White balance and colour
In its standard colour setting, the colours produced by the Alpha 33 are a little more saturated than in reality. However, I found that, particularly in dull, overcast conditions, this helps to make the most of the images straight from the camera with no further adjustments necessary. However, in bright sunlight the images really come to life, with bold blue skies and green foliage.
Switching the camera to vivid mode emphasises the colours further and really makes them punchy, but without being over the top.
Normally when I use a camera’s black & white setting the first thing I do is increase the contrast, but I found that the Alpha 33’s black & white mode is great in its default setting. Of course, the contrast can still be increased or decreased if it is not to your particular taste.
There were only a few occasions when I had to take the Alpha 33 out of its AWB setting to achieve a better result, and this was usually when photographing objects in the shade on a bright sunny day. One example of this was photographing a tree that was in shadow, as its bark turned a slight blue. Switching to the shade setting quickly rectified this, restoring the brown colour. Other than this, the AWB did an excellent job, both under natural and indoor light.
