basically adjusts the front or back focus of a particular lens by moving the focus forward or backward.

Now I know that you may think that this might only be good for one lens and that the settings would carry over on the next lens you attach but the neat thing about the camera and its feature is that it builds a database of the lens you attach and saves the information in camera about the adjustment you chose. When you attach a fresh lens its starts at 0 adjustment, you can then adjust the focus again, when you attach a lens that was previously adjusted, the camera will automatically load the previous settings!

When you adjust the focus by positives amounts [+1, +2, +3 etc], it pushes the focus forward from you [compensating for front focusing lenses] and with negatives [-1, -2 etc] it brings back the focus towards you, fixing back focus. To illustrate, here's a sample (I focused on the "G"):

CLICK TO ENLARGE!

Pretty useful eh? Take note though, there's one thing I'm not entirely sure of, is if the camera saves in the database, according to a specific lens or the lens model. The difference is that, if its a specific lens, the settings you adjust will affect ONLY that lens and load the settings only for that lens, even if the same model is attached. If its by specific model, that means any lens model will trigger the loading of your settings and possibly fling the lens out of focus [since it may not need adjustment at all].  Not much of an issue [unless you like to keep more than one copy of a particular lens], but it will be of importance if you like to have someone test their lens on your camera and they happen to have the same adjusted lens as yours.

[Continued on Part 3]