View Full Version : Sony A65 and A77 any good?


Andreas Schmidt
November 24th, 2011, 01:06 PM
Haven't seen a thread on the Sony A65 and A77. I would be interested what everyone thinks about those cameras. The spec looks rather interesting, at least to me:
NTSC:
• AVCHD: 1920 x 1080 (60p/ 28Mbps/ PS, 60i/ 24Mbps/ FX, 60i/ 17Mbps/ FH, 24p/ 24Mbps/ FX, 24p/ 17Mbps/ FH)
• MP4: 1440 x 1080 (30fps/ 12Mbps), VGA: 640 x 480 (30fps/ 3Mbps)

PAL:
• 1920 x 1080 (50p/ 28Mbps/ PS, 50i/ 24Mbps/ FX, 50i/ 17Mbps/ FH, 25p/ 24Mbps/ FX, 25p/ 17Mbps/ FH)
• MP4: 1440 x 1080 (25fps/ 12M), VGA: 640 x 480 (25fps/ 3M)

So - 28Mb/s AVCHD and 50p/60p looks very good to me. Now the sensor is only APS-C "Exmor" HD CMOS with 24.7 million total pixels and not full frame, but still.

To me the compatible lenses are not entirely clear because apparently alpha lenses are not compatible but A lenses. I think Sony has to many different lens types, they confuse me.

I will do some more investigation to see if there is a good A-lens with constant aperture.

Matt Sharp
November 24th, 2011, 04:37 PM
Your post is a little confusing. Sony Alpha mount lenses are completely compatible, as are old Minolta A-mount lenses.

Douglas Grillo
November 24th, 2011, 06:47 PM
There many good Sony lenses with constant aperture, and the new 16-50mm f2.8 the same that came with the A77 is all good, even weather sealed and Parfocal. Tokina 11-16mm f2.8 is in alpha mount too.

Good primes too and for the big pocket the Zeiss series for sony alpha.

Andreas Schmidt
November 25th, 2011, 04:08 AM
Hello,

ok, I got confused by Sonys website on which I did a comparison between the models. There they listed alpha lenses, A-lenses and E-lenses.

I think I got it now - this camera accepts the A-lenses. Sounds good to me.

I just ordered the A65 w/ the standard lens 18-55mm. Not such a great lens but it came with the bundle.

Cheers
Andreas

Andreas Schmidt
November 26th, 2011, 02:43 PM
Got the camera. So far really impressed with the feature set and not just for movies. It contains so many goodies like GPS and gyroscope.

Dave Blackhurst
November 26th, 2011, 04:45 PM
I'm heavily debating the A65/NEX7 as a possible upgrade to the A580/A55. The big question seems to be whether all those additional pixels really "add" to the mix. Feature wise, these cameras look great, and all the samples I've seen look very good... video included.

Sony is still tweaking with the firmware, so these may get even better with "updates". I'm still waiting to see how reports come in with updated firmware (and release NEX7's) before I make any final decisions.

As far as lenses go, you've got a HUGE selection of "A" mount lenses from decades of Minolta/Konica as well as the lenses from Sony. Some will be better than others for video depending on your use, but it's fairly easy to collect some pretty nice glass on the cheap.

The "E" mount is a new thing for the NEX series, and a couple of the new video cameras from Sony - "A" lenses can mount on "E" mount cameras with adapters, as can many other lenses, because the E mount has a short flange distance, making it easy to stick an adapter in... E mount lenses however will NOT go on an "A" mount camera...

Andreas Schmidt
November 27th, 2011, 11:05 AM
Well, I think the pixels hopefully are not doing any harm in terms of noise. Looking purely from a technical perspective they simply must add noise because they must be smaller and therefore the S/N ratio gets worse. Now of course if the Noise can be reduced as well and it seems like Sony did this the S/N doesn't get worse but on the other hand it still would be better with less pixels.

As you can see - I am really no fan of many pixels. 12 MP are just fine from my perspective for a photo cam and as you can see from the Canon 1X the Pros go in that direction.

On the other hand what you can see from the 1X that Canon is not willing to put a proper video codec into their cams.

The Sony does AVCHD 2.0 with 1080p50 at 28MBs which is amazing on paper. Not even my Canon XA10 comes close with only 108025p at 25MBs. I still like my XA10 better for pure video but a large sensor cam does always produce really nice B-Roll which just add so much in terms of video/production value.

Andreas Schmidt
November 30th, 2011, 09:12 AM
I shoot some night footage with it and thought I share it:

Christkindlesmarkt Nürnberg 2011 on Vimeo

Charlton Chars
January 27th, 2012, 03:46 AM
The A65 is significantly slimmer though, as well as slightly shorter.

Glen Vandermolen
January 27th, 2012, 07:43 AM
Also consider the NEX 7 and NEX 5N. They're both very good 16 MP cameras. I have the 5N and with an alpha adapter, I have access to a good amount of lenses.

Rafael Lopes
March 28th, 2012, 12:09 PM
The problem with the NEX-7/5N is that neither has in-camera stabilization and they have a serious overheating issue. The A65 and A77 both have in-camera stabilization and they don´t overheat (plus both have mic inputs). I think the video quality should be the same as the NEX-7´s as they use the same sensor.

Dave Blackhurst
March 28th, 2012, 11:01 PM
Another issue is that it appears the still resolution of the 24Mp sensor exceeds the resolving capability of many of the "new" E mount lenses, I'm hoping that that won't be the case with my nice old Minolta glass! Lenses quickly get expensive, especially if you have to buy really high end stuff!

I've got to run some heat tests with the A65's and see how they run, but more and more I think that they were the "better" choice, at least for what I really will use - the NEX cameras are SOOOOO tempting, but the A65 popped up at the right price to push me off the fence, the more I look at the overall package, the better I feel about that, and the A55 and A580 will retire and offset most of the upgrade cost, especially since I don't have to hunt down lenses and those pesky FW batteries that don't last as long as I'd like!

Haven't really had time to run many tests, and only a little "live fire testing", but so far the A65 looks good, and I'm hoping I won't run into random heating issues. I almost waited for the A57, which also looks pretty good.

Glen Vandermolen
March 29th, 2012, 03:57 AM
Oops!
Rafael is correct - the NEX-7 has the 24Mp sensor. I lumped it in there with the NEX-5n.

The A65 is very tempting. The A57 has the 16Mp sensor and lacks the OLED viewfinder on the A65/77. Still, $799 with the kit lens is pretty good.

So, the A65/77 don't overheat in video mode?

Dave Blackhurst
March 29th, 2012, 01:17 PM
According to the manual, the A65 is able to shoot to the 29 minute limit up to around 30C/(roughly 90F) ambient temperature (thought they do seem to qualify that...). At 40C, they indicate much shorter time before thermal issues... and they don't say whether those #'s are with Steady Shot on or off, but I believe they are with it "on". Overall, looks like the A65 will shoot a lot longer than the smaller A55, which I feel suffers from being a "small body".

Looked at some casual shots from over the weekend, stills are quite sharp, and the only problems I noticed in video (60p) were a bit of moire in a tight blue/white pinstripe shirt (not sure ANY camera won't struggle with THAT), The (auto) focus motor noise seems a lot quieter, which is nice - still there, but not as loud. Overall quite happy so far, and I see the 1.05 firmware is in the pipeline...

Still want to test more extensively, including the thermal issues, but some tests will have to wait for it to heat up a bit more!

Mark Wheelan
March 29th, 2012, 01:35 PM
I've had an A77 for the last few days but I haven't had a lot of time to play with it just yet. Being fairly new to interchangeable lenses we wanted to experience a few a lenses and develop a feel for what our needs might be, as well as to explore the A77's video capabilities for weddings. I'm still getting to know the camera and only read the manual before the camera arrived. My wife and I together will go though it properly next week. And I installed the new firmware (v1.05) few minutes ago.

Lowlight video is of course a critical concern. More often than not, I've been able to get good video in some fairly dark places. I've read that photographers are now getting better results in the iso3200 range with v1.05 but the movie mode is limited to iso1600. I expect I'll get cleaner video at 1600 now, I'll be looking at that over the next few days.

As for the heat issue it's hard to tell with the current weather. I put the camera on a tripod in direct sun and shot 4*30min videos consecutively without issue. Its was only 83°F and temps of 109° are not unheard of around here, fortunately all the venues do have air conditioning.

The controls are good although I wish I could assign the shutter button to shoot video. I'm missing the top-half of my thumb and the record button is a little out of my range. On a tripod or mounted that shouldn't really be an issue.

We also bought a Rode-VidProStereo mic but the proprietary shoe requires an adapter, I'd expect nothing less from Sony, I have one on the way. With the battery handle it gets to heavy for my wife. The hand strap bottom mount is not ideal for mounting the camera to a platform. I removed the screw-on attachment and put the straps directly the battery handle and now the camera mount to a platform is much more stable.

My initial feeling is that its a good video camera for our professional purposes and the personal benefits are just gravy. At this point we are considering using a pair of A77's as B&G cams with SAL70200G's. -- Then; a single FS100 as the roving candid/glidecam/slider camera, and our Z5 as the static-shot with the wireless XLR's. I figure we can add a 2nd FS100 later and apply the savings of rails etc towards lenses and a set of Heliopan vND's.

I like the current A-mount line-up better than the E-mount although we'll get a few E-mounts after we get the FS100. At this point I'm pretty happy with the imagery we've captured, albeit we've shot more stills than video. I haven't really looked at the AF tracking in video mode, I've been shooting low/no motion in manual.

I have 3 lenses in-hand, 3 more on the way, and I have plenty work ahead of me to learn this camera.

As I said, we're are pretty happy with the camera. The large sensor and interchangeable lenses are new to us and we might need to get used to those features to make a proper judgement. We anticipate ordering another A77 kit and another SAL70200G depending on what we discover this next week.

I know that's a lot of words without specifics but that where we're at. We're a little slow and I can't work too far ahead of the wife with the camera, (...its a political thing). I can post more as we explore the cameras capabilities.

Matt Sharp
March 29th, 2012, 02:17 PM
According to the manual, the A65 is able to shoot to the 29 minute limit up to around 30C/(roughly 90F) ambient temperature (thought they do seem to qualify that...). At 40C, they indicate much shorter time before thermal issues... and they don't say whether those #'s are with Steady Shot on or off, but I believe they are with it "on". Overall, looks like the A65 will shoot a lot longer than the smaller A55, which I feel suffers from being a "small body".

The A65/77 don't use IBIS in video mode, they crop the frame and use digital stabilization. On the A55 it's the IBIS that overheats in video mode, not the sensor like the nex-5.

Dave Blackhurst
March 29th, 2012, 10:45 PM
@ Matt -

I'm guessing IBIS is Image Block Image Stabilization?

From page 82 in the manual:

If possible, use a tripod and disable the SteadyShot function.

This is the same as the A55 if my memory serves, so I still suspect SOME mechanical stabilization is taking place? Obviously electronic IS would cause less heat than a mechanical stabilizing, as I would expect the necessary mechanisms would produce some heat, and it appears there is still something going on in there.


@ Mark -
Maybe I've been spoiled by the low light performance of the Sony Handycams, but they still beat the SLT hands down, at least from what I can see. Even my lowly DSC TX100V Point & Shoot does as well or better... BUT that's not why I wanted the A65 - the stills so far are noticeably sharper and crisper, and the video will be more than acceptable based on what little testing I've done. I wanted good still cameras first and foremost, and the 60p video capability with the potential for some nice DoF shooting is a bonus.

I like the ability to shoot 60p, and now pretty much everything I've got does it... I'm looking forward to doing some further testing as time permits, but I'm already glad I did the upgrade - the A55 and A580 are excellent cameras to be sure, but so far the A65 just seems to feel "right"... now I've got to go hunt down that 1.05 firmware!!

Andreas Schmidt
March 31st, 2012, 12:33 AM
Hello,

I just shoot another video this week with low light and thought I add it here. It is a mix between the XA10 and the Sony A65. From the DOF it should be clear which is which. If not - even better :-)

a walk through medieval nuremberg at night on Vimeo

Best
Andreas

Bill Bruner
April 1st, 2012, 05:58 AM
...the only problems I noticed in video (60p) were a bit of moire in a tight blue/white pinstripe shirt (not sure ANY camera won't struggle with THAT)...

Glad you like your A65, Dave. I've seen some great video from the Sonys (like this one (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK9HILaBXJA)).

There are a couple of video capable DSL cameras that seem to deal with moire on patterned clothing a little better than the rest, though - e.g., the Canon 5DMkIII and the Panasonic GH2 (see 4:40 to 5:10 of this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6bzQfZ8OCQ) Canon 60D/Panasonic GH2 comparison video).

Happy shooting,

Bill
Hybrid Camera Revolution (http://hybridcamerarevolution.blogspot.com)

Dave Blackhurst
April 1st, 2012, 12:29 PM
Well, my take is that I see moire on broadcast TV all the time (usually on ties, although it's REALLY funny when it's a coat or dress and the wearer looks like they are "vibrating" on screen!), and I'm pretty sure the cameras and equipment in use cost WAY more than any of the DSLR/SLT cameras.

What I noticed on the short clips I shot was not enough to get worked up over, and since it's the first casual test shoot, I'll have to experiment with the camera further to see whether there's anything that needs to or can be adjusted for. Differences in distance from the person with the shirt made a lot of difference in the amount of moire, for instance... got to go seek out "patterned" subjects and see what the results are, tile roofs should be good!

Mark Donnell
April 1st, 2012, 02:42 PM
I've had an A65 for about a month but have not tried the video function. Its strong points as a still camera include lightweight, excellent rapid-fire with no camera bounce (10 fps, stationary prism), very good pics at up to Iso 800, menus easy to use, good battery life (I shot over 900 fine JPEGs and still had 50% battery life remaining using no LCD or autofocus) and excellent OLED electronic viewfinder. Downsides include viewfinder too small to easily use for video, viewfinder fixed in position (as opposed to better video cameras), autofocus poor in low light or when lens aperture smaller than about f 5.6 (but I use manual focus for everything anyway).

Dave Blackhurst
April 1st, 2012, 11:07 PM
Try some 60p video - looks pretty good to me, still need to fiddle with the 24p... and get the firmware update... and play with this some more! Just discovered you can change the ISO and get lots better low light while in video mode, still not as good as the trusty CX700, but getting closer, certainly usable!

Sony does make a magnifying eyepiece, I forgot I had one - FDS-ME1AM - pop off the original eyepiece, and it slips right on. It's not MUCH magnification, only 1.15x according to the box, and because the A65 already has a pretty large VF, you have to get your eye right up to it or the corners are cut off!

Overall it does seem to work - only oddity is that when you clip it all the way down, it switches the VF OFF, and goes to the LCD, but it actually works pretty well to leave it a bit up to use the VF, then slide down for the LCD.


As with all the "SL" type cameras, it might not be the first choice for video in every situation, but certainly it provides a good "one camera" solution for doing a bit of both, and I can see where I'll be using it for the "glamour" DoF shots. The stills are worth the price of admission, IMO, and video looks to be an excellent bonus, that really will be handy.

I'll miss the compact A55, but overall, I'm happy with the upgrade.

Douglas Grillo
April 7th, 2012, 07:55 PM
Hi Dave;

What lens are you using? remember do you need a fast glass for low light work on video, because shutter must be at 50 recording at 25fps and 100-110 if you gonna record at 60fps.

So, you must compensate with a fast lens and higher ISO, i have the A65 and the Nex 5n and booth are very usable up to 1600 ISO, been the 5n better at higher ISO than the A65.

This video i made with the Nex 5n with mainly a Nikon 35-70 F2.8 been 800 ISO the highest i use.
Umbra "The Unchanted" on Vimeo

Cheers