Sony Alpha 77 at a glance:

  • 24.3-million-pixel, Exmor APS HD CMOS sensor
  • 2.359-million-dot XGA OLED electronic viewfinder
  • Sony Alpha mount
  • Sensor-shift stabilisation
  • Tilted and articulated 3in, 921,600-dot, TFT screen
  • 12 frames per second
  • 1080p HD video capture
  • RRP £1,149.99 (body only)

Sony Alpha 77 review – Introduction

Long rumoured and highly anticipated, the Sony Alpha 77 replaces the four-year-old Alpha 700 as the company’s flagship APS-C-format digital camera. But make no mistake: while both are classed as enthusiast level models, the two are virtually unrecognisable as siblings.

A key difference is that the Sony Alpha 77 utilises the translucent mirror technology introduced by Sony last year in its Alpha 33 and 55 SLT (single lens translucent) cameras. The fixed (pellicle) mirror used in such cameras has several benefits and certain downsides. One benefit is a steadier and quieter shutter action, unlike the aggressive mirror slap of the moving mirror that users of the Alpha 700 DSLR will know all too well.

Alongside the Sony Alpha 77 are the new Alpha 65, the older Alpha 55 and the Alpha 35, which was released a few months ago. These stablemates also feature SLT technology, which means there are now more current SLT cameras than DSLRs in the Alpha range. It seems, then, that Sony is beginning to phase out the moving mirror in its cameras at this level in favour of its pellicle version.

It is not just the type of mirror that sets apart the Alpha 700 and 77. The four years between the models’ launches means that their specifications are leagues apart, with the Sony Alpha 77 offering many world firsts, such as a 24.3-million-pixel sensor and XGA OLED electronic viewfinder. Sony has not held back on installing improvements and consequently the change is far more dramatic than a simple makeover. In fact, the Sony Alpha 77 is almost an entirely different beast and I look forward to finding out how the camera handles and performs.

Features

Not only is the Alpha 77 a departure from the Alpha 700, but it also demonstrates a bold onward step from the previous flagship SLT, the Alpha 55. The headline grabber is, of course, the 24.3-million-pixel sensor, which, at the time of writing, is the highest resolution available for a Bayer-type, APS-C model.

With around 50% extra pixels on the same-sized sensor, it is more crowded than the 16.2-million-pixel sensors of Sony’s Alpha 35 and 55, the Pentax K-5 and Nikon D7000. I hope this does not compromise the Alpha 77’s ability to handle noise levels effectively in low light, especially given that its fixed mirror directs a small portion of the light entering the camera away from the imaging sensor to the AF sensor.

The Alpha 77 uses SteadyShot image stabilisation to give an extra 2.5-4.5EV of usable shutter speeds for sharp handheld shooting. The system shifts the sensor inside the camera to compensate for vertical and horizontal movement, which means that lenses used with the camera do not need to be stabilised.

At the heart of the new camera is the latest Bionz processor. It is the company’s fastest yet, and it needs to be. When the Alpha 77 is pushed to its limits, such as with 24.3-million-pixel, full-resolution files at a maximum 12fps in a 13-frame burst, it has a lot of data to process in what users will desire to be a short space of time.

A downside to the pellicle mirror diverting some light to the AF sensor is that less light will reach the viewfinder. In the Canon Pellix (the first camera to use this type of mirror almost 50 years ago), it resulted in a darker and more-difficult-to-view optical viewfinder. However, Sony’s use of an electronic viewfinder (EVF) eliminates this issue.

Sony has developed its latest EVF completely in-house, and it can be found in the Alpha 77 and 65, the NEX-7 and as an external unit for the new NEX-5N. It has a 2.359-million-dot XGA OLED monitor, which is almost twice the resolution of the EVF used in the Alpha 55, and the first OLED type.

The company claims this delivers 10x higher contrast than conventional EVFs. It has 100% coverage and also the full benefit of display information, including active AF points, histogram and two-dimensional level gauge.

Of course, the alternative way to view and compose images is through an LCD screen. Prior to the Alpha 77, a moving LCD screen has worked on a tilt or articulated basis, typically from a hinge on the left, or at the bottom, of the screen. Here, both of these movements work together for flexible tilt-and-swivel movements, in line with the viewfinder. Combined with Sony’s TruBlack technology for crisp and high-contrast detail, the LCD screen should deliver clear viewing.

All the key shooting modes remain, and on the shooting-mode dial 3D sweep panorama (at full resolution) can be found, along with 12fps high-speed shooting modes. This is quicker than the Alpha 55 by two frames, which means the Alpha 77 offers the fastest full-resolution shooting of a camera at this level.

Here, it is clearly beneficial that the translucent mirror is fixed and does not move in between frames. Some user controls, such as object tracking AF, are sacrificed in this mode, as is aperture, which is set to f/3.5 or the lens’s maximum. In continuous high-speed drive mode, these controls are available and the frame rate is up to 8fps.

Four new picture effects include HDR painting, soft focus, miniature and rich tone monochrome. This now adds up to 11 modes in all, with 15 different effects. All but the new modes operate in the video function.

A completely revised AF system now includes 19 points, of which 11 are the more sensitive cross-type and work with f/5.6 lenses or faster. Many other cross-type sensors work only with f/2.8 optics or faster, and such lenses are typically more expensive. Therefore, this means that the more responsive AF is available with cheaper lenses.

Perhaps the most significant benefit to the fixed translucent mirror is that continuous (full-time) phase-detection AF is possible in any shooting mode, including video. Certainly for the latter, this places the Alpha 77 a cut above many other cameras.

Plaudits must go to Sony for its boldness in risking new technology in its SLT cameras and continuing to enhance it. Truly, this is a glittering specification and one that in several areas ups the bar for the rest to follow.

Features in use: Built-in teleconverter

I used the 16-50mm f/2.8 kit lens (24-75mm equivalent) and 70-400mm f/4-5.6 telephoto optic (105-600mm equivalent) during my test of the Alpha 77. The kit lens makes for good all-purpose use, but it can be further extended at the touch of a button using the teleconverter, for 1.4x and 2x magnification. This extends the 75mm length to 105mm and 150mm respectively. The direct access can be found on the rear to the right of the LCD screen.

Likewise, with the 2x converter employed, the 70-400mm lens offers a maximum effective focal length of 1,200mm! Not only is the lens ideal for sports, but now also wildlife photography. Such focal lengths for a compact set-up like this are usually reserved for the digiscoping enthusiast or for those with several thousands of pounds at their disposal. Image quality is always going to be better here than with digiscoping. These heron images were taken from a considerable distance, as you can see from the widest 105mm telephoto image.

The catch is that the teleconverter is available in JPEG format only and at a reduced resolution, but considering the Alpha 77’s maximum resolution is 24.3 million pixels, these reductions come at a very respectable 12 million pixels for 1.4x and 6 million pixels at 2x.

 

Build and Handling

A true test of a camera is not necessarily in its impressive features, but rather in its handling and performance. Well, as an enthusiast-level model (professional-level in Sony’s words), the Alpha 77 includes a tough magnesium-alloy chassis and a dust- and moisture-sealed body, much like the Pentax K-5.

Weather-sealing also features on the 16-50mm f/2.8 kit lens (24-75mm equivalent), VG-C77AM vertical grip (£279) and HVL-F43AM flashgun (£242) accessories, all announced at the same time as the camera. Those buying into the system should now find it capable of handling tough environments.

The fixed mirror allows the body of the Alpha 35 and 55 to be considerably smaller than a DSLR. However at 142.6x104x80.9mm, the Alpha 77 is virtually the same size as the Alpha 700 and most of its competitors.

A rubberised grip completely covers the handgrip surface area and extends to a small section on the left side of the camera for a firm hold. From this natural and comfortable grip, there are many controls to hand. In fact, the Alpha 77 has a potentially confusing number of buttons and direct controls. Many can be customised, including the shooting mode dial custom setting (MR) for quick access to up to three exposure settings.

My main bugbear about the navigation of the controls is that most scrolling is achieved using the little joystick on the rear of the camera, which I find at times fiddly and much less enjoyable to operate than a four-way pad or control wheel.

The ‘peaking’ control is found deep in the main menu and is primarily used to display overexposed areas in the frame so the user can adjust the exposure to eliminate blown-out highlights. Usually this type of function is available for review only, not preview. Another trick of this function is that it aids critical manual focusing.

Peaking indicates the area of focus in one of three user-defined colours (red, yellow or white). In this regard, I really appreciated its help in ensuring that the eyes remained in focus in a studio portrait where the depth of field was extremely shallow.

Unlike the Alpha 65, the Alpha 77 records GPS information in the image’s metadata. Sony has acknowledged that its GPS system last time round was not very effective, and has now refined it. One usual downside to using GPS is the drain on battery life, although here it is still impressive, being able to take more than 1,000 images during the course of a couple of days, with GPS on, from a full charge (well above the company’s specification). GPS can be deactivated, too.

Processing speeds for a raw + JPEG file capture take around 3.5secs to clear the buffer, while a 12fps, 1sec burst takes 29secs. Another, shorter burst is possible while the buffer is being cleared. Shutter lag is now 0.05secs, thanks to an electronic first curtain, which makes it approximately 30% faster than the Alpha 700 and, at the time of writing, the fastest in the market. This is a responsive camera.

White balance and Colour

Colours in the standard colour mode are bright and punchy. Some may prefer the more muted colours in the natural colour setting, while the vivid setting goes too far for me. In a landscape image, a blue sky is typically punchy. In fact, in the Gretag Macbeth colour chart, the blues in particular are vivid, and colour bit depth is strong (24 bits, according to www.dxomark.com).

There are several picture effects that manipulate colour for a certain look. Partial colour offers the option of a monochrome image while maintaining one colour in the scene (blue, red, yellow or green). This is effective when the chosen colour is a flat tone but, where it has a wide range of tone, on inspection the effect can be patchy.

Sony Alpha users will recognise that auto white balance is accurate in virtually all scenes, yet typically warm in tungsten light. As before, taking a custom white balance reading is a simple process.

Metering

Like the sensor found in the previous SLT cameras, the Alpha 77 makes use of a 1,200-zone evaluative metering system, collecting information in either multi-segment, spot or centreweighted areas.

A useful test to understand the behaviour of an evaluative multi-segment mode in a metering system is capturing the same scene but adjusting the level of brighter and darker areas in the frame. By angling the camera upwards in a landscape and increasing the amount of sky in the frame, the Alpha 77 could underexpose a little sooner for my liking, as skies can be a little bright even in a 50/50 split in the frame.

However, I largely kept metering to the multi-segment setting. Spot metering is limited to the active AF points, which varies according to the AF area selected. In local AF area, any one of the 19 points can be selected, while in zone AF it is one of the three central AF points from each of the three zones. All these points are in the centre portion of the frame, which limits where the spot reading is taken. I found a quicker method for an accurate exposure is keeping peaking activated to indicate blown-out highlights and adjust settings accordingly through exposure compensation.

Autofocus

Sony’s latest AF system offers 19-points, 11 of which are the more sensitive cross-type. The arrangement is in three zones grouped in the central part of the frame. AF modes include wide (all three zones), local (all AF points selectable individually), spot (central AF point) and zonal (all points within one of the three zones).

One area that really does benefit from the translucent mirror is autofocus, because a portion of light is continually directed onto the phase-detection AF sensor. Phase-detection AF is available in still capture, including the 12fps shooting mode. More importantly for those who use video, it is available full time.

By and large, AF is very responsive for fast-moving subjects. In such conditions – the erratic movement of football players, for instance – and indeed any condition, it is necessary to keep the subject in the central area of the frame occupied by the 19 AF points.

Manual focus has two very useful functions to enhance the ease of correctly focusing on a subject: peaking, and a magnification aid that blows up the scene for closer inspection. The former displays the point of focus by a user-defined yellow, red or white. Of the low, mid and high levels, I found mid to be accurate for a variety of subjects. Both modes are particularly handy tools, especially when using lenses with a very shallow depth of field

Every one of these frames is in focus thanks to the continuous phase-detection AF system

Noise, Resolution and Sensitivity

At lower sensitivities, the Alpha 77 is capable of crisp detail. This image was taken using the 16-50mm kit lens at f/4

Given the fixed mirror and high number of pixels, I was particularly interested with the Alpha 77’s resolution detail and ability to handle noise levels. In the controlled studio setting, the results from our resolution charts are pretty much in line with my expectations. Using our standard Sigma 105mm f/2.8 macro lens and shooting at ISO 100, resolution detail reaches the 32 marker on our charts in JPEG and raw format. This is highly impressive for a sensor of this size.

Of course, resolution detail is compromised as noise levels increase. With less light reaching the imaging sensor through the pellicle mirror (the Sony Alpha 580 DSLR uses the same sensor as the Alpha 55 SLT but handles noise better in low light), noise levels are slightly higher than the competition, such as those in the Nikon D7000 (according to www.dxomark.com). That said, noise is controlled rather well up to ISO 1600, with little effect on levels of detail – down to the 28 marker – despite luminance ‘grain’ starting to creep in from ISO 800.

Sony has stated that the unusual 71⁄3EV ISO range of 100-16,000 is because it was not satisfied with image quality at higher sensitivities. This proves to be a wise move, because at ISO 3200 luminance noise really starts to become apparent, with chroma noise, too, in unedited raw files. However, resolution detail remains high at the 24 marker.

The Alpha 77 matches the less-crowded Alpha 55 sensor in regards to levels of noise. Sony has therefore achieved the same performance with 50% extra pixels – an impressive feat.

In real-world scenes, it is clear that the 24.3-million-pixel sensor resolves a staggering level of detail, especially when used with a prime lens. Fine detail such as hair, eyelashes and blades of grass are crisp when shooting at any setting below ISO 800. Large prints at around 17×11.5in without interpolation at 350ppi are possible from the 6000×4000-pixel files.

Handily, the ISO range can be extended down to ISO 50, which is very useful in bright sunshine when faster apertures may be desired for portraits. That said, the Alpha 77 is capable of shooting at 1/8000sec so only at f/1.8 or wider is the slower ISO required.

Resolution charts: These images show 72ppi (100% on a computer screen) sections of images of a resolution chart, captured using a Sigma 105mm lens. We show the section of the resolution chart where the camera starts to fail to reproduce the lines separately. The higher the number visible in these images, the better the camera’s detail resolution is at the specified sensitivity setting.

 

Dynamic range

The dynamic range optimiser (DRO) in its auto mode gives a subtle lift to shadow areas

We have come to expect Sony Alpha cameras to offer in the region of 13EV dynamic range, and there is no reason to believe the Alpha 77 is any different. This means it is able to capture a wide tonal range in one image.

A boost is offered by the dynamic range optimiser (DRO), which is available in five levels of strength, with the strongest setting producing HDR-like results. Kept in its default auto setting, DRO is activated but can be switched off through the main menu. Inspecting the same image with DRO auto on and off, shadow areas are given a subtle extra level of detail.

LCD, Viewfinder and Video

During this test I was particularly interested in the EVF. There are some obvious advantages to this type of viewfinder, not least the ability to display a digital level (akin to a flight simulation), peaking and a histogram. Furthermore, the screen can be set to display what the image will look like with the current aperture and shutter speed settings. This is particularly useful for pre-shooting with long exposures, such as when capturing moving water.

EVFs are not without their downsides, though. Until now, the pixel count has been too low to show satisfactory levels of smooth and crisp detail; the refresh rate immediately after capture gives a brief moment where the viewfinder is black; and motion blur can also be visible during quick panning movements.

On the Alpha 77, the EVF is a genuine pleasure to use and easily the best of its type to date. More important than the wealth of display information available is that by and large the EVF is bright (although in strong sunlight it benefits from being adjusted to its brightest setting). At 1.1x, it offers a similar magnification to that of the Alpha 55, but the OLED type boasts greater contrast, and the higher 2.359-million-dot resolution gives a finer and smoother level of detail. While the usual signs are there, such as digital displays, at times it is easy to forget that this is an EVF and not an optical one.

The EVF and LCD screen are made all the more viewable when the focus magnifier is employed in manual focus mode. This is achieved by changing the teleconverter button on the rear of the camera to control focus magnification. This is an area that an optical viewfinder just cannot match.

Given that a major advantage of the Alpha 77 is its fast frame rate, a big concern with regard to the previous EVF was the refresh rate after image capture, which can render tracking a moving object very difficult. Well, here it is much quicker, although for such situations users should still turn off the image review so it is not shown on the EVF between frames.

The 921,600-dot LCD screen is perfectly sufficient for all but the most extreme bright light, thanks to the versatile tilt-and-swivel angles and its bright, high-contrast display. This combines two screen movements into one, in line with the central point of the viewfinder, meaning the screen can be placed above the camera, rather than to the side of it. This is another area where Sony has laid down the gauntlet to its competitors.

Like before, the only downside to the LCD screen is that it does pick up smudges very easily, requiring regular cleaning for clear viewing.

Sony appears to be placing an equally great emphasis on the video function in this range of cameras. Up to full HD (1080p) video files can be recorded at 25p or 50p for cinematic quality, with continuous phase-detection AF. Full PASM control is available, as well as many of the picture effects.

Video clips can be made up to 29mins and the overheating issue that limited clips to 9mins in the previous generation of SLT cameras has been resolved. According to Sony, this is achieved through a new SteadyShot engine. I shot a video well over 15mins in length and did not experience any such problems.

Our Verdict

An impressive specification has certainly grabbed the attention here, and the Alpha 77 has been given more than a few tweaks over its predecessor. Sony has set the bar in several areas, not least of which is the inclusion of a high-resolution imaging sensor and superb LCD screen. Furthermore, it is not implausible that Sony has paved the way for electronic viewfinders to one day replace the optical type.

The specification is backed up by solid performance in colour rendition, resolution detail at lower sensitivities, a wide dynamic range and a responsive and accurate AF system. The only real downside to speak of regarding the use of a fixed translucent mirror is that doing so compromises the camera’s ability to handle noise levels in low light.

Together with its video capabilities, fast frame rate and good all-purpose kit lens, the Alpha 77 makes an enticing prospect for any photographer, especially those who often find themselves shooting action or weddings.

Sony Alpha 77: Focal points

Hotshoe
The Alpha 77’s hotshoe allows compatible flashguns to be used, such as the new weather-sealed HVL-F43AM. Wireless control is possible with this and other Sony flashguns as well

LCD screen
A first of its kind, the 921,600-dot TFT screen can be both tilted and articulated

AF/MF button
Whether in manual or autofocus, this button can activate AF to snap to the point of focus. Like most of the other buttons, its function can be adapted by the user

Teleconverter
This button doubles up as a 1.4x and 2x teleconverter, and also the manual focus magnification

SteadyShot image stabilisation
The Alpha 77 features in-camera image stabilisation through the sensor-shift SteadyShot function. This means lenses do not need to offer this facility

Shutter release
This newly developed unit lasts for approximately a professional-level 150,000 shutter actions. It also boosts the fastest shutter speed to 1/8000sec

Shot result preview
It is possible to preview how an image will look with settings such as aperture, shutter speed and dynamic range optimiser applied – on-screen and in the viewfinder

Digital level gauge
The digital level gauge displays on both the viewfinder and LCD screen whether or not the camera is level in horizontal and vertical directions

The Competition

With its unique technology in today’s market, in many respects the Alpha 77 stands alone. Given its price and position as Sony’s flagship APS-C-format camera, though, its direct competition would include the Pentax K-5, Canon EOS 7D and Nikon D300S. Like each of these cameras, the Alpha 77 has a magnesium-alloy build and, like the K-5, it is weather-sealed.

However, the fact the Alpha 77 has the highest pixel count of any APS-C-format model, a fixed translucent mirror, can shoot at 12fps, plus a tiltable, articulated screen and EVF means the Sony camera certainly stands out from the crowd.

That said, the fixed mirror and more crowded sensor result in a less impressive performance in low light, but in all other areas of image quality the Alpha 77 matches its competition. This is impressive given that the high-resolution files can be reproduced to a much larger scale.