By Lori Grunin, CNET.com
14/05/2008
URL: http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/digitalcameras/0,39005881,42632617p,00.htm

With its 14-megapixel CCD, flip-up LCD, sensor-shift image stabilizer and built-in wireless flash controller, there's a lot to like in the A350--we suspect it will garner its share of fans. Unsurprisingly, however, Sony made some compromises so the A350 could lay claim to the title of highest-resolution budget dSLR.

Sony offers the A350 in three packages: Body only; a kit with the 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 lens, which we tested; and a dual-lens kit that adds the 55-200mm F4-5.6 model. Those two lenses, plus the telephoto 75-300mm, currently comprise Sony's complete entry-level lens lineup. For other inexpensive alternatives you'll have to turn to compatible A-mount Konica Minolta, Sigma or Tamron offerings.

Design

A bit heavy at 582g without battery or media, the A350 has a solid, rubbery grip that's very comfortable to hold. The extra heft makes it feel more substantial than competitors like the Canon EOS 450D. Another positive aspect of the extra weight: It doesn't get overbalanced when using accessories like the HVL-F42AM external flash we tested it with.

The A350 shares the straightforward layout design of the A200. There are direct-access controls for ISO sensitivity, exposure compensation and Drive/Bracketing/Self-timer modes, while flash, autofocus (AF), white balance, AF area and D-Range Optimizer settings are grouped under a screen pulled up by the Fn button.

Since much of the design matches that of the A200, we have similar complaints about the USB placement as well. The USB connector sits inside the CF card compartment. This means you have to leave the door open while downloading, potentially allowing all sorts of schmutz to get onto the card slot contacts (if you're accident-prone, this provides a protrusion to hit and hurl the camera to the floor). More importantly, Sony uses a semi-proprietary combo micro USB/AV connector on all its dSLRs for no reason that we can see other than to force you to buy a cable from the company if you lose the bundled one.

Additionally, all of Sony's lower-end dSLRs use lines rather than squares for the nine off-center focus-point indicators. They're very dim and some people may have trouble seeing them. This is especially since the A350 has a very low magnification 0.74x viewfinder.

Features

Sony's Live View implementation with two image sensors harks back to the more seamless approach pioneered--and subsequently discarded--by Olympus. With a secondary CCD dedicated to receiving a preview image off the imaging sensor, there's no need to flip the mirror up for preview and focus, then flip it back down to shoot, proving a more typical snapshot-like experience when framing via the 2.7-inch LCD.

In addition, Sony incorporates a flip-up display, which makes the feature not just practical but actually useful (predominantly for overhead and from-the-hip shooting). Like the A200, the A350 also supports wireless flash, uncommon but not unique in this price class, using the same appropriately bare-bones implementation as the A200. Rather than grafting pro multichannel support on the camera, which can be quite confusing to configure, it's basically binary: On or off.

The rest of the specs are typical for its class: Sensitivity up to ISO 3,200; anti-dust sensor protection measures; shutter speeds from 1/4,000 second to 30 seconds with 1/160 second flash sync; various white balance presets plus manual and color temperature chooser; spot, multi-segment and center-weighted metering; and spot, user-selectable spot and wide-area AF. There are also various drive modes including white balance bracketing. Sony-specific features include the same D-Range Optimizer as in the A700 and Creative Style presets with editable contrast, saturation and sharpness.

Performance

Because it generally costs too much to add faster processing in this price segment, the A350's higher resolution exacts a performance toll. There are a couple of bright spots, but in our Lab tests the camera ranked overall on the slow side. When you take processing and file writing out of the equation, the A350 handily zips past the rest of the pack: Shutter lag in our tests lasted a mere 0.3 second in optimal conditions and 0.6 second in dim.

The rest doesn't look quite so rosy. It powers on and shoots in 0.6 second, kind of slow relative to the rest. Once focused, shot-to-shot time typically takes about 0.7 second for JPEG and 0.9 for RAW, both at the bottom of the class. It doesn't feel that slow while photographing, and we routinely shoot RAW+JPEG. Adding flash recycling time almost doubles the lag to 1.5 seconds, also at the bottom of the scale for dSLRs. As you'd also expect, the camera is a slow burst shooter as well--2.5 frames per second. Though it can keep that up until your card fills with JPEGs, it maxes out at four RAW frames.

As usual, its Super SteadyShot sensor-shift image stabilizer does work well; at the long end of the range for the 70-200mm F2.8 lens (effective focal length 300mm) we successfully shot at 1/10 second, about four stops beyond the 1/200-second shutter speed as recommended. Speed-wise, shooting in Live View with the A350 felt very similar to shooting with a snapshot camera. However, since it uses the two-sensor approach, the LCD previews only 90 percent of the scene compared with 95 percent with the optical viewfinder. Battery life is rated for 730 pictures.

Image quality

Rating photo quality tends to be difficult, but the A350 was particularly waffle-worthy. It rendered good color and dynamic range. Up to and including ISO 800, photos looked solid, with a minimal increase in softness. However, at ISO 1,600 and ISO 3,200, color noise kicked in and smears from the noise suppression algorithms degraded detail.

With some really expensive lenses--an 85mm F1.4 Zeiss T* lens, 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 lens, and 24-70mm F2.8 Zeiss lens--we got some nice low ISO shots. But those are lenses you're unlikely to buy for a budget/entry-level camera like the A350, so we couldn't justify pushing the image quality rating up to an 8. Unless you have some old, really good Minolta lenses that might be a different story.

If you need the resolution bump at a low price, the Canon EOS 450D is probably a better choice than the Sony Alpha DSLR-A350. It lacks in-body image stabilization and the A350's intelligent Live View implementation, but Canon offers better comparable kit lenses and a more decent selection of budget lenses, as well as better photo quality and performance.