Review: I was planning on buying the Alpha DSLR-A100, hoping that when this model comes out the A100 would become 'cheaper'. But then I read the review on this website and the specs for the A700 that I blew my budget and bought this camera. I ordered this camera on Oct 21 from Sony Style. It arrived in time to fly to California to shoot my sister's wedding. Since it was a long flight, I spent all four hours reading the manual and trying out each item in the manual. The manual is well written and helped me understand all of the various buttons and capabilities of the camera. Whether or not I use all of this camera's capabilities is beside the point. I say that because the wedding was during the day and I had plenty of light in the church and at the reception hall and didn't need the built in flash. Just to experiment I took several photographs with various settings and then I used the 'auto' features of the camera in comparison. In most cases, the automated photos were better than the photos I took manually. But the manual photos had a quality about them that enabled me to play with the images on my computer when I returned home. The editing experience using Sony's software and then using MicroSoft's software was like being in the dark room years ago where you would dodge and burn different parts of a picture to get the desired result because of the depth of the photos that this camera yielded. I got two lenses for this camera--the one kit lens and then I splurged on a Carl Zeiss 400mm zoom lens that Sony offered as an option. I read somewhere that an a-mount barrel lens from the Konica-Minolta Maxxum line fits this camera, so I got out my camera bag and found an old Maxxum lens that I used for macro shots and IT FIT! At the wedding, I had two cousins also taking photos (plus the official photographer and a whole bunch of relatives with point & shoot cameras), one cousin had a Nikon D40 and the other one had a Cannon Xti (or something like that). We started taking the same photos and comparing them on our camera screens--the Sony's screen was much larger, brighter and more detailed. Plus the Sony's ability to enlarge the images and scroll through the index of shots was much simpler than the Nikon or the Cannon. All three cameras seemed to weigh about the same. Although the Sony and the Minolta seemed to be more solid feeling than the Cannon. Unfortunately, my Sony cost a little more than the Nikon and the Cannon, about $400 more. I did notice that getting my camera ready to take a photo was a lot faster than the Nikon or the Cannon, because of the auto on feature of the viewfinder. When all three cameras were idle all three automatically shut down but all I had to do was to look through the viewfinder to get my camera on. Since the wedding, I've been carrying this camera around with me 'recording images' as I go. The more I use this camera, the better this camera gets! I'm starting to feel like I'm taking real photographs and I have alternatives to manipulating the images because of their granularity and depth.
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