Sony A77 news roundup (Does it have color band noise in video???)

Sony-A77 24p test, with Sigma 30mm f1.4 (Color band noise) from Paul Kim on Vimeo.

The video on top shows the color band noise produced by the [shoplink 8461]Sony A77[/shoplink]. You can see it at the end of the video. I guess this has again something to do with the firmware issue. I hope the new firmware upgrade will fix this soon. Interesting that not a single official reviewer did noticed the problem. If some A77 owner or reviewer is reading this please check if you see the same problem on your camera. Thanks!

New A77 ISO comparison at fotkidepo here and here. At low ISO the A77 easily beats the [shoplink 6952]Nikon D7000[/shoplink] and [shoplink 6954]Canon 7D[/shoplink].
Our reader George sent me this: “Andrea, I’ve had the A77 in the UK for a week and been doing some tests of my own in RAW + JPEG at all ISO’s. The JPEG images look very good but the RAW’s are looking awful with a lot of color noise that I cant get rid of. When I put the files through the only RAW converters that I have which will recognise the files (IDC v4 and Rawtherapee 4) I’m having a problem getting rid of the noise and I’m left with ugly artefacts. There’s a thread on DPRview about it , “Me and My A77 – Noisy Images”. The consensus of opinion is that the JPEG’s out of the A77 are looking very good but there’s something strange going on with the RAW files which must be down to a lack of proper RAW support. The strange thing is that I’m using IDC v4 which came with the camera. If you could find out from your sources why the RAW’s are looking awful and when we’ll have Adobe RAW support then it would put my mind at rest. Overall the camera is terrific.
I’ve got a gallery on my website with images that are available for download to see the problem. http://www.wirralpix.com/p442257830“

Sonny A77 hands-on at ThePhoBlographer: “Overall, the build quality of the A77 seemed very impressive. It’s a solid body that isn’t overly heavy, but still feels extremely robust. The Sony Rep told me that he shot a wedding with it this past weekend, and it was able to take all the normal punishment that a wedding photographer dishes out on their cameras. He also stated that the 16-50mm f2.8 lens handled extremely well when shooting the wedding. By that, it had great image quality, focuses quickly, and just overall worked well. Indeed, the 16-50mm was quite impressive, but I wasn’t floored by it.”

Alison sent me this: “There is another way to open the A77 files is the Bibble 5 release candidate: http://support.bibblelabs.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=19362 . I tried just two files, but they worked fine (technically, both images were out of focus ;)) ”

The A77 is travelling to Mongolia: http://www.remichapeaublanc.com/mongolie/ (in french!).

There is also another test on the chinese Sina website.

And those are the links to preorder the new cameras and lenses:
A77 at [shopcountry 8461].
A65 at [shopcountry 8459].
Sony NEX-7 [shopcountry 8454].
Sony NEX-5n [shopcountry 8452].
Zeiss 24mm f/1.8 [shopcountry 8450].
Sony 50mm f/1.8 [shopcountry 8448].
Sony 55-210mm [shopcountry 8444].
NEX-5n viewfinder [shopcountry 9110].