Sony answers your A77 questions (video)
On Youtube (see video on top) and on Flickr (Click here) Sony answered many of your A77 questions.
A couple of interesting news:
- There is no way to increase the buffer via firmware. There are hardware limitations.
- “Although we recognize the value,the a77 does not include user adjustable mic input level control“. If they “recognize the value” does it mean it’s coming via firmware upgrade? 
But what’s missing is any statement about the recent bugs. P.S.: Only very few stores are having the A77 in Stock. Check at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay. The reason for the delay is the flood in Thailand that made collapse the whole transport system.
All other new Sony cameras and lenses links:
A65 at Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Sony NEX-7 Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Sony NEX-5n Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Sony 50mm f/1.8 Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Sony 55-210mm Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
NEX-5n viewfinder Amazon, Adorama, B&H, J&R, eBay.
Related Posts
Via Noisycamera
Share
Recent comments
Comment from Clyde: Agreed without reservation. Your words ...
Comment from tex: Its might have been possible to increase...
Comment from Dennis: The A77 won't be the limiting factor in ...- Comment from Dennis: It's working as designed; it's just not ...
Ben
8 months ago |“And we got tons more questions from you guys, we wish we could answer them all, but we are running out of time.”
It’s YouTube for pete’s sake! How could you be running out of time?
nagi
8 months ago |Yes, but as you can see, it is a “high quality” show with post production. I.e. it costs pretty penny. Studio, post production, etc.
astro8
8 months ago |+1
JB
8 months ago |Good performance up to 6400? Really?
Ben
8 months ago |Yeah, I had a chuckle at that one too.
“… but there are some test images posted by some websites out there…” – instant credibility!
David
8 months ago |Yes really.
It’s a 24mp image. Stop pixel peeping.
The image is good quality, lots of dynamic range and details preserved. And I’ve never had clients complain about noise. It’s a photgrapher issue.. nobody else seems to notice or care.
Linh
8 months ago |+1. Most people won’t be viewing the shots at 100% on their monitor anyway. Not unless you have a monitor with freaking 6000×4000 resolution.
Dave Cox
8 months ago |+1
dk
8 months ago |+1
The peepers are the disease of the industry :S
Tofa
8 months ago |+10000000
Clyde
8 months ago |+ another 1 with 30 years client experience. These noise complaints are the noisiest thing in photography right now.
PsychodelEKS
8 months ago |With ‘multi frame noise reduction’ enabled you can get pretty descent jpegs at iso 6400 actually.
MajorPayne
8 months ago |In JPEG, maybe… in RAW… no.
Steve Jones
8 months ago |You can achieve the same thing in RAW using a number of shots and using stacking software. Of course, it’s a bit tedious.
SonyA77
8 months ago |and jpeg on the A77 is perfectly fine. There is a lot of RAW snobbery about…
SonyA77
8 months ago |Yes really. Stop looking at 100% crops, real people viewing your images couldn’t give a toss and don’t have the first clue how to spot image noise.
The Lotus Eater
8 months ago |Really.
eb164
8 months ago |“Although we recognize the value,the a77 does not include user adjustable mic input level control“
so should we wait for a99 to include it?
is sony limmiting the a77 so as to give reasons to buy an even more expensive camera?
frosti7
8 months ago |sounds like it, if the recognize the value – they will yank the $$ out of it
MajorPayne
8 months ago |You can adjust the mic input, it’s in the menu system…
bobu
8 months ago |the expensive models and more professional have two slots card, nikon d7000 is so …. expensive compared to a77…
Ben
8 months ago |My a550 has two slots
Neo NiGHTS ®
8 months ago |Like the person who asked the question stated: the A700 has it as well.
Their answer about “most cameras around the $1400,00″ don’t have dual slot but…. wasn’t the A700 on the same price range as well?
That video was pretty well done, but pretty lame.
Most people who buy the A77 are also educated people who know a thing or two about photography, so this video is calling those people stupid.
JB
8 months ago |“…pretty rare in the price class of A77…”
Wow.
Sony A580 is dual and it’s half the price.
Why do they make these videos?
“Don’t insult my intelligence, Sony.”
Maximus
8 months ago |it’s not about the dual card slots, itrs about what you can do with them.
There ist exactly one camera in this price range where you can choose what to do with the two cards, the D7000. In the Sony-Cameras with two card-slots you always have to select one card-slot to use.
emopunk
8 months ago |I would praise for the Nobel commission to consider the genius who thought it would be possible to increase a buffer via a firmware update. Maybe he wants to know that with a future firmware update, A77 will become a FF camera and blow away D700 noise performances.. Damn, that is the real great new!!
frosti7
8 months ago |Thanx, made me laugh
Vlad
8 months ago |+1. Can’t even download lenses from their web store. Useless.
monkeyfacemcbride
8 months ago |Although superficially humorous, perhaps he’s referring to the ability to shoot longer bursts using cropped jpegs or standard rather than xfine
tex
8 months ago |Its might have been possible to increase or speed up the buffer if the initial botched firmware was not allowing the camera to access the full buffer or if writing was not properly optimized. Sadly that wasn’t the case. Though unlikely, I was hoping it would be too.
beware
8 months ago |buy a 3rd party wifi card ? is this how they will try to get away with not having the option for tethered shooting and / or remote control ?
MajorPayne
8 months ago |Eye-fi cards are unstable. Mine overheated and died taking with it over 300 photos. I would not suggest this rubbish to my worst enemy.
SonyA77
8 months ago |Interesting. Thanks.
bobu
8 months ago |+1
feedmatekill
8 months ago |“we are running out of time” – hahahahha….
REALLY?! ….’cmon….this sounds just amazingly retarded…..
SonyA77
8 months ago |I’ll rephrase it. “we haven’t got a clue how to answer the more technical questions…”
s.m.
8 months ago |To use an Eye-Fi Card for WiFi is useless. You have to have a connection to the internet and all your pictures are first uploaded to the eye-fi-servers and then downloaded to your computer. this results in dramatic speedissues. And of course I don’t want my pictures to be sent all over the world!
Come on Sony, there have to be another way!
astro8
8 months ago |Useless video… stupid answers
SonyA77
8 months ago |+1
Clemens
8 months ago |Why didn’t Sony include Auto ISO in M-Mode? Especially for sports it is so damn useful
And please don’t say M-Mode is supposed to be full manual. If you have used Auto ISO on Nikons you know how useful it can be.
SonyA77
8 months ago |You answered your own question. It wouldn’t be MANUAL if there was an auto setting… I couldn’t care less what Nikon does. MANAUL=MANUAL.
Mikey
8 months ago |Ok then, let’s have a new mode called A/S mode which allows manual setting of the aperture and shutter speed and auto ISO. In A or S modes and autoiso, the camera is quite capable of choosing 2 out of 3 exposure settings so narrowing it down to the camera only choosing 1 shouldnt be too hard for a camera programmer.
On the plus side, with A, S modes and autoiso, the camera now shows the ISO it is about to use if you half press the shutter. If I recall, previous Sonys only ever showed the word ‘auto’ and you had to use picture review to discover which ISO the camera had chosen.
Dennis
8 months ago |Manual=manual exposure. Exposure = shutter speed & aperture. ISO is not exposure, it’s “brightening” after exposure. (You expose the sensor to light, then boost the values you read out). DPReview staff has referred to it as “exposure priority” mode. Semantics aside, it’s a valuable feature and its omission is one of the reasons I still don’t know if I’m upgrading or switching to Nikon.
Amit Zinman
8 months ago |Hmmm… but for now Sony doesn’t actually make any stills camera that is more expensive than the A77 :S
Zstan
8 months ago |A900 and a850 are not cameras for stills?
JonasM
8 months ago |Discontinued.
SonyA77
8 months ago |Depends what country you are in.
Ivars
8 months ago |Just a lame Sony sponsored video
Jape
8 months ago |Auto ISO is not working right in A700 (And I guess the situation is the same in A77?), I think. For example when shooting in A-mode it tends to choose (favor) lower ISO, when I would rather choose higher ISO to get fast enough shutter speed.
I think there should be setting where you could set minimum/maximum shutter speed for Auto ISO. Like, “don’t use slower shutter speed than 1/120 sec.” -> if shutter speed with set aperture is going to be slower than 1/120 then camera should raise ISO setting automatically. Same principle could be set for maximum shutter speed. Also when shooting with S-mode, the mimimum/maximum aperture could be set and if set limit is reached AutoISO would either lower or rise ISO, depending which limit is in use. I think that this would be very useful feature.
Lineypi
8 months ago |I’m hoping that being able to select an ISO range will have a similar effect to this. That way I can basically rule out the option of it being able to drop down to ISO 100 and slow down the shutter speed.
However I completely agree with you in that being able to set rules like that (eg set min-max shutter speed with auto ISO, etc) would be really helpful.
Mikey
8 months ago |I asked Sony a similar question, here it is along with Sony’s slightly lame response…
Q.
It looks like the upper and lower limits of the Auto-Iso range are very flexible. Is there a way of setting the minimum/maximum shutter speed too? Most alpha cameras I have owned are reluctant to increase the ISO, favouring a slower shutter speed. Try photographing children indoors at 24mm, F4, Auto ISO and you’ll soon see the camera favours a longer exposure time to give lower ISO, for example, ISO 400, 1/40th. On the A77, is there a way to say ‘don’t go less than 1/160, etc’ I’d much prefer 1/160th+ISO1600 over 1/40th+ISO400 to freeze motion!
A.
We recognize the value of manually defining upper/lower limits of shutter speed, but a77 does not include this function. At the same time, photographers traditionally match shutter speed to shooting requirement through Shutter Priority.
That’s a bit lame if you ask me. For now, I just select a suitable limit for autoiso to make sure I get the shutterspeed I want in A mode.
Dennis
8 months ago |It’s working as designed; it’s just not designed as you’d like it
It’s probably dropping the shutter speed to 1/EFL before bumping the ISO to minimize noise.
Auto ISO in M mode (or “exposure priority” for the “manual means manual” crowd) is a good start. Better still is a camera that allows programmability, like an iPhone that you can buy apps for, so rather than relying on the stock, outdated exposure modes we’ve had for a couple of decades, you can put an exposure algorithm on the camera designed by photographers that lets you specify how you want to the parameters to change as the EV values change … maybe several variations saved for different types of shooting. OK, I’m shooting hockey so use my hockey preset (shoot wide open, keep the shutter speed at 1/500s or faster, vary the ISO as necessary, but if the ISO drops to 1250, give me a faster shutter speed).
James
8 months ago |This additional promotion of the A77 maybe due to Sony not expecting the NEX 7 being much more popular than the A77.
Sony forget about an A9x. You are simply not going to outsell the Canon or Nikon FF models. If you brought out a FF NEX 9 with on chip phase detect autofocus and an alpha mount adaptor it would be an absolute hot product with no Canon or Nikon equivalent.
SonyA77
8 months ago |Forget about doing a Full Frame Alpha? Are you insane? What are A850/A900 users going to do then? Swap to canikon?
Sergei
8 months ago |I’ve used a580 for video recording extensively with an external Sony shotgun mic – it picks up sound very well in auto and is extremely hard to make it clip(your ears will hurt first). No need for audio manual levels – pretty easy to adjust in post production too. EVF is kinda nice to balance the camera when hand holding. In short a77 didn’t make me say wow, but rather “ok”
Clyde
8 months ago |No need for manual audio control? Maybe not for Dolly’s birthday party… but commercial clients expect professional capabilities. Pah-leaze give us as much manual control as possible and leave out the smile detection.
SonyA77
8 months ago |I would expect anybody doing commercial work to have a professional mic and alter the levels in software during post-production.
Clyde
8 months ago |Professional mic or not… It’s still more “professional” to set audio levels on the shoot, rather than later.
mmamamia
8 months ago |About the last question, the guy must be a Pentax user. because pentax have that feature where the camera select the iso while the user select the aperture ans shutter speed.
pancanikonpus
8 months ago |Admin,
Previously i have ask you to start on improvement list for a77 FW. and you have started for future Sony FF camera consolidation. Will be now is the right time to consolidate a workable & worthy fix & improvement list to Sony? I do expect Sony will not come out another FW so soon but is good to let them have sufficient time to develop it
People may ask “are you crazy? what make Sony listen to us”; Seriously, I sense Sony already listen to users. i.e: everyone in daily knocking Sony marketing door repeatitive saying we want compact pro, compact pro – finnaly you get the nex7. lol….
anyway, just a suggestion.
pancanikonpus
8 months ago |Too bad buffer is hardware limitation. is that ROM so expensive? why not leaving a option to let me buy and solder into it… lol….
666
8 months ago |all upgrades and bug fixes will come in the next camera so please keep buying Sony
ha and if the next camera has some problems please wait till sony fixes in the next one but please keep buying Sony lol
monkeyfacemcbride
8 months ago |I remember years ago when all SLR cameras had a 24 or 36 frame buffer, however 99.9% of them only shot at 3fps or less and then you got locked out for a good couple of minutes while the “buffer emptied”. Still the photographers managed to get some amazing photos from those cameras because they had something else….began with S…..what was it called?…ah yes, got it! it was called skill! this continual insistance that photography should be nothing more than hosing the camera around in P mode with the shutter button held and firing a bazillion fps is worrying, seriously how can you derive any satisfaction from that. The buffer in the 77 is fine, you can get about about 1.5 seconds at 12fps and if your reactions are that slow that its not enough shoot landscapes. If somethings so easy that anyone can do it, whats the point in doing it? I dont want to sound elitist here but there has been way too much dumbing down and devaluing of photography since the start of digital and its getting to the point where the only thing the camera wont do is drive itself to the location. Doesn’t anyone enjoy a challenge anymore?
Minoltian
8 months ago |I hope next dslt launced in around 2014/2015 will have similar AF speed like single digit series of canon/nikon
I have a55 but mostly use my 1d for action photography
Clyde
8 months ago |Ermmm… Tethering anyone?
Smart Teleconverter in RAW?
Why is metering mode a menu item now? They’ve added button pushes to my life.
MajorPayne
8 months ago |A really cool feature just for laughs is to turn on the peaking mode and set the AF to DMF. So when you auto focus on stuff you can see how well the focus mechanism is compared to manual focus.
EXPERIMENT AND LET ME KNOW!!!!
MajorPayne
8 months ago |Also a lot of people have been asking about pixel binning.
I wish the A77 can pixel bin to reduce noise, I would set it to lower resolutions in worst lighting conditions to match the ISO increases.
However, the Bayer Sensor Layout makes this a very difficult task.
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1032&message=36143987
Unfortunately, I think this will need to be a hardware change…
MajorPayne
8 months ago |In terms of the battery grip, does the connectors have access to a direct memory channel? Will Sony one day be able to expand the memory of the A77 through a new Battery grip?
MajorPayne
8 months ago |In Smart Teleconverter mode part of the sensor is read, would Sony be able to use the remaining sensor to create a noise mask to further reduce the ISO noise?
MajorPayne
8 months ago |I have read from somewhere that turning on the Release W/ Lens will automatically disable the Super Steady Shot.
Is this true?
Clyde
8 months ago |Oh yeah… almost forgot… how do I start/stop video on a77 remotely? I’d love to get the camera on my car bumper and/or up into the birdhouse… but… Sony, you really want me to get close to the wolves? A simple remote might save my trigger finger one day.
This IS a 7 Series Camera… Right? I thought 7 Series was for Serious Togs.
Seriously… that’s what I thought.
I’ll trade Face Detection for Smart Teleconverter in RAW.
I’ll trade Smile Shutter for Tethering or Video Remote Control.
I’ll trade all 11 Artistic JPG Filters (and their 26 variations) for JPG Noise OFF control.
Don’t forget the manual audio controls! This is a 7 Series Camera… Right?
Zstan
8 months ago |Have you tried tuning the dial to video mode and then use a remote shutter to trigger? Technically should work but I may be wrong.
Anton65
8 months ago |The signal was sent…hope to see a A77 N with much bigger buffer…It would be the Ultimate camera…
ShamB
8 months ago |Looking at this commements list makes me chuckle!
You’d think the A77 hadn’t won every camera magazine’s ‘recommended’ status, and positive reviews on almost all the ‘photography personality’ websites. It’s the best APS-C out there, all things considered!
Of course, there will be loads of people with ‘my life isnt complete without tethering and stupidly high ISO’ but c’mon people, if you are a pro user with those requirements, why are you not shooting with a D3?
For the target audience, tethering, dual slot, and very high ISO are nice to have things. I’d even like to have them, but really, I can do without more than I would rather sell up and go CaNikon, because this camera is better than the competition for what I do:
Better at portraits.
Better at HDR.
Better at landscape.
Better at macro.
Better at fast action.
Better at street photoography.
(and better than full frame on price)
There are other more important things that the A77 would have been commercially dead in the water without, and the camera actually has *all* of them: its a good camera, with excellent video and steady shot built into the body, top of the range sensor, high fps and cool AF, and its got good usability and solid build.
Bottom line? The A77 certainly won’t be the limiting factor in any good photographers bag.
SonyA77
8 months ago |People like to dwell on the negatives, you’d think the A77 was crap the way people here go on about it.
The fact is that, as you say, the reviewers are loving it and THAT is was sells cameras in large numbers, not the bitches here.
Clyde
8 months ago |Reviewers are not dependent upon making their living with the tools they use to photograph client jobs.
Smile detection can’t help me put food on the table or send my kids to school. Manual audio controls and remote video control can.
Clyde
8 months ago |Asking for more control is not “dwelling on the negatives”… It’s a reasonable request for more positives.
I’m not asking to improve the quality. I’m asking to improve the functionality and usability. Reasonable requests considering the technology exists.
Dennis
8 months ago |The A77 won’t be the limiting factor in any good photographers bag. The question is, how many good photographers bags will it be in ?
I agree that these discussions make a lot out of a little … but then again, if we’re not debating the finer points of these things, what’s left to talk about ?
The fact is: we have choice. I could buy an A77 tomorrow and it would satisfy my photographic needs and then some. But I don’t have to. So rather than shoot indoor sports in M mode and then sit around and adjust brightness on a couple hundred images in Lightroom, I could choose a Nikon and let the camera do something that’s stupid simple for automated exposure modes.
My gripes are part of my decision making process. Photoplus Expo is 10 days away and I’ll be able to try the A77 there. Some time after that, I’ll make my decision and grudgingly accept the compromises that come with any decision.
While waiting (& waiting & waiting) for the A700′s successor and seeing iterations of dumbed down consumer models, I sort of decided that the A77 would be Sony’s “statement” camera. The camera that would tell us just how committed Sony is to the high end/enthusiast market. Now that it’s here, it’s pretty muddy – could have been worse, could have been much better. They listened on some things. Dropped the ball on others. Metering mode is relegated to the menu. SSS on/off is relegated to the menu. No Auto ISO in M mode. Memory selection is moved to the menu (you select memory on the dial, then choose between them via menu), yet because the Sony consumer products division is all about 3D, we get 3D sweep panorama on the mode dial. And of course, we get a ‘?’ button (yeah !) I can use it to remind me how to turn off SSS
Not major gripes, but not what I expected in a $1400 camera and so, like I say, since I’m not wedded to Sony, I have freedom of choice.
Minoltian
8 months ago |the only negative thing now the price is still 126,000 Yen
but I believe it will soon drop to 100,000 Yen in 5-6 months here in Jpn
Clyde
8 months ago |No it won’t be the limiting factor because it won’t/can’t be used in the manner I desire. Something else will be in the bag… And it won’t have a Sony name on it because I can’t control a Sony without touching it.
Really… This is 2011/12… Should there be any problems with controlling any camera remotely? It’s not like the tech doesn’t exist. And it would provide Sony with an additional accessory to sell.
Believe it or not… people do buy accessories for their video enabled DSLR:
http://blog.planet5d.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/5d2-panny-1024.jpg
and here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/glowell/4439540638/
David
8 months ago |The a580 isn’t proper dual slot.
You have to OPEN the card compartment and flip a switch to change card. You might have well have just changed cards.
You can’t write to both, do a backup, split raw/jpg, image/movie etc.
It’s basically useless as a dual slot.
contraspirit
8 months ago |About the lamest video from Sony. What was the point?..
Alexander
8 months ago |I would ask Sony to allow user choosing frame rate from integers between 3 and 8 and 12 as a special value. One could trade off fps for buffer length (in seconds).
Wing Wong
8 months ago |I don’t get it. The underlying control code is Linux, based on what they released on their site. Customized, but still Linux. Open it up and let the community take a crack at it. I’ll bet in under three months, you’ll see most of the functionality people want. ie:
- remote tethering via ir, usb, usb/wifi
- actual cropped raw files from teleconverter mode
- auto iso/aperture/shutter ranging
- much better hdr/multi-exposure
- no noise reduction as well as better in-camera noise reduction
- auto logging for gps(interval/voicenotes/etc)
- augmented image buffer mode by using thr existing buffers differently. ie, when in high speed mode, offer cropped raw and/or use a buffer memory offset to make better use of those “hardware lited buffers”. sorry, still think these are just firmware controlled ram drives serving as buckets…
- different triggers, like when light level changes by x/y, when sound spikes, when ir aignal received or interrupted, when af target moves to x/y position, etc.
- maybe put a lua scripter into the camera so that core functionlity can be expanded.(lua,compiled byte code, etc)
just saying, it is basically a computer with specialized input output components. The community can and will make amazing improvements to it. Turn the camera into a platform, and Sony will make a tonne more money because now, the functionality/value has gone up tenfold.
Clyde
8 months ago |Agreed without reservation. Your words foretell the future of camera design philosophy… Alas, of the least likely company in the world to release proprietary exclusivity, history warns that Sony is at the top of the heap.
The APP Store would be a huge hit. Togs are already hacking their NEX’s to add wired remote and get rid of video clicking. We want to mod our cams.
BTW… you forgot manual audio control
Jeff
8 months ago |Based on that information I will be holding out for the full frame offerings just around the corner and see how they all compare.
dyna
8 months ago |Normally I’d have something constructive to say (I’d hope) but, in reality, I just want to add as a former field rep and technical trainer: these two are an embarrassment. Why bother with the “show” if they’ve nothing of substance and can’t even get their facts straight? I’d be run out of stores if I brought this level of drivel in with me. They need to focus an awful lot less on photogenic looks and focus more tech knowhow.
I love Sony but sometimes things they do…