Sony Alpha DSLR-A500 – Better Than Its Expensive Sibling
Thumbs Up:
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A500 comes with a huge tilting LCD; wireless flash; quick Live View autofocus; delivers solid raw high ISO sensitivity performance and delivers above average performance in general.
Thumbs Down:
Sony Alpha DSLR-A500 doesn’t offer video and has awkward aspects to design.
The Whiz Kid Speaks:
Manufacturer: Sony
Part Number: DSLRA500H
Price: $799.99 – $899.99
Product Type: Digital Camera
Weight: 1.3 lbs
Dimensions (W x D x H) in inches: 5.4 x 3.3 x 4.1 inches
Optical Sensor Type: CMOS
White balance: Automatic & Manual
White Balance Presets: Cloudy, Automatic, Incandescent, Shade, Shade, Flash and Flourescent
Software: Picture Motion Browser, Drivers & Utilities, Image Data Lightbox SR and Image Data Converter SR
Cables Included: USB cable
Connector Type: USB & HDMI output
Additional Features: DPOF support & PictBridge support
Shooting Programs: Portrait, Landscape, Night portrait, Macro, Dalight and Sports
Focus Adjustment: Automatic & Manua
Flash Modes: Fill-in mode, Auto mode, Slow synchro, Rear curtain sync, Red-eye reduction and Flash OFF mode
Included Accessories: Dust cap, Rechargeable lithium ion battery, Lens cap, Body cap, Shoulder strap and carrying case
Operating System Support: Microsoft Windows Vista , Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional , Apple Mac OS X 10.1.3 or later and Microsoft Windows XP SP2
Camera Flash: Pop-up flash
Special Effects: Neutral, Black & White, Daylight and Vivid
Power Device: Battery charger
Razzle Dazzle:
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A500 is comparatively bulkier and heavier than most of its lower-end siblings and some of its close rivals as well. Though the camera on a whole feels sturdily built, but the overall plastic housing of the camera leaves a cheaper impression than most of the similarly priced cameras. We also do not appreciate the use of the additional real estate of the camera, even for a midrange dSLR, Sony hasn’t done a decent job, with plenty of labels and buttons crowding the overall body of the camera. For example, the Smart Teleconverter (digital zoom) doesn’t makes any sense on a camera like this and the dedicated button for D-Range also don’t make a lot of sense to us. These unwanted buttons and controls on the camera just come in the way while you are trying to operate another buttons like exposure compensation, exposure lock button and ISO sensitivity. One another reason for the confusion here is the identical look of all the buttons on the camera.
Inside Dope:
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A500 is the best camera out of the 5 consumer models launched by Sony in its dSLR product line. All the cameras are stuffed in the small price bracket of $500 to $750. We said it because the Alpha DSLR-A500 delivers the best photo quality, the best performance and comes with a tilting LCD. The Alpha DSLR-A500 we are talking about here is somewhat identical to its fashionable sibling, the A550, but comes with three exceptions: it has a lower-resolution variant of the sensor, a lower-resolution LCD, and it also lacks the A550′s no-focus Speed Priority constant shooting mode.
Though the noise profiles of A550 and A500 are pretty much the same, but they have a much better color accuracy and as a matter of fact the color accuracy of the camera in JPEG photos. Its image colors are pleasing and decently saturated, though the camera does have a little bit of trouble with the deep pinks.
Like we said earlier, the camera comes with plenty of buttons on its control panel. But while in general more buttons means more efficient shooting experience, but this doesn’t seem the case with the A500. The dSLR A500 seems to be designed for the LCD based shooting instead of viewfinder shooting. The control panel for A500 comes loaded with so many identical switches that at times it gets confusing to find the right button for right purpose. In general the buttons for ISO sensitivity and drive modes are positioned on top of the camera, which according to us is a bit awkward and touch to reach. But on the cheaper models, Sony has placed the controls for drive modes and ISO sensitivity on the rear end of the camera, which according to us is a smart move. Also positioned on the rear end of the camera is a Fn button pressing which pulls up the flash settings, back pulls up drive mode, autofocus area, autofocus mode, metering, ISO sensitivity, white balance, flash compensation, Creative Styles and DRO/Auto HDR.
After control panel, let’s talk about the performance of the A500. We were more than happy to see that the A500 performs better than its expensive sibling A550. Though the performance delivered by the A500 was not as fast as we got from the class leading Pentax K-x, but yes, it still was satisfactory. The camera takes 0.3 seconds to power on from a completely off state, in decent lighting conditions, while in the dim lighting conditions the camera takes around 0.6 second. Capturing two consecutive shots from the camera takes around 0.9 second, which clearly was not quite as fast as its sibling and the shot-to-shot timing for the camera also increases as you enable the flash. Although, the burst shooting time runs a class-winning 4.8 frames per second.
Nitty Gritty:
The Sony Alpha DSLR-A500 is a reasonably priced camera, which offers a lot better photo quality than its comparatively highly priced sibling Sony Alpha DSLR-A550. The only flaw according to us in the camera is its quirky design, but apart from that it really is a solid entry-level camera with quick a useful tilting LCD and Live View shooting. So if you are looking for a reasonably priced dSLR, which can offer you great quality photos, then the DSLR-A500 surely is a decent option.
