Sony Alpha SLT-A57 16.1 MP Exmor APS HD CMOS Sensor DSLR with Translucent Mirror Technology and 3D Sweep Panorama (Body Only) (OLD MODEL)

So liking the a57. I read reviews at length, for weeks, before settling on this model and I am so glad both to have made an informed choice and to have that choice proven in reality now that I've had the camera in hand and used it. The a57 is more complicated than a DSLR, with dependent inter-relationships across both common and novel functions and priorities. The a57 is not point & shoot; it's more like a lump of clay, that sees you as a lump of clay as well. If you know what you want from both a visual and a technical perspective and have the right lens for it, the a57 will get you there. If you have blind spots now, but want to learn to be a competent all-around amateur DSLR photographer, then this is your gateway drug. The a57 doubles as an excellent digital photography tutor, and will help you build understanding and skills every step of the way. The Sony way, that is. If you just want a pro-looking DSLR with a big black lens that makes impressive clicky noises on the 50 yd line, but is otherwise a simple point-and-shoot, then look elsewhere. In its' various Auto modes the a57 can serve as the King Tiger tank of point-and-shoot; the issue is that a novice to the camera could select settings or lenses that counter this functionality and then become lost, with mixed end results. The user may not realize dependencies to a setting in some other menu area (where was that, the Menu menu or the Function menu, or wait was I in Movie Mode, or did I hold down the ISO button then roll the knob...?), and one could spend time puzzling over why it's not doing now what it did before, when you're in some manual mode rather than auto. If you haven't done the reading, which I will mention further on, you may find it hard to keep the dependencies straight. When in doubt, reinitialize! In the more manual modes, there are several of these newly arrived Sony tech settings that can throw you off and I'm not talking fstop vs shutter speed, the rabbit hole goes way deeper on this camera. Sony has introduced new concepts and approaches to a pro DSLR while also attempting to maintain "point & shoot ease" and though this camera succeeds at the former two it is initially at least, a fascinating & robust failure at the latter. Works fine though, if one devotes the head space to learning some new feature concepts. Do that, think through your shots and vids first, and this camera will reward you handsomely for the effort. Rolling the dice WITHOUT first reading the manual (THIS manual btw, thanks to TCav of Steve's Digicams forum for the link: [...oops please do a search]), will probably result in some mediocre shots at first. Note that the a57 can take (and I'm doing it) the quality Minolta a mount AF lenses that you can find cheap on Ebay. It amuses, considering that many reviews argue that there aren't sufficient lenses for this camera, when there dozens of pages full of reasonably priced Minoltas, Tamrons etc. that will work with this lens. I got myself a Tamron 90x300, a Minolta 50mm f1.7 prime and an Abeline 500mm for less than $230 including shipping! So if you like to play around and really test to see what works for you there is an abundance of lenses available, from fish-eye to macro to 4000mm tele zooms on Ebay. Keep in mind though, that there's an approximately 1.4X mag factor on these lenses which is going to change your field of view compared to what you might normally expect - a Minolta 50mm f1.7 lens perfect for tight interiors, is gonna be a 70mm lens and you may notice that difference. You also have to remember that the 300mm you are reading on the lens is actually 714mm, etc. A labelmaker would resolve that issue. I got my a57 with the 18x55mm kit lens and I have no complaints thus far. The kit lens is solid but not overly heavy. If it's plastic like the body is, as some reviews have written, then it is a metal-like plastic. It seems more like aluminum to me, but there is little relevance in plastic vs. metal at this level of product engineering. Consider that this is an SLT rather than a true DSLR, for instance. Since there is no mirror-flipping going on for every focus instance, that vibration common to DSLR's is not existent in this camera. This means that the camera does not have to wait around for itself until the mirror has stopped vibrating, before it can image again. And this means, faster finger press to shutter releases, and continuous photo bursts in shorter timeframes. So, even if metal were a more stable material for a body (which, at this level of engineering, I rather doubt), that is hardly helpful when you still have to wait around while your mirror vibrations dissipate through that metal body before you can image again. To say nothing of being able to autofocus real-time continuously while taking 1920X1080P 60P video! The 1.4 firmware update is out, you would want to snag that, just because. The camera has a cool target reticule, that indicates pitch and roll alignment of the camera body, like a built-in level. Since the display can be folded out and around, this does help to maintain a level shot in these awkward positions. One cool, new-to-me feature, is what Sony calls Peaking Level for manual focus. When set to manual focus and with 3 settings, low medium & high, the Live Display (which generally shows the final picture live all of the time, essential) shows a fine pixelated wash across the image, in a plane that IS the actual focal plane of the lens cutting through the 3-dimensional image space, so you move the focus out and this plane of (I choose white) pixelation occurs across the image telling you precisely where the focal plane is hitting! You don't even have to see the fine elements of what you are shooting. Fantastic! For instance, one of my cats is black, so he is a black blob in the viewfinder or display. But with Peaking Level, I can clearly see delineation as to where his nose is, then whiskers, then the surface of his eyeballs, as the Peaking Level effect illustrates the focal plane's position as it moves in - and I take the shot when the white noise is where I want the focus to be. You do need 2 hands, to use this feature. And to be clear, this is not one of the "3-D panorama" features of the camera. I have not used the 3-D panorama or panorama features as yet. The a57 feels solid and heavy, as one would expect. I picked up a Nikon D6 the other day and it felt like a toy in comparison to the a57. Even my Casio EX-FH20 Super Zoom felt more solid than the D6 actually, not that I have anything against Nikon. Just saying, build quality should matter. The image that you take is more important than the image that you want to project as a "serious photographer," ha ha... The a57 sports myriad display symbols within multiple configuration menus, all of which you will have to learn in order to interface with it. This camera takes on the bushel of both tool and tutor, and its' abundance of menus does reflect that. Now that the world has not ended, any familiarity with Mayan hieroglyphic script will find new application as one works through understanding the functionality of this camera. Hey I did it, and learned a lot in the process. The tutorial aspect of the camera is somewhat separated from the controls aspect, so you don't have to constantly work through menus full of advice to get where you need to be. It is there if and when you need it. I found it helpful mostly for understanding the new concepts and terminology that Sony labs have come up with, in advancing the field of digital photography. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for other companies to figure it out, when many are after all, buying sensors made by Sony to use in their own "cutting edge" cameras. Take it slow with the a57; the amount of information needing assimilation, will overwhelm anyone so take it task by task, in stages. I find connecting the HDMI out to my flat screen TV, lessens the tedium of the small display. I learned the camera (and still do) in 'study sessions' on the big flat screen. You see the complete display on the flat screen monitor, in both movie and pic mode. I'm experiencing macular degeneration for the first time (joy) due to age, and have recently begun using readers, so I rely on the diopter-adjusted viewfinder when taking stills, but for me studying menu settings of a digital camera for long periods, through the viewfinder, is an added strain that I do not want. It certainly works, but learning on the flat screen is much easier. You can toggle back & forth between your camera's HDMI in to the TV, and the .pdf a57 manual on your computer's input to the TV for instance, for learning ease. You can even go picture-in-picture. The autofocus system is fast, and great for video, particularly when you learn all of the autofocus modes and settings and creatively apply that understanding to your project. You can deliberately pace & plan your pans, to take advantage of this amazingly snappy autofocus capability. You may have read reviews that complain of the a57's limited manual controls over video when in autofocus - there is a little switch on the lens that says AF MF. Just set it to MF and focus manually, if you find yourself trying to use AF in an MF environment. If you aren't good at manual focus for pictures, use the Peaking feature. You will get better. There is even an unlabeled 'mystery button' on the camera. Now, any cold-blooded, dyed-in-the-wool amateur photographer would have immediately asked what the little button on the bottom of the a57 is for. I did, and it is the Preview button. If you push this near-unnoticeable button while in Auto Aperture, it will display for you the full depth of field effect of the shot, with the blurred fore-and background to either side of the focal plane. I am still testing this, as I can already clearly see depth of field in the WYSIWYG display/viewfinder. There are lots of APS-C sensors out there. The a57's APS-C sensor has comparatively good sized individual sensors, which is just one small part of all of the tech working together in the a57 to result in great video and picture quality. I know of no camera that works harder to get at what you want, if you know what it is that you want to get to in the first place, that is... The a57 records in AVCHD 60P, and is about the only DSLR under a grand that can do that, apart from the other Sony's, like the a65, a77 & a99. And that is what I needed, and it works. I can rewrap and convert footage on my Macs w/no issue between Free MTS M2TS Converter, JES Deinterlacer & MPEG Streamclip, and get 50% frame rate reduction that way for good HD slow motion, though I can't watch the AVCHD natively on my Macs (no need to yet). I can watch a57 footage via VLC player, but with a stream rate of 26Mbps, my Macs are better at editing than AVCHD playback anyhow, and what I do is use Toast 11 with the Blu Ray plugin to burn to Blu Ray disc if I'm not going to a lesser stream rate. Toast 11 is stable and provides the option of crude Blu Ray menus if you need that for weddings and such, and it's not expensive. The a57 has a separate button for recording video, not the shutter button; it took me all of 2 tries to set that difference to memory. You can disable the button, if your fingers are in a constant and unknowledgeable flail. I've never had a problem with it and even if I did, I wouldn't call that a problem as I have actual real problems in life to deal with. As with any camera new to you, there will be subtle and not-so-much subtle differences. Low light performance is all there with the kit lens. I find that the kit lens has a little stiction in the zoom but there is an element of my own inexperience involved here; hand muscle memory for stylish manual video zooms is something that has to be worked at anyhow. The a57 is only dust sealed, not weather so one should have a rain sleeve in their bag just in case. Battery life is long with the camera. Though it doesn't have GPS, I happen to have a Pentax WG-2 GPS for that. The Sony a65 at about $200 more than the a57, has GPS that I believe tags every video key frame with GPS data, if you need that. Double-check first before picking one up, it's just what I read. If I thought the a65 were a better camera overall, I would have bought one of them, but 24mp is a lot of video color data and though I wasn't certain it would be a factor in post processing I'm happy to have avoided that possibility. The a77 though weather sealed, is a lot of money and some users have noted sloppy knobs after significant use cycles; I can't attest to that but since I can't afford an a77 anyhow, I am indifferent to the issue. I can't comment on the on-board stereo audio recording capability, haven't needed it yet - but there is a stereo mini plug jack to connect an external microphone. I haven't been paying ANY attention to sound yet and that bit me in the boo boo recently as I learned from a colleague that a slow motion test of mine had slowed audio, that then cut out halfway through the video leaving silence for the remainder! Of course I had expected the audio would be played back at 1/2 speed, but I did not anticipate the truncation. When I get to the point of working with on-board camera audio in a project, I hope to remember to post my impressions of it here. The a57 is dust sealed however the sensor cleaning is accomplished through vibration cycles. I find that a bit unnerving and so I try to carefully prep when swapping out lenses; if swapping where you can ground out static electricity with a wrist ground strap that might be worth the bother; setting down a lens on a surface with a pre-existing static charge and dust, could cause a static attraction with dust lifted to the lens that could then become pulled in to the camera sensor if the camera were differently charged than the lens, and we don't want that. The sensor can do 16X9 or 4X3; in 16X9 you are not using the whole sensor, but since full HD is only 2.1Mp or so anyhow the subset of this 16MP sensor is sufficient. I have been running in 16X9 but then I mostly shoot video with it. The low light capability, short focal length of the 18X55 lens, huge sensor (comparative to camcorder) and enormous fun of playing with depth of field in video, and smooth realtime video autofocus make the a57 just hugely fun to plan and shoot video with, and there is a uniqueness to DSLR video shot with this feature set. It's a frontier camera, but sans weather sealing, not perhaps a camera FOR the frontier. About the viewfinder, it is a full WYSIWYG so you don't have to push down the button halfway to know what you're dealing with, in most instances. And you don't have to look from the viewfinder to the display all of the time to change settings, it's all on whichever you want. It has diopter adjustment which is a big help for those of us who need it. The feature set is so rich with this camera and I haven't done it justice but you can read of the camera's excellence in other reviews. I will update this review occasionally, as I learn more about the a57. It is now my primary camera. Thanks for reading, hope this helps you to make an informed choice.

I have used a Sony SLT-a55 for the past year and a half and purchased a number of the Sony and Zeiss professional lens. This combination has produced very good output. Some of the finest pictures I have ever taken were with the a55. However I was annoyed that the camera was not as responsive as my a700 and the overheating problem during video recording. So I preordered the SLT-a57 March 18th and it arrived yesterday. I have only had the camera one day and I am very impressed and think the upgrade from the a55 is very good. I think the Sony SLT cameras offer an excellent feature set. I am a fan of the EVF technology. Much of my photography is done shooting stage events where the lights vary greatly across the stage. I love being able to see the adjustments of the camera setting in the EVF and shoot without needing to refer to the output on the LCD screen. What you see is what you get. I can concentrate on the subjects and wait for just the right moment in the action. I prefer to compose the scene through a VF anyway. I no longer take an OVF camera to stage events. Getting the right exposure is so easy with an SLT camera. The exposure on stage can easily vary from 1/30 to 1/640 sec at F4 depending upon the subject position relative to the lighting, especially spotlights. I no longer do any exposure bracketing. I also enjoyed the continuous focus during video recording (DLSR AF during zooming while video recording is poor), and in camera HDR feature that works very well. I do prefer an OVF camera for studio work with strobes. I have been very impressed with two other features of the SLT-a57 already. The first one is focus peaking during manually focusing. I have poor eyesight and could no longer manually focus a scene. But with the focus peaking feature my manual focusing that been restored. It is like a part of my vision has been restored. I now would buy a Sony SLT or NEX camera just for this feature alone. The other feature that appears very impressive is the clear zoom feature where the picture quality is processed and improved over what one usually gets from a digital zoom which degrades the IQ. You can zoom up to 2.8x on any lens attached to the camera. I have uploaded two pictures for you to see the magnification of my CZ 16-80 zoom lens at 80mm while lighting the subject with bounce flash (These are jpg pictures right out of the camera. Notice the knots on the beaded jug as a reference). I now will have a very nice combination with my a77 for event photography with some SSM lens. I want to thank the engineers at Sony for this feature set. In the past I felt that Sony offered some excellent lens but that each of their camera models was lacking an important feature. Now I feel that Sony has produced two excellent cameras in the SLT a77 (I bought it for its AF system (which is great) and the ability to micro adjust lens focus) and the SLT-57 model. They are very fun to use with a super feature set. They are fast, feel good in the the hand and produce very nice pictures indeed. I tested the clear zoom feature further tonight and I think that it works as advertised which is amazing. You can digitally magnify the image up to 2.8x more while still retaining very good image quality through Sony's image enhancement feature. I included some pictures taken with my telephoto lens on the Sony a57 product page here on Amazon shot at an 8 Mp resolution. Look for yourself. I made my 200mm telephoto lens a 400mm with the push a button. There is a picture taken with my 400mm lens for comparison. It doesn't look like a gimmick to me. 4-29-12 I uploaded more pictures to the Sony SLT-a57 product page after a trip out "birding" with an 400mm lens. I think people interested in photographing wildlife should consider this camera. Update: 5-23-12. Recently, I shot 3 stage events and I am satisfied that this camera's clear zoom feature works just as well indoors as outdoors. I was very impressed with the reach of this camera and the IQ of the images using it with a Tamron 70-200mm f 2.8 lens. I did not need to go above 1600 iso to get the shutter speeds I needed even with dancers and felt no need to do any noise removal in post proceeding. The feature set of this camera gives one so many options. Using the focus peaking feature with manual focusing more and more. Another problem that is resolved when using the SLT-a57 when shooting stage events (formal concerts like choir or orchestra) or weddings is how quiet the shutter is. It is almost silent. In the past using a OVF camera with a moving mirror I could not get the shots I wanted for fear of causing shutter noise at a time when everyone in the audience should be quiet like when a soft song was being played or sung or when the couple is exchanging vows during the wedding. I would have to wait until a rise in volume occurred so the shutter noise would not be noticed. Often during concerts I shoot video and take still pictures (with two different cameras) at the same time. Then when I played the video back I could hear every shutter click when using the OVF camera like my a700 or a580. What a pain. Now I record video and shoot with the SLT-a57 at the same time and I do not hear the shutter in the video at all. Now I shoot whenever I want during the event. I love the freedom a quiet shutter mechanism gives me. The a77 also has a very quiet shutter as well. I am very happy with this purchase. Update 10/27/12. I have shot with this camera for another 6 months and my satisfaction has only grown. I love the focus peaking feature for manual focusing. It is the best focus assist system for manual focusing in the world. I have shifted over to become a full manual mode shooter. I now have raised my photography to another level. Another feature have works excellent as well is sweep panorama. My sunset pictures are even better. I do agree with other people that Sony needs to improve the jpg engine of all their cameras especially with shooting in the shade. Anyway this is a class leading camera. An excellent choice for someone starting photography. Update 11/30/13. I wanted to add a short update. I am still shooting with this camera. I cycle and hike a lot and even though I also own an RX100 I take the a57 with me most of the time. It is my outdoor activity camera and I have use the in camera HDR and panorama feature all the time with the focus peaking. That allows me to put the focus right where I want it in the scene. My preferred lens with this camera is the Sony 16-50mm f2.8 SSM. It takes sharp landscape pictures. I am also fond of a light weight and "poor man's" telephoto lens. The Tamron 200-400m f5.6. My copy is sharp at 400mm. The a57 camera and those two lenses stay in a backpack where I can just grab them and go. Sometimes I will include the Sigma 70mm macro for closeups. Also I have really enjoyed using the a57 with the Sony 15-50mmf2.8 SSM for video. This setup is silent and the camera does a very good job metering the stage productions I video. I can keep the exposure compensation and the clear zoom adjustments on the live view LCD and make silent and easy adjustments to the image. I just shot a high school play for the drama department and was very happy with the results. The AF with phase detection was very accurate and quick. I was very pleased that the camera never hunted once as it reestablished focus as I changed scenes. Canon is trying to make a big deal about their AF with video with the 70D. Now not is news of a new feature to me I have already been using AF during video for a year and a half. I think the negative press that the Sony SLT cameras have received are such non issues (like the 1/2 stop loose of light from the fixed mirror). Now this camera is an old model and can be bought at very good prices. I just have enjoyed this camera so much.

Item was returned.

The A57 camera had some intriguing functions at a fairly low price. Unfortunately its build quality and longevity left a great deal to be desired. As an owner of several DSLR type cameras before, I was amazed to have had three major camera failures within the first six months of owning the camera. Sony did repair the camera each time under warrant but it was incredibly difficult to rely on the camera. Worse, every time the camera was repaired, it was fixed with used parts. Eventually they replaced the camera's shutter, its focus motor, and the kit lens. Even then it still had focusing problems. Finally enough became enough and the camera was replaced. Apparently the kit lens, which may have been upgraded by this time, was well known for having focusing and blurring issues. There is a manual focusing trick that helped focus the lens as a fix. Some owners were able to get brand new replacements after having similar issues but I had no such luck. Unfortunately other camera manufacturers are not much better with quality control and my experience might have really have been a bad model. (I had an NEX 3 camera years ago which worked fine). The camera itself had some great features such as a high speed shooting and fast auto focusing (when it worked). One issue was its low light photos. It had less than ideal quality when capturing low light images. Another issue was the jpeg engine which often blurred or over softened details to deal with noisy images. The camera also did not take standard TTL flashes, requiring more expensive Sony branded models. For these reasons, I finally gave up on the camera.