Yeah, that's what freedom of speech gets you sometimes.

I could show him a comparison of a sony and a nikon 10mp camera with 50mm lenses that you can't tell the difference between, but what would be the point. I think Canon and Nikon make some nice gear, but just today I tried to contribute to economic recovery by spending some money on a-
1) Tamron 17-50 in alpha mount I found on sale for 300 USD at an ebay store
and
2) A 70-210 f4 "beercan" I found on ebay from another seller

Granted I got the money to buy this stuff by selling other stuff, but hey, just trying to do my part.

Strangely, I actually wrote a response to that review a little while ago.

I particularly like "When you use a Sony DSLR for any extended period of time, you will start to notice that it is missing buttons for commonly accessed features such as ISO and white balance, which are hidden deep within menus that take a long time to access and change,"

Reeeeely! Love it! And the buttons on top that say ISO and WB those are just gimmicks eh? And the one button access to the quick navi giving you another option to quick live changes without having to ever leave the status screen, thats non existent too, right? Even if he had the wrong camera in mind the A200 still has a dedicated ISO button and a one touch FN button access to the white balance tab. LOL

Oh what a beautiful piece of work. We should publish an award to this gentleman on our front page as a tribute to accurate reporting.

I laughed pretty hard reading it, feel sorry for the gentleman.

Carl

I think Mr. Goold has been drinking to much Kool-Aid, LOL

I am not sure as how to describe him. Left Wing or Right Wing???????

This is not a review! It’s an attempt to undermine the largest Electronics Company in the world and to underestimate its potential in research and development of such a company. Simply put, it’s a RANT AGAINST SONY.

I have but one thing to say a bout this.,

HE, WHO LAUGHS THE LEAST, ALWAYS HAS THE LAST LAUGH!

At one time everyone thought Sony was a joke (the pack man company) when they decided to develop a HD Video Camera. Humm. Now who is laughing?

As the A700 and A900 seriously open doors to the future of dslr’s, many of us have no idea what’s in store for the Future of Sony.

Amazement is yet to come,
AJ

Even the papers in the Netherlands that are typically not "alpha-minded" like the chip magazine never can prevent appraisal for the menu structure of the sony camera and the button layout. Lets not waiste our time trying to convince people with such obvious bias that sony/minolta gear can be put to good use ;-)

Kind regards
Barry

I think he has made it very obvious that he has never handled an a700. Almost all reviews of the camera have the dedicated ISO and WB buttons pictured. Not quite sure what he means about the camera fighting him.

I couldn't help it, it was simply too funny to me.

Ahh where the A-Mount started, and where it is today. Good reflection times :) I remember posts/reviews/comments like this were common in some other forums out there, namely a big one. Today, they play a much different tune.

Carl

Freedom of speech, what a great thing. Did you hear this rumour about the Sony sensors in Nikon and other 3rd party cameras?
It seems that Sony have engineered a chip inside every sensor sold to a 3rd party camera manufacturer that is calculating for every picture taken if it had the correct exposure. If it did, and only if it did, it seems this chip is digitally signing the picture. But you can only see it f you crop the right bottom corner of the picture precisely at 666%. If you do that you will see 3 words: "It's a Sony".
Now, personally I don't believe this rumour, but what do I know. I never took a picture on other than Minolta and Sony cameras. On my A700, high ISO pictures are so bad that if you crop at 666% you can't even get to see the noise yet.
-----
Calin
"Time has no meaning, ony life has.

I'm told that this is Brendan E Goold and that he lives in Las Vegas, NV. Although, they are still paying some of his bills, I can't tell if he is still living with his mommy and daddy.
Regarding that, Brendan's daddy is a litigation attorney. http ://www. gooldpatterson .com/
So, to avoid any trouble, we may need to cool our jets; daddy may get mad.

There is more to tell, but to preclude anything inappropriate, I'll refrain.
Plus, I don't want daddy to get mad for making little Bren-bren cry.

Here is his flikr profile.
http://www.flickr.com/people/heseriouslyrocks/

So, regarding the review, consider the source. Heck, when I was his age, I'm sure I said things equally as 'wise'. ;-)

"I love attention and I have a huge ego, plus I'm a jerk,"

It kind of makes sense now.

How you found this :).

Yes I'm sure when I was that age I said many a thing I'd regret too. Oh well, its just a laugh on the review.

But I think: "I love attention and I have a huge ego, plus I'm a jerk, so comment my pictures and stuff. Also, if you want a full-size (3-5 megabytes or so) version of a picture, the site lets you download it since I have a pro account." from his site explains the review precisely.

Carl

I had read this review a couple of times, and at first I couldn't figure out whether it was a tongue in cheek review, meant to be humorous, or whether it was the result of raw Kool-aid, ingested in excess. Eventually I figured the latter.

It's not hard to see where people get these ideas though. It kind of starts with the photo.net article about how to build a system authored by Philip Greenspun, which states that if you're buying a dslr you should not consider any brands other than Canon and Nikon. It's kind of a ridiculous thing to say, but there you go. Give that comment the twin tradewinds of the blog and the forum to blow it out across the internet, and pretty soon it's just something everyone knows is a "fact". Having used Canon and Nikon both at some point or another, they're fine, pretty much just like every other brand out there. I personally think that for >90% of photography opportunities the model of camera and lens won't make much difference. You do need a certain minimum level of image quality, but once that's met, except for some exceptional circumstances, brand and model don't matter, and I don't think there are enough differences between similarly priced equipment that make one brand stand out. I think the best reason to buy Canon or Nikon is their extensive range of high-end gear, which I can't afford anyway. Sony already has enough equipment that I want but can't afford, so what benefit for me is more of the same?

it really is simple why most in this industry recommend Canon and Nikon, they sell the most!

About 80% of the market combined. So it is tempting to get aboard the SSS C&N and go with it. If you are a writer, salesman, owner of a website, that is where most of the cash is so it makes perfect sense to jump aboard and keep blinders on to the rest of the industry. However, I do not give such folks a pass, wrong is wrong. Period.

One reason I am glad we started this website here and Photoclubalpha, and Dyxum exist. It is where the rumors end and education begins.

I've been looking at Canon more in depth now that I have time, and Nikon. Looking and educating myself with the systems of late. One thing I find true, either the lenses aren't that good in the lower range for Canon, or the lower end bodies of Nikon don't have enough features, and both are more expensive to catch up to what Alpha offers. I hope to write a very fair article about it here sometime. We'll see. Table very full right now (which is good).

Carl

I actually have a Nikon D80 and an Alpha 300, along with 50mm f1.8 and f1.7 lenses (I have some other lenses too, but the 50mms are the only ones that have for both). The same image looks pretty much the same no matter which camera you use (if you set the cameras up the same: ISO, Av, distance, light, etc.). And I could point out that, while the D700 does seem to perform better at high ISOs in low light, it's also clear from the images I've seen that the A900 can provide incredible resolution. But most of the time when I would be using either of them, I wouldn't be shooting at ISO 12,800 or 6,400, nor would I be printing to a size that would call for a 24MP raw file. I can't afford the D700 or A900, and really wouldn't be able to afford the 1700 USD lenses to get the best from them, so it doesn't make a lot of difference to me. I can marvel at the technology, but I can't buy it, so I use what I can afford. To be honest, I've been contemplating selling the small Nikon system I've ended up with, and adding an A700, which would suit my needs well. It's just that, well the Nikon is nice too, and I like having it around. I don't like it better, but I do like it. I could say the same for the other gear I've used and owned. I just don't see much difference between equipment that is similarly positioned and priced, whether it's lenses or cameras. There are small differences either way, but nothing major.

The discussion about buying only Canon or Nikon reminds me of the day when it was said, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM [PC computers]". And to get one that was "non-PC"? Complete heresy! Nothing compares these days to the wars even between the Atari ST and Amiga computers, even though they were similar (in general), particularly in how they both were up against a much bigger competition in the PC clone market.

The main similarity I see between the computer wars and the DSLR wars is that you do buy into a "system", and if your system is not the most popular, it may not get all of the goodies.... or worst yet, if the company must abandon the business, that makes your huge investment in lenses much less valuable.

So there's a huge monetary incentive, as well as time invested, in having your "system" succeed, whether it's game, computer, or camera system.

Those were the good old days! Atari ST vs Amiga vs Apple vs PC! Of course there wasn't a www to provide a battleground, just some bbs's and compuserve.

As we say in the South, this is Clinical Ignace (ignorance).LOL

I would like to retract “Mr. Goold” from my previous post and change it to “Teenager Brendan.” I thought he was an adult.

This child, who posted this in amazon, has simply handled The Truth, Very Carelessly.

MOST OF US HAVE FORGOTTEN MORE ABOUT PHOTOGRAPHY THAN THIS KID WILL LEARN!

I found the article amusing and funny and thought it was a joke at first, but I still think it’s a smear campaign against Sony.
AJ

"Brendan, you provided a lot of entertainment for the lot of us. Without bashing you, I can tell you that when you do mature you will probably regret posting comments such as yours on the internet where they will stay as long as a computer has them on a hard drive. From your comments, it appears you do indeed like the attention you are getting from them. May I suggest a more healthy hobby for you? Perhaps you could meet a young lady and let her teach you a thing or two about maturity. At that time you might want to try and re-acquaint yourself with photography, and try reading some of Ansel Adam's books while you are at it. He can teach you a thing or two about improving your technique.