The Sony A900 (also known as the Alpha 900) is the company’s effort to compete in the high-end digital camera world largely ruled by Canon and Nikon. It goes head-to-head with the Canon 5D Mark II and Nikon D700 in the rarefied full-frame-sensor, $3000 camera market, and holds its own in many areas. This is a ruggedly built machine, with a beautiful LCD screen and the best optical viewfinder we’ve used. Its sensor tops the Canon 5D Mark II resolution (24.6 megapixels Sony, 21.1 megapixels Canon), and leaves the 12.1-megapixel Nikon D700 far behind. Bottom line, though, the Canon does have several competitive advantages.
The Sony A900 is slightly wider, deeper and shorter than the other two Canon and Nikon, with a weight that falls between the two. Size is important in this category, since you’re carrying a lot of camera, at over 3 pounds including the lens. We found the A900 reasonably comfortable, but the balance wasn’t quite right, and the positioning of four key control buttons on top, near the shutter, required moving your hands out of shooting position to access them.
On the other hand, the rear screen information display is a pleasure to use. It’s clear, bright, and automatically pivots to match the camera orientation when you hold it vertically, a very useful feature. One button press turns this display into a well designed camera control system, with all the key shooting settings at your fingertips. What’s oddly lacking from the A900, though, is a Live View feature, allowing you to compose an image using the LCD. We’re not huge fans of Live View overall – pokey autofocus makes it tough to use when your subjects are moving around – but it does have its uses (when shooting stationary subjects on a tripod, for example), and both the Canon 5D Mark II and the Nikon D700 offer it.
Sony took an innovative step with its Live Preview feature. Basically you press a button and a temporary image of your subject appears on the LCD. You can then interactively tweak the settings to preview the effects of each on the screen, changing color modes, white balance settings and so forth. It’s an interesting learning tool, certainly, though we’re not sure how practical this will prove in real-life shooting situations, since the process is time-consuming and the image you’re fiddling around with can’t be saved. We’re more inclined to just shoot in RAW mode if we aren’t sure of the best settings, and manipulate the result on the computer after the fact.
Like the Canon 5D Mark II, the Sony A900 lacks a pop-up flash, a feature we miss even on a pro-level camera. It does come with a valuable extra, though, in the form of the Remote Commander, a pocket-size wireless remote that’s equally useful when shooting or when playing back your photos on a big-screen TV (there’s an HDMI port for this purpose).
Performance (read in-depth lab performance coverage at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
There’s a lot more to delivering excellent resolution than simply piling on the megapixels, but the Sony combined its statistical lead in this category with actual tested resolution that outscored the competition. We were also pleased with the camera’s ability to squeeze off 4.4 shots per second in burst mode, a particularly impressive feat when you consider that each full-resolution JPEG photo file takes up about 20 megabytes. Performance falters, though, when it comes to color accuracy, where the A900 scored lowest in our test group, and in white balance adjustment. Image noise performance was good, and the A900 did well in our long exposure testing, though, which combines color performance and image noise testing under difficult shooting conditions.
Comparison (read in-depth comparisons at DigitalCameraInfo.com)
The 24.6-megapixel Sony A900 and the 12.1-megapixel Nikon D700 each sell for $2999 for the camera body alone. In our lab, the A900 proved far superior to the Nikon in image resolution, fell behind in two color-related categories (color accuracy and white balance) and proved about even in our dynamic range and image noise tests. This last is interesting, since when the Nikon D700 was introduced last year, it’s low-noise performance was a big competitive advantage. Since then, other manufacturers have managed to close the gap. The Nikon does offer some hardware advantages. It’s easier to handle when shooting, supports Live View, and has a pop-up flash.
The Canon 5D Mark II, which lists for $300 less than the other two cameras, is a more formidable competitor. It was only the second SLR to ship with high-definition video recording capability (after the Nikon D90), and the first to support full 1080p resolution. What’s more, the video we shot with the 5D Mark II was consistently first-rate, very sharp and colorful, though admittedly without some of the control options or handling ease you’d get with a dedicated HD camcorder. Neither the Sony A900 nor the Nikon D700 offers video recording, of course. And even if you shrug your shoulders at this option, the still image performance of the Canon 5D Mark II is equally impressive. The Canon is easier to handle than the Sony, delivered better color accuracy and lower image noise, and offers Live View as well. Combined with the superior lens availability for the Canon line and a slightly lower price, it’s currently our top choice in this category.
For a more in-depth review, visit the Sony Alpha A900 Review at our partner DigitalCameraInfo.com
