Page 17 - Friedman Archives

Chapter 1 THE A77 II IN A NUTSHELL

When the original A77 was introduced, it set a world record for the highest
pixel density of any consumer camera ever released – 24 megapixels
squeezed into an APS-C-sized sensor. At last you could get very high
resolution images while shooting sports at very fast shot-to-shot speeds!
And while this was indeed a world-class engineering achievement, too
many people derided the camera’s other characteristic – the high pixel
density required to squeeze 24 megapixels into such a small size meant
more noise at high ISOs. And this, rightly or wrongly, is what the camera
became known for.
A few years passed. Sony, a company which is now making a big impact
as they shake up the entire camera industry with new technology, new
systems, and new sensors, decided to go incremental: keep everything that
was right about the original A77 and make subtle yet important
improvements under the hood. It may look like the same camera on the
outside, but inside the guts are totally redesigned.
While it’s true that the mirrorless cameras are getting all the love in online
discussion forums nowadays, the part of me that is old school really loves
the A77 II for all the things it does better: it fits well in the hand, it has
buttons that let me change settings QUICKLY, it can take a telephoto lens
and still handle well, it can focus and track better than any CDAF camera,
and of course there's that underrated twist-and-flip display which I have a
hard time living without now (especially when shooting vertical portraits of
kids).
So what’s new in the A77 II compared to its predecessor? Below is a short
list.