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Unlike an Alfa Romeo, the Sony A200 is one Alpha that won’t leave you cursing from the side of the M25 at rush hour. If you’re in the market for a budget digital SLR, then this is probably the place to start.
Strutting into the cheapo-DSLR market with a 10-megapixel sensor, it’s actually the other features onboard that makes it stand out from the crowd. Most importantly, there’s Super SteadyShot which, as the name suggests, counteracts that worst of photographer afflictions – wobbleyhanditis. It works really well, allowing you to take handheld shots at much slower exposures than normal.
The body is sleek and compact, if a bit plasticky, but well built and comfortable. The 2.7-inch Clear Photo LCD, meanwhile, rotates when you tilt the camera (a bit like the screen on an iPod does when you flip it through 90 degrees).
On the downside noise begins to creep into pictures at around 800 ISO, although the noise-reduction feature does go someway to resolving this. It also copes well with tricky lighting conditions and “Automatic” mode delivers well-exposed photos.
Certainly not one for the professional photographer, but the Sony Alpha A200 is packed with features and has an astoundingly low price for a DSLR. Ready to move up from a compact? This is a top budget option.
[...] Sony Alpha A200 review That’s not to say the Sony A380 is a bad camera – it still takes fantastic, detail-rich photos with awesome dynamic range. But with Canon and Nikon adding video to their similarly priced offerings (the Canon 500D and Nikon D5000 respectively), the A380 struggles to stand out. True, there is the size factor, but a DSLR is never going to fit in your pocket, so shaving off a few millimetres at the expense of usability seems a silly move. There are also the quick AF live view and built-in SteadyShot – but these are features you’ll find in the old A350. [...]