Sony DSLR-A200 Review

Overview

Sony A200
Overview

by Shawn Barnett and
Siegfried Weidelich
Preview Date: 01/06/08
Full Review: 03/13/08

Sony's Alpha A200 is a relatively minor revamp to the electronics giant's first digital SLR, the A100, which itself was a more significant step up from the Konica Minolta 5D. The Sony A200 is lighter and smaller than the A100, and a good deal easier to use.

Sony claims improvements to the Sony A200's AF system that will make focus acquisition 1.7 times faster, thanks to the high-torque AF motor and improved AF sequence borrowed from the A700, and our test results do indicate a significant improvement.

Sony's Alpha-mount lens system is the oldest SLR autofocus system in the business, going back 28 years, so there's a broad and growing selection of lenses to choose from.

The Sony A200's 10.2-megapixel sensor is the same resolution as its predecessor, but it's said to let more light reach each pixel for lower noise and more detail.

Shaped to better match the sensor's 3:2 aspect ratio, the Sony A200's 2.7-inch "Clear Photo" LCD has an anti-reflective coating for easy viewing in the sun, and 230,000 pixels.

A new LCD-based function menu replaces the old dial-based function menu on the A100, and many of the menu functions and systems from the Sony A700 have made their way into the Sony A200.

New to the Sony A200 is a pop-up flash, rather than the old "pull-up" type. Now this consumer camera can deploy the flash in auto modes when necessary. Like most other digital SLRs, the user deploys the flash with a button on the left side of the lens mount housing, by the Sony A200's big orange Alpha logo.

The old battery icon has been augmented with a "percent remaining" indicator on the Sony A200, which reads "100%," in addition to displaying four bars to indicate battery status. Sony has created a new vertical battery grip (VG-B30AM) for the Sony A200 that duplicates many of the controls necessary for vertical shooting, and holds two InfoLITHIUM batteries, making the camera capable of shooting up to 1,500 shots.

Eye-start Autofocus, also from the A100, starts up the autofocus system so the Sony A200 is ready before you even match your eye up to the frame in most cases. Super SteadyShot sensor-based stabilization reduces blurry images with any lens mounted. Sony claims up to 3.5 stops of extra exposure with their body-based image stabilization system. Anti-dust is also built in, with a static-free coating on the CCD's filter that is shaken each time the camera is powered off.

The Sony A200 kit (DSLR-A200K) comes with a DT 18-70mm (3.9x) f/3.5-5.6 zoom lens for an estimated US$600.

A separate Sony A200 kit (DSLR-A200W) includes two lenses: the DT 18-70mm mentioned above, and a 75-300mm f/4.6-5.6 telephoto zoom for an estimated US$800.

Sony Alpha A200
User Report

by Shawn Barnett

Sony's Alpha line got off to a slow start until late Summer of 2007, when the company introduced the Sony A700, their camera for intermediate photographers. This year, things sped up. In January 2008 Sony introduced the A200, and less than a month later they followed up with the A300 and A350 in the same body style with a few more features than the A200. All three of the digital SLR cameras introduced this year are aimed at the consumer SLR market, and are surprisingly simple to use.

Omitting the Function dial/button combination has done a lot to make setting the Sony A200 and its brothers easier to use. Most settings are available via a button, with the drive and ISO buttons on the top deck, and less commonly changed items nested in the Function button on the back.

The Alpha A200 is smaller and lighter than the A100, though still a little larger than the Canon Rebel XTi. It's really not that different from the A100 in look or feel, with dimensions of 5.2 x 3.7 x 2.8 inches (133 x 95 x 71mm), and weighing 22 ounces (625g) with a battery and card loaded.

Look and feel. There's really only one major physical change from the A100 that affects both the top and the back of the Sony A200, but it makes a big difference. Here on the back, there's a new Function button that brings up a simply worded Function menu for easier access to commonly changed items. The A100 had a Function dial on the top deck that was a little more difficult to use. To change ISO, for example, you had to look at the top deck so you could turn the Function dial to ISO and press the Fn button nestled in the center of the dial, then tilt the camera forward to look at the LCD, and use the Controller or Main dial to select the ISO. Having the Fn button on the back makes more sense, because your main interface to the camera is the LCD.

The 2.7-inch LCD is a little wider to accommodate the 3:2 aspect ratio of the Sony A200's sensor. The images still don't fit exactly in the frame, slightly letterboxed with a black bar top and bottom. Note the new battery indicator icon with the numerical percent-remaining display.

Another minor change is the left-right orientation of the Super SteadyShot switch on the back, and the deletion of the Remote connector, which has been moved to the left side of the Sony A200, under the rubber door, a much better location.

With the Function dial now replaced by software, the Mode dial has room to move to the left side of the pentamirror housing, making the top deck very clean. The Drive button has been moved left to make room for the ISO button. This used to reside on the Function dial, but I think ISO is important enough to warrant its own button. I use both of these buttons quite often. Note the addition of something that was missing on the Sony A100: the Focal plane indicator just right of the ISO button.

There's one additional icon on the Mode dial: the No-flash Full-Auto mode, for when you don't want the Sony A200 to exercise its new ability to pop up the flash.

Missing from the front of the Sony A200 is the depth-of-field preview button, which was present on the A100. Sony might have thought it wasn't worth the extra cost for a feature that most consumers won't know how to use. Frankly, I seldom use the feature myself on other SLRs. It's hard to see much difference in such a small viewfinder, and it's easier to just snap a shot and zoom in on the larger LCD screen. Whatever the reason, it's good to consider if optical depth-of-field preview is important to you. Though that begs for such a feature with the Live View mode, I doubt the tiny secondary sensor would do much better than my eye with the lens stopped down.

Grip. The Sony A200's grip has a nice sculpted divot, quite similar to the A100. Appearing on more digital SLR cameras, this divot helps you quickly acquire a proper hold on the camera.	Left side. The Remote control and DC-in sockets are now together, covered by a rubber door that opens from the front. Upper left in the now-traditional location is the manual flash release button, which activates an electronic switch to let the flash pop up. Lower left is the autofocus selector switch.

Powering it up. Sliding the power switch on the upper left of the Sony A200's rear lights up the main LCD's Status display briefly and you can hear the lens motor quickly whirring. If the lens's focus mechanism is out, the Sony A200 will pull the lens back into the lens barrel, setting it to infinity. Wrapping my hand around the grip, I find a very comfortable hold, with a nice divot for my middle finger to center my hand; however, my fingers tend to rub up against the tapered lens mount body. It feels a little more cramped in there than on most other cameras, at least for my fingers.

When I bring the Sony A200 up to my eye, I'm greeted by another whirring noise: The infrared sensor just under the optical viewfinder has sensed my approaching face and started focusing on the nearest subject, and the lens is already slewing into focus. Focus is very often set quickly, thanks partly to this prefocus function. Sony says that the A200 focuses faster than the A100, and our test results bear that out. Where the A100 performed full autofocus and capture in 0.31 second, the Sony A200's time is 0.189 with the same lens. That's a pretty big improvement. And if you prefocus, the A100, whose shutter fired in 0.116 second, is bested by the Sony A200's 0.088 prefocus shutter lag time. (See the Performance tab of this review for more on the Sony A200's performance.)

The Sony A200's autofocus is pretty fast, overall, and the nine-point autofocus system works fairly well, but I've taken to locking it to the more accurate center AF point, as I do with most digital SLR cameras. The AE Lock button is perfectly placed for setting your exposure, moving the camera to an AF point, then moving back for the capture; and because they've re-tapered the back of the A200, it's a little more difficult to accidentally press the button than it was on the A100.

Fire! Press the shutter button on the A200, and you're greeted by a more competent, sharper sounding shutter than the A100's lethargic "rake-into-a-bucket-of-water" sloshing sound. Viewfinder blackout time, a more important factor, is also reduced thanks to the snappier mirror mechanism in the A200, making model and action photography a better experience.

Though I'm used to almost all digital cameras bringing up an immediate playback of the image I just captured, the Sony A200 is better behaved, not wanting to blind you in dark settings. It waits until you pull it away from your face before it displays the last image captured. You can turn this option off if you want to work a little faster, but it's not a bad idea if you work in dark places where a bright LCD might ruin your ability to capture a follow-up shot.

Playback. My favorite Playback mode has five images across the top, and a limited display across the bottom. The image currently displayed is underlined in orange. It makes reviewing changes across a range of similar images quite a bit easier. I wish the five thumbnails could come up a little more quickly, but that's somewhat card-dependent. The other very useful Playback screen is the full-data display, with a small thumbnail of the image, but with a more full set of data including the EV, metering mode, image size, and even the focal length of the lens, plus luminance, red, green, and blue histograms, useful for gauging proper exposure in a hurry.

Hitting the Zoom button in any of these playback modes (the AEL button) zooms the view in to 6.1x, a good magnification to check focus. From there, you can press the AEL button to zoom in up to 12x. Pressing the OK button takes you back to full screen view, where you can move the zoom box around the screen and press the OK button again to zoom back in.

Function Menu. Pressing the Fn (Function) button brings up a simple menu for adjusting most of the important items. Just use the Arrow pad to navigate to the desired option and press the center button to select your mode, in this case, the AF Area mode.

White balance. Of particular interest is the Sony A200's White Balance menu, which offers a very simple approach to a complicated subject. It's actually identical to the A100's White Balance system, but the interface is slightly easier now. Just use the up and down arrows to pick a white balance method, and use the left and right arrows to adjust the color bias of that particular setting. If you've chosen Tungsten, for example, but your light source is just a little off from the norm, hit the left arrow button to make the image a little bluer, or to the right to make it a little more yellow or orange.

If you know a little more about color balance, you can switch to Kelvin mode and dial in the right color temperature, and add green and magenta filters. You can use the A200 as a gauge by moving to Custom mode, which will ask you to take a picture of a white or neutral object and dial in the correct temperature and filter setting to match. There are no pretty graphics to accompany the adjustment, as is more common on other cameras, but it's pretty straightforward in practice.

Menu. The Sony A200's menu is also very easy to use, functioning like a tabbed menu and a scrolling menu. When you get to the bottom of the first tab's list, it automatically switches to the top of the next tab. This design makes it easy to scan through the items looking for what you need. If you see that a given tab isn't what you need, regardless of where you are in the list, you can press the left or right arrow to move between tabs. It's a little confusing if you've been using a Nikon, where pressing the right arrow often selects a menu item, but it's not hard to get used to using the center button instead.

Flash. For the intended market, it's good that Sony made the A200's flash a pop-up design. The old one had to be lifted into place. Here you press a button on the left of the camera's pentamirror housing and it pops up. What that means is that the auto exposure modes can activate the flash when they deem it necessary, rather than suggesting the user raise the flash. The flash doesn't go up as high as the one on the A100, however, and that's probably because the bodies of the A200, A300, and A350 are molded to make room for the Live View mode components in the latter two cameras. The flash on the A100 is hinged much further back, where the A200's is hinged about 3/4-inch forward. The flash bulb also ends up a little more forward, but that still means you'll have trouble with some lenses and lens hoods, which will block the short little strobe's light over much of the frame.

Storage and Processing. The Sony A200, like the A100 and A700, uses a compact flash card for memory storage. At right you can see the USB port, which is only revealed with the card door open.

Worst case buffer clearing time was 14 seconds in single shot mode. The most most shots the buffer would hold was 8 with our Kingston 266x 2GB card, and the buffer cleared in 11 seconds. The A200 captured 2.81 shots per second.

That's all great when comparing the Sony A200 to other cameras tested on the same target in our lab, but I kept running into odd slowdowns that I couldn't explain. Most often, I could shoot and shoot, up to 17 shots in continuous mode with no slowdowns, and at other times the Sony A200 would slow down after just three shots. It seemed to be related to Advanced DRO (Dynamic Range Optimization) mode, so we tested it out in the lab.

After eliminating differences in the lenses and card speed, we finally realized that when you throw more work at the Advanced DRO mode, giving it too many dark and light components in an image, it'll throttle the camera's frame rate back dramatically after three frames. Give that same lighting situation to Standard DRO or DRO Off, and the slowdown doesn't occur. So it seems that the Sony A200 is evaluating how much work it'll have to do to process the images and is slowing the camera down so it can do its work. So beware that if you want to benefit from Advanced DRO processing, you might run into slowdowns based on the relative contrast and detail of your subject. It's better to use Advanced DRO for special circumstances, and stick to Standard DRO for everyday work.

Dynamic Range Optimization. Dynamic Range Optimization's purpose is to prevent highlights from blowing out and shadows from plugging, and it comes in two varieties. The Standard DRO attempts to optimize the tone curve across the entire image, and Advanced DRO applies its algorithm differently in each area of the image if necessary. You'll find more highlight and shadow detail in the Advanced DRO images but overall image contrast can actually decrease, depending on the subject.

DRO off	Standard DRO	Advanced DRO
Subtle differences. DRO wasn't exactly designed for well-lit test targets, but here in the cloth swatches on our Still Life target you can begin to see some differences. With Dynamic Range Optimization off, the camera had to make a decision between rendering the black cloth above to preserve detail or keep detail in the white cloth instead. To my eye, the black cloth won. Standard DRO looked at the entire image and made the opposite decision, bringing more detail to the white cloth, and boosting contrast in most of the mid-tone cloths -- in fact, making the white cloth more mid-tone than it actually is -- and obscuring detail in the black cloth. In Advanced DRO, we see a mixture of the two approaches, preserving the general contrast of the non-DRO image while boosting contrast in the midtones.

Sony has raised the top ISO on the A200 to ISO 3,200 as the maximum level. They say that their new Bionz processor helps deliver lower noise at all ISO levels. The Sony A200 applies noise reduction in the RAW file at both ISO 1,600 and 3,200, according to Sony, and then applies it again after the usual image processing. It's unclear whether this noise reduction is applied to RAW images at lower ISOs. This might be undesirable for those shooting RAW as their main mode of storage.

Sony A200 Comparisons

Compared to XTi: Though it's slightly larger than the Canon XTi, the Sony A200 holds up nicely against this very popular competitor (shown here with the optional image-stabilized 18-55mm lens). Though the A200 is slightly bigger than the XTi, the A200 has a better grip.

Big brother. Next to its larger, more expensive sibling, the Sony A200 is much smaller, more affordable, and simpler to use.

Lenses & Accessories. The Alpha lens line includes 24 Sony-branded lenses that will work with the A200, plus dozens of older Minolta branded lenses that should also be compatible. You're probably better sticking with the newer designs, which are optimized for digital capture, and are designed to work with these latest cameras, but it's nice to know that you can use some of the old lenses, especially if you already have a bag of Minolta lenses at your disposal.

Twenty-Four. Sony Alpha cameras are backed up by 24 current lenses, plus two teleconverters.

Accessories for the A200 include the Vertical Grip (VG-B30AM), three conventional bounce flashes, plus a Macro Twin Flash Kit and a Ring Lite for macro and close-up work. Those interested in macro work might also want to look at the Angle Finder and Magnifier options.

Image Quality. The Sony A200's kit lens and its imaging sensor are of pretty good quality, competing favorably with its Nikon and Canon rivals of the same resolution. Below is a sample comparison between the Sony A200 and the Canon Rebel XTi, both at ISO 1,600. Though the A200 image is a little darker than the other, you can still see a difference in how the two cameras handle noise.

Sony A200	Canon Rebel XTi
Both shots show some noise at ISO 1,600, but the Sony A200 shows a little more noise suppression. The A200 leaves more noise processing artifacts that obscure some detail, while the Canon shot leaves more chroma noise (random dots of color) in the shadows, leaving a little more detail to work with. Printed results with the Sony A200 are pretty impressive, however, so this is only relevant when cropping or printing at very large sizes. This is a pretty good performance from either camera at ISO 1,600.

Performance at ISO 100 from both cameras is good, with the Sony A200's shots coming out a bit sharper than the Canon XTi's. Both were shot with our Sigma 70mm f/2.8 benchmark lenses, whereas if you go to the XTi review, you'll see images shot with our Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro, which isn't quite as sharp.

Sony A200 vs Rebel XTi at ISO 100. Exposure and angle are again a little different, but the Sony A200 is a little bit sharper, with a little less lens flare. It's easy to bring the XTi into similar sharpness, so this comparison mainly shows is that the Sony A200's sharpening is probably a little more aggressive by default, and that the image quality is comparable. Our printed results below will tell the rest of the story.

Shooting. The Sony A200 is really easy to shoot with. You can leave it in Full Auto mode most of the time, but my first time out with the A200 I ran into a situation that required me to adjust for difficult lighting that most point-and-shooters wouldn't be prepared to handle: Snow.

Snow. Bright backgrounds presents tricky exposure problems.

Here in Georgia, we're not often prepared for snow as it is, but I knew just what to do, and the Sony A200's use of a traditional location and interface made adjusting the exposure value easy. No matter what digital SLR camera or digital camera you buy, you should know about this simple exposure adjustment method. Just press the EV/AV button on the back and the Exposure compensation scale comes up on the LCD. Use either the Control dial on the top in front of the shutter button or the left and right buttons on the rear Controller to move the bright orange arrow to the setting you think you need. I first shot at +0.3 EV, but after a quick look at the excellent histogram display, I switched to +0.7 EV.

EV. Though this shot needs a little contrast tweak, at least the snow isn't too dark or too bright to fix.

Though snow fell all around us, the Sony A200 had no trouble focusing, and the metering handled the bright light pretty well, leaving detail in the highlights despite my EV compensation. I also found viewing and judging images on the screen was pretty easy, despite the enveloping white light all around us.

Most of the images needed some contrast adjustment once I got inside to give them a little more pop.

When shooting Gallery shots and casual portraits on a sunny day is when I ran into that DRO+ problem. Once portraits start, you need to be able to fire off as many as are necessary to catch mood and subtle face changes, so that was a frustrating discovery. Still, I was pleased with the results.

The Sony A200 was easy to get familiar with, and I found the new Function button arrangement to be much easier to use. Though most of the controls don't have their own button, that's probably the right idea for the A200. The most important buttons are ISO and Drive mode, and the other major adjustment items are under the Function button, so finding what you want to change is quick and easy. Consumer cameras should generally have fewer buttons and labels to prevent intimidation, and the Sony A200 strikes a good balance.

On paper. Printed results from the Sony A200 show that the company's noise suppression works pretty darn well, and their sensor is excellent. ISO 100 images held up well when printed at 16x20 inches, and would have been helped by a little more sharpening on the computer. Even ISO 400 images looked good at 13x19 inches, and ISO 800 and 1,600 were quite usable at 8x10. ISO 3,200 shots were still quite usable at 5x7, an excellent performance from a 10-megapixel digital SLR.

For more on Image Quality, please see our full analysis of Optics and Exposure for the Sony A200.

Analysis. I'm happy to report that Sony has shipped a digital SLR that I find easy to recommend to anyone, a position previously held mainly by the Nikon D40/D40x and Canon Rebel XT/XTi. The Sony A200's handsome, compact body fits well in most hands, and it is easy to learn and use on a daily basis. The Sony A200 has a large array of good quality lenses to choose from, and the kit lens turns out excellent images without much trouble.

Improvements in autofocus speed are real, and welcome, as is the ISO 3,200 setting; and the pop-up flash is a must for the consumer market that the Sony A200 is courting. As a people photographer, I really love the extremely short viewfinder blackout time, because it allows me to keep my eye on changing expressions and track unfolding events while grabbing shots. I was a little disappointed when the camera slowed down to process the Advanced DRO images, but once I learned about that problem, I just shot in Standard DRO mode, and used RAW when quality was my chief concern.

More than anything, I think I'm drawn to the Sony A200's decided lack of bells and whistles that would detract from its easy nature. For all the nifty features on other cameras, I'm more impressed by a camera that dazzles with its output more than its spec sheet.

Sony A200 Basic Features

• 10.2 MP Super HAD CCD delivering resolutions as high as 3,872 x 2,592 pixels
• 3.88x Kit lens, 18-70mm (27-105mm equivalent), f/3.5-5.6
• Optical viewfinder
• 2.7-inch Clear Photo LCD Screen
• ISO Sensitivity: 100 to 3200
• Shutter speeds: 30 seconds to 1/4,000 second
• Compact Flash Type I, II, Microdrive
• Lithium-ion battery
• Dimensions: 5.2 x 3.7 x 2.8in (133 x 95 x 71mm)
• Weight: 22 ounces (625g) with lens, battery, and card

Sony A200 Special Features

• Super SteadyShot in-camera image stabilization offers from 2.5 to 3.5 stops of compensation
• Bionz Image Processor
• Dynamic Range Optimizer: Normal DRO improves detail using standard gamma curves for fast shot-to-shot response time. Advanced DRO adjusts dynamic range area-by-area
• Anti-Dust Technology
• Auto Pop-Up Flash with four main operating modes and a variable Slow-Sync function
• External, proprietary flash hot-shoe for Sony accessory flash units
• Built-in support for wireless TTL flash exposure with certain Sony flashes
• Eye-Start Autofocus System
• 9-Point Center Cross AF Sensor
• Auto and Manual focus options with Single and Continuous AF modes
• 40-segment honeycomb metering system, plus Center-Weighted and Spot metering options, with AE Lock function
• Scene Selection Modes: Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports, Sunset and Night Portrait/Night View situations
• Creative Style Settings
• sRGB and Adobe RGB color space options
• RAW and JPEG file formats
• Contrast, saturation, and sharpness adjustments
• Adjustable White Balance setting with presets and a manual option, as well as a full range of Kelvin temperature settings
• Index and Slide Show Display
• High-Resolution Thumbnails for PhotoTV HD Viewing
• Function Guide Display
• Continuous Burst Mode at three frames per second
• "Storage-Class" USB 2.0 High-Speed interface
• USB 2.0 High-Speed cable and interface software for connecting to a computer and downloading images
• NTSC or PAL selectable video output signal, with cable included
• Optional wired remote control accessories
• DPOF (Digital Print Order Format), Exif 2.2, Print Image Matching III and PictBridge compliant

In the Box

The Sony A200 ships with the following items in the box:

• DT 18-70mm f/3.5-5.6 Zoom lens
• NP-FM500H rechargeable battery
• BC-VM10 battery charger
• Video and USB cable
• Body cap
• Shoulder strap with eyepiece cap and Remote Commander clip
• Instruction manual
• Software/USB Driver CD-ROM

Recommended Accessories

• Camera case
• Additional battery
• AC adapter
• External flash
• Big CompactFlash memory card, 2GB or larger recommended

Sony A200 Conclusion

Sony's SLR juggernaut got rolling early in 2008 with the Alpha A200, a simple, inexpensive, 10.2-megapixel digital SLR camera that takes some pretty impressive pictures. There isn't a whole lot to talk about in terms of new or revolutionary features, but that's not a strike against it. Rather than starting a revolution, the Sony A200 refines what was a good camera -- the A100 -- making it better in several important areas. It now confidently competes favorably with similarly priced digital SLR cameras from other manufacturers, and its big brothers, the A300 and A350 add just enough to take on the newcomers. Though it comes at a low price, the Sony A200 still offers an array of features that will help you make great pictures. Dynamic Range Optimization successfully makes up for common shortcomings in digital capture by rescuing highlight and shadow detail, and Super SteadyShot optimizes every lens in the line with sensor-shift image stabilization technology that delivers clearer images. The Sony A200's high ISO of 3,200 has noise and softness due to noise suppression, but you can actually get a decent 5x7 from this output, which is impressive.

Autofocus speed was indeed improved in the Sony A200, turning in very fast shutter lag numbers, meaning that you'll more likely get what you see when you press that shutter. Viewfinder blackout time is also quite good, allowing you to better keep your eye on the subject between shots. The Eye-Start AF sensors really do help you acquire focus more quickly, though I do wish it could be activated in concert with a grip sensor as on the A700 to avoid the AF system coming on when the A200 hangs around your neck. Optical performance from the Sony A200's kit lens is actually better than most kit lenses, and the lens has a good quality feel to it.

Though shot-to-shot performance was good, it was a little bothersome when the Advanced DRO mode slowed the camera's frame rate down significantly. We recommend using Advanced DRO sparingly, or only in situations where rapid capture is not important. It's a slight disadvantage that the Alpha line uses a proprietary flash hot shoe, because common flashes, cords, and accessories that you may already have will not work with the Alpha cameras. Adapters do exist, though, so there's a way to make it work.

While the Sony A200 won't make you do back flips for its techno-gadgetry, the Sony A200 does instill confidence. If you're like me, gadgetry isn't what you buy an SLR for; you just want great pictures. The Sony A200 delivers. It works very well, is easy to understand and use, and most importantly it produces great images. The technological gadgetry that it does have is all directed toward that purpose, and Sony's execution is excellent. In that respect the Sony A200 reminds me a lot of the Canon 20D: not designed to impress with anything but its ability to make great images. At the end of the day, when you're sitting at your computer appreciating your photographs, you'll appreciate the Sony A200 all the more for what it's given you. Those wanting Live View might want to look at the Sony A300 or A350, but if you just want a good quality digital SLR camera that does what it's supposed to, check out the Sony A200, an easy Dave's Pick.

Design

Sony A200 Design

The A200's all-black, compact body measures 5.2 x 4.0 x 2.9 inches (131 x 99 x 71 millimeters) without the 18-70mm lens attached; and weighs 22 ounces (625 grams) with the lens, battery, and memory card. While the A200 isn't small enough to fit into a pocket or purse, it is light enough to carry on vacation thanks to the plastic body panels. You'll want a camera bag for better protection and portability, but the positions of the eyelets for the included neck strap at least let the camera hang level with the standard lens.

Roll-over the various controls and features with your mouse for a brief description.

Sony A200 Front View

The camera's front panel has the bayonet lens mount, lens release button, Self-Timer lamp, and the front of the pop-up flash compartment. Gone is the Depth of Field Preview button the A100 has. Also visible from the front of the camera are the Shutter button and Front Control dial, located at the top of the hand grip. An indentation near the top of the hand grip comfortably cradles your middle finger as it curls around the grip.

Sony A200 Left Side

The left side of the camera has a connector compartment covered by a rubbery flap. Inside the compartment are the wired Remote and DC-IN jacks. The Auto / Manual focus switch is also visible just below the lens release button housing. At the top is the other neck strap attachment eyelet. Also from this view, the pop-up flash button is visible on the side of the pop-up flash unit.

Sony A200 Right Side

The right side of the camera has the CompactFlash memory card slot, covered by a hinged plastic door. The Sony A200 accommodates Type I or II CF memory cards, including Microdrives. Nestled inside the compartment door is the shared-use A/V Out / USB 2.0 jack for direct connection to a computer or television set. At the very top of the right panel is one of the two neck strap attachment eyelets.

Sony A200 Top View

The top panel accommodates the pop-up flash compartment and external flash hot shoe, the latter protected by a sliding, removable plastic cover. The hot shoe employs a proprietary electrode setup and mounting bracket for Konica Minolta and Sony accessory flash units, which isn't compatible with generic hot-shoe flashes, nor with Sony's older hot shoe flash units for the F828 and R1, like the HVL-F32X. In addition, there are a number of controls that access various camera functions, including the Exposure Mode Dial, Drive Mode button, ISO button, front Control dial, and Shutter Release button.

Sony A200 Back View

The remaining controls are on the camera's rear panel, along with the optical viewfinder and 2.7-inch LCD monitor. The A200's optical viewfinder is surrounded by a flexible, removable arch, and features two sensors below it that detect when your eye is brought up to the viewfinder. (You can enable these sensors through the Custom menu to automatically detect your eye in front of the viewfinder and disable the information display on the LCD monitor, cutting out any distracting glare; it also begins the autofocus process before you press the shutter halfway.) A diopter adjustment dial on the right side of the eyepiece adjusts the view for eyeglass wearers. Controls on the left side of the rear panel include the Power switch, and the Menu, Display, Delete, and Playback buttons. On the other side of the LCD monitor are the eight-way Controller with an AF button / OK button at its center, with the Function button just above it and the Anti-Shake switch just below. Toward the top of the rear panel and to the right of the optical viewfinder are the Exposure Compensation button (Zoom Out) and the AE Lock button (Zoom In).

Sony A200 Bottom View

The camera's bottom panel is fairly flat, with a the metal tripod mount centered beneath the lens. Also on the bottom panel is the camera's battery compartment, which features a locking, hinged door.

Operation

Sony A200 Operation

The Sony A200's user interface is among the simplest on the market, which makes it easy to recommend to most beginners. Anyone familiar with the A100 will notice a few changes. The Function Dial is now a Function button and menu screen, and a few of the camera's previous menu options have been moved around.

The Sony A200's external dials and buttons access essentially all of the main camera settings, reserving the LCD menu system for less commonly-used functions. The Control dial accesses shutter speed and aperture settings, in addition to a wide range of functions when used with other control buttons. In Manual mode, pressing and holding the EV compensation button on the camera's back shifts the Control dial to adjusting the Aperture value. Most of the camera adjustments are made by pressing a button, and turning the Control dial. Menus are navigated with the eight-way Controller on the back of the A200, and all nine AF points can be selected when in Local AF selection mode.

Sony A200 Record Mode Displays

The Sony A200's rear-panel, 2.7-inch, TFT color LCD monitor is for image review, status display, and menu display. Unlike the higher-end Sony A300 and A350 DSLRs, the Alpha A200 doesn't offer a live view mode, so the LCD can't be used to frame shots.

Since the A200 does not have a top status LCD panel, the color LCD is put to good use to display various camera settings. While the Sony A200's battery life is quite good, using the LCD as a Status LCD can drain the battery more quickly than expected. But it does lower the cost, and the display offers a good array of information. Pressing the DISP button adds even more information to the display.

Sony A200 LCD Display Screen Info
1 - Shutter Speed 2 - Exposure Mode 3 - Exposure Compensation 4 - Flash Mode 5 - Flash Exposure Compensation 6 - Drive Mode 7 - Focus Mode 8 - Creative Style 9 - Battery Status 10 - Image Quality	11 - Aperture Value 12 - Exposure 13 - AE Lock 14 - ISO (Sensitivity) 15 - EV Scale 16 - Metering Mode 17 - AF Area 18 - D-Range Optimizer 19 - White Balance 20 - Remaining Shots 21 - Image Size

Display Rotation
Here's a nice ergonomic touch, carried over from the A100: The Sony A200 has an orientation sensor inside, and uses it to keep the display oriented in the right direction so the information will appear right-side up when viewed by the photographer, whether shooting horizontally, or in either vertical orientation. (For those who might be wondering though: No, it won't turn completely upside-down.)

Large- and Small-Type Options
Sometimes you don't need to see every last detail about the camera's operation, but rather prefer to concentrate on just the most important settings. The Sony A200 has two different display options, that apply to both the horizontal and vertical formatted data screens. The large-type/low-density option drops the details on metering mode, AF mode, Creative Style, Flash mode, and Contrast, Saturation, and Brightness settings.

Sony A200 Playback Mode Displays

In Playback mode, the LCD monitor's default mode shows the most recently captured image, with a limited information overlay reporting the resolution and quality, date and time, folder, file number, frame number, the total number of images, and a small selection of other exposure settings. Pressing the Display enables a histogram display, which also shows expanded exposure information for the image. Just above the information is a thumbnail of the image that alternately flashes any under and overexposed areas in the frame. (This function can sometimes be more helpful than the histogram, in that you can directly see what parts of the image are too dark or light.) Four histograms line the right side of the frame, one each for the red, green, and blue channels, and one representing the luminance of the image as a whole. Pressing the Display button again pulls up a type of index display, with a series of thumbnails of the other images on the card lining the top of the display. You can use the left and right arrows to change the main image display while keeping the thumbnails at the top of the frame. A fourth press of the Display button brings the image full-screen, with no information.

Pressing the Function/Rotate button lets you rotate the image. You can zoom in on captured images in Playback mode, by pressing the AE Lock button with the magnifying-glass icon. When zoomed in, the Front Control dial cycles through the other images on the card at the same enlargement, and pressing the center button of the multi-controller toggles between the magnified view and a full-frame view with the current magnified area outlined in yellow. The Exposure Compensation button zooms back out to the normal display. Once in normal display mode, another press of the Exposure Compensation button pulls up the index display mode.

Optics

Sony A200 Optics

The Sony A200 features a bayonet lens mount, which accommodates a range of Sony and Konica Minolta lenses. The Sony A200 comes with a Sony 18-70mm f/3.5 kit lens. A separate kit comes with both the 18-70 and a 75-300mm f/4.6-5.6 telephoto zoom lens. A small button on the front of the camera releases the lens from its mount, so it can be turned and removed. The A200's CCD is smaller than a 35mm frame, so the angle of view at any given focal length will not be the same as on a 35mm camera. To find the approximate 35mm equivalent focal length, multiply the focal length of the lens by 1.5. (Thus, a 50mm lens will provide about the same view as a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera.)

Alpha lens mount. The Sony A200's Alpha lens mount is compatible with the full array of Alpha lenses, both screw-drive and electronic autofocus models.

The Sony A200 provides both manual and automatic focus control modes, set by the Focus Mode switch on the left side of the camera. You can select between Auto and Manual focus modes. The Function button provides access to additional AF Area and focus mode options. The Autofocus Mode option under the Function menu offers Single-shot AF, Automatic AF and Continuous AF settings. Single-shot sets focus with each half-press of the Shutter button, while Continuous mode is constantly adjusting the focus, whether the Shutter button is pressed or not. The Automatic setting will lock focus on a still subject or continually adjust focus on a moving subject, for as long as the Shutter button is halfway pressed.

Autofocus Area also has three options available through the Function menu: Wide, Spot, and Local (manual setting). The default option is a nine-point Wide Focus area, indicated by an array of dashes inset within four widely-spaced brackets in the viewfinder image. You can override the chosen AF mode by pressing the Spot AF / OK button in the center of the Multi-controller, which defaults to the more accurate center AF point (the latter indicated by a target box in the center of the viewfinder). Wide AF bases its focus on the most prominent subject detail in the portion of the image that falls within the AF brackets. Spot mode bases its focus on the very center of the frame, where the square target resides. The Local setting is Sony's terminology for a manual AF area selection, and lets you manually set the main AF point by using the Multi-controller to highlight one of the nine AF points. The active AF area is briefly illuminated in the viewfinder.

Sony didn't include a depth-of-field preview button on the A200, nor on any of the new consumer models announced early 2008. Admittedly, that feature is less useful with such a small viewfinder, but this factor might put off some macro and landscape photographers.

Sony A200 AF Assist

The Sony A200 uses its built-in flash head as a very bright AF-assist light for better focusing in dim lighting. This has the advantage that the light from the flash is very bright, but the downside is that you can only get AF assist when the flash head is raised. This is a real limitation for available-light photography, as the camera can expose at light levels below those it can focus at. (Although its low-light focusing ability is much better than average.) If the camera is fixed on a tripod, you can work around this limitation, but it's somewhat awkward: With the flash head up, half-press the shutter button to make the camera focus. Then switch the focus mode to manual focus, being careful not to touch the focus ring on the lens. Stow the flash head, and then take your picture. (But don't forget to switch back to AF mode for the rest of your shooting!)

Sony A200 Anti-Shake

The Sony A200 also employs Sony's Super SteadyShot anti-shake technology, which uses a highly sensitive angular rotation sensor and Smooth Impact Drive Mechanism (SIDM) to move the CCD assembly itself to counteract camera movement, rather than the more common approach of moving an optical element inside the lens. This body-based anti-shake approach is based on technology Sony acquired from Konica Minolta, but Sony claims that a more powerful processor in the A200 increases the system's effectiveness beyond that of similar systems in previous Konica Minolta SLR models. (Theoretically, a faster CPU could let the system respond to and compensate for higher-frequency vibrations.)

Sony claims that the Super SteadyShot anti-shake system in the A200 provides a 2 to 3.5-stop reduction in the blurring produced by camera shake. Translating that into real-world shutter speeds, a two-stop improvement means that a shutter speed of 1/30 second would give you the same resistance to blur from camera shake that a speed of 1/120 would without anti-shake. A 3.5-stop improvement would mean you could shoot as slow as 1/11 second and get the same results (blur-wise) as when shooting at 1/120 second unaided. Even the lower end of the specified range of effectiveness means a pretty significant improvement in one's ability to hand-hold long exposures.

When Super SteadyShot is activated, the SteadyShot scale on the right side of the viewfinder display indicates the degree of stabilization. A downside to Sony's body-based SteadyShot approach is that while you can see the results of stabilization on competing lens-based designs, you have only this scale to tell you how the A200's SteadyShot mechanism is doing. SteadyShot minimizes the effect of blurring caused by slight camera movement, which is more noticeable at long focal lengths.

Sony A200 Anti-Dust Technology

To help combat dust particles on the CCD from changing lenses, Sony included both an anti-static coating on the CCD filter and an anti-dust vibration to automatically shake the CCD each time the camera is shut off.

Sony A200 Optical Test Results

Below are the results of our optical tests on the Sony A200. We used the 18-70mm kit lens as the benchmark, since most people will buy and use the camera in this configuration.

Lens

Zoom
Pretty good performance with the 18-70mm kit lens.

The Sony Alpha 200 comes with an 18-70mm kit lens, which is a fairly average optical zoom range of ~3.9x, but a little longer than most kit lenses. Details are reasonably sharp in the center of the frame at full wide-angle, with low levels of coma distortion but some noticeable blurring in the corners. Results at full telephoto are also quite good, though again, some blurring is noticeable in the corners of the frame.

Macro
A slightly larger macro area with the kit lens, with slightly soft details. Flash throttles down pretty well.

The Sony A200 captured a slightly larger macro area with the standard 18-70mm kit lens, measuring 3.17 x 2.12 inches (81 x 54 millimeters). Details were soft throughout the frame. There was also some additional softening in the corners from the lens. (Most lenses have some softening in the corners at macro distances.) The A200's flash throttled down for the macro area pretty well, despite some slight overexposure.

Distortion
Moderately-high barrel distortion with the 18-70mm kit lens, though low pincushion.

Barrel distortion at 18mm is 0.8 percent

Pincushion at 70mm is less than 0.1 percent

The Sony A200's 18-70mm kit lens produced about 0.8 percent barrel distortion at wide-angle, a little higher than average and noticeable in its images. At the telephoto end, the less than 0.1 percent pincushion distortion is fairly low. This is the tendency for the lens to bend straight lines outward (like a barrel -- usually at wide-angle) or inward (like a pincushion -- usually at telephoto).

Chromatic aberration
High and bright at wide-angle, but low at telephoto with the 18-70mm kit lens.

Chromatic aberration is high at the full wide-angle setting of the Sony A200's 18-70mm kit lens, showing about 15 pixels of bright coloration on either side of the target lines. Though it is bright, in some photographs it blends fairly well. At telephoto, distortion is much lower. (This distortion is visible as a slight colored fringe around the objects at the edges of the field of view on the resolution target.)

Corner Sharpness
Fairly strong blurring in the corners of the frame at both zoom settings with the kit lens.

The Sony A200's 18-70mm kit lens produced soft corners of the frame at full wide-angle and telephoto, noticeable in a few shots. The lens is also a little softer at telephoto than at wide angle.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 Photo Gallery .

Exposure

Sony A200 Exposure

The Sony A200 offers very good exposure control, with fairly fine-grained adjustment of image attributes like sharpness, contrast, and color saturation, as well as extensive White Balance offerings. The Exposure Mode dial on the top panel selects the main shooting mode, offering Manual, Shutter Priority, Aperture Priority, Program AE (Program Shift), Full Auto, Flash Off, and six Scene settings.

Sony A200 Exposure Modes

In straight Auto mode, the camera controls everything about the exposure, except for flash, zoom, and focus; but rather uniquely you can actually adjust every setting in the Function menu, including Flash, Autofocus, White balance, Metering, AF area, and Dynamic Range Optimization modes.

The Flash Off mode operates just like Auto, but disables the flash regardless of the lighting conditions.

Program AE mode keeps the camera in charge of the exposure, while you have control over all other exposure options. While in Program AE mode, you can rotate the control dial with or without holding the Exposure Compensation button to scroll through a range of equivalent exposure settings. Thus, you can bias your exposure toward a faster shutter speed or greater depth of field as circumstances dictate.

Aperture Priority mode lets you select the lens aperture setting, while the camera selects the most appropriate corresponding shutter speed.

In Shutter Priority mode, the user selects the shutter speed, from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds, while the camera chooses the best corresponding aperture setting.

Switching to Manual mode gives you control over both shutter speed and aperture, with a Bulb setting available for longer exposures. Exposure time in Bulb mode is determined by how long you hold down the Shutter button. There doesn't appear to be any limit to the duration of Bulb exposures, but it appears that the dark-frame subtraction will only compensate for exposures up to 30 seconds long. (I strongly recommend use of the optional wired remote in Bulb mode, as the pressure of your finger on the Shutter button is bound to jiggle the camera somewhat, blurring the image.)

Sony A200 Scene Modes

The six Scene modes include Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports Action, Sunset, and Night Portrait/Night View. Each optimizes the camera's exposure, white balance, and image processing systems for the particular program. Portrait biases toward wider apertures to defocus the background while capturing warm, soft skin tones. Sports Action maximizes shutter speeds with Continuous Autofocus and Continuous Advance Drive modes. Landscape produces sharp, colorful shots of outdoor scenery. Sunset handles the rich warm palettes of sunsets. The Macro setting boosts color in smaller subjects, and Night Portrait balances ambient light with the flash; turning off the flash enters Night View mode, which maintains a dark background when presented with night scenery.

Sony A200 Metering Modes

The Sony A200 offers three metering modes: Multi-segment, Center-Weighted, and Spot. The default metering mode takes readings throughout the image to determine exposure. Center-Weighted gives precedence to the center of the image while reading the whole frame. Spot metering options are also available via the Metering Mode dial on the rear panel. Spot metering, useful for high-contrast subjects, bases the exposure reading on the very center of the image, letting you set the exposure based on a small portion of your subject. You can also lock an exposure reading by pressing the AE Lock button on the back panel. Halfway pressing the Shutter button also locks exposure and focus, but only in autofocus mode.

Sony A200 ISO Range, Noise Reduction, and Exposure Compensation

The Sony A200's light sensitivity can be set to ISO equivalents of 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,600 or 3,200, or it can be left in Auto mode for the camera to adjust as it sees fit.

A Noise Reduction option is available both for longer exposures and higher ISO settings, and greatly reduces the amount of image noise that would otherwise result.

Exposure compensation is adjustable from -2 to +2 exposure equivalents (EV) in one-third-step increments by turning the Control dial while pressing the Exposure Compensation button, which displays the scale and setting on the LCD monitor. Two Auto Exposure Bracketing options are available. Bracket: Continuous snaps three shots in rapid succession if you hold down the shutter, varying the exposure between each in steps of 0.3 or 0.7 EV units. If you only shoot one shot in this mode, it keeps shooting just the unmodified shot, which is great when you only want to bracket occasionally. Bracket: Single takes one shot per shutter squeeze at each setting, separated by either 0.3 or 0.7 EV.

Sony A200 White Balance Options

The Sony A200 offers convenient control over white balance, color rendition, and tonal range. You adjust white balance through the Function menu, which offers Auto, Daylight, Shade, Cloudy, Tungsten, Fluorescent, Flash, Color Temperature or Custom settings. Auto lets the camera choose the white balance itself. Within the preset modes, you can also fine tune the white balance by pressing the right and left arrow keys. Custom allows you to calibrate the camera to a specific lighting situation by pointing to a white or neutral object. Color Temperature lets you select a specific color temperature in degrees Kelvin. You can apply color filters to really tune your white balance between green and magenta bias. There's also a White Balance Bracketing mode, with options of High and Low adjustment. With each frame captured, three shots are saved with three different white balance settings.

Sony A200 Creative Style Menu

The Creative Style menu option under the Record menu offers a selection of presets for varying subjects, including Standard (faithful color reproduction), Vivid (increased contrast and sharpness), Portrait (optimized skin tones), Landscape (optimized daytime outdoor scenery), Night View (optimized for nighttime scenery without flash), Sunset (optimized landscapes at dusk or dawn), Black & White, and Adobe RGB. Within each preset, you can manually adjust the image contrast, saturation, and sharpness in five steps from -2 to +2 arbitrary units.

Sony A200 Drive Modes

The Sony A200's Drive Mode button on the top panel accesses a range of shooting modes, including Single Frame Advance, Continuous Advance, 10-second, and Two-second Self-timer modes, Continuous Advance Bracketing, Single Frame Bracketing, and White Balance Bracketing. The first two bracketing modes access the camera's Auto Exposure Bracketing system. In Continuous Advance mode, the Sony A200 captures a rapid series of images, with a maximum frame rate of three frames per second (in our tests it was actually 2.81 frames per second). White Balance Bracketing saves a series of images for each shot taken with bracketed white balance values.

The shorter, two-second self-timer mode delay is very handy when you need to prop the camera on something to take a photo in dim lighting, and don't want the pressure of your finger on the shutter button to jiggle the camera. The 10-second delay is long enough that you can run around to get into the photo yourself. An LED lamp on the front of the A200 blinks and the camera beeps as the 10-second Self-Timer is counting down, the blink and beeps becoming faster in the last few seconds.

The images above were taken from our standardized test shots. For a collection of more pictorial photos, see our Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 Photo Gallery .

Not sure which camera to buy? Let your eyes be the ultimate judge! Visit our Comparometer(tm) to compare images from the Sony Alpha DSLR-A200 with those from other cameras you may be considering. The proof is in the pictures, so let your own eyes decide which you like best!

Performance

Sony A200 Performance

Imaging

Sony A200 Imaging

Color

Saturation & Hue Accuracy
Good overall accuracy and saturation, with only minor shifts in hue and intensity.

In the diagram above, the squares show the original color, and the circles show the color that the camera captured. More saturated colors are located toward the periphery of the graph. Hue changes as you travel around the center. Thus, hue-accurate, highly saturated colors appear as lines radiating from the center.

Saturation. The Sony A200 pushes strong reds and blues just a little, but actually undersaturates bright yellows, greens, and cyan tones slightly. Thus, color saturation is a little truer to life. Most consumer digital cameras produce color that's more highly saturated (more intense) than found in the original subjects. This is simply because most people like their color a bit brighter than life.

Skin tones. Here, with the color balanced properly for the light source, the Alpha A200's skin tones looked just about right. There were some slight red tints in places, but overall skin tone looked natural. Where oversaturation is most problematic is on Caucasian skin tones, as it's very easy for these "memory colors" to be seen as too bright, too pink, too yellow, etc.

Hue. The Alpha 200 showed only a few small color shifts relative to the correct mathematical translation of colors in its subjects, but had overall pretty good accuracy. Most noticeable was a shift in reds toward orange, and yellow toward green, with some slight shifts in cyans and blues. Still, color accuracy was quite good. Hue is "what color" the color is.

Saturation Adjustment
The Sony A200 has a total of seven saturation settings available, three above and three below the default saturation. This covers a pretty wide range of saturation levels, about as wide a range as you're likely to find photographically relevant, apart from special effects that are arguably better achieved in software. The fine steps between settings mean you can program the camera to just the level of saturation you prefer.

Saturation Adjustment Examples
-3	-1	0	+1	+3

The table above shows results with several saturation settings, see the Thumbnails index page for more (look for the files named A200OUTSAT0x.JPG). Click on any thumbnail above to see the full-sized image.

Sensor

Exposure and White Balance

Indoors, incandescent lighting
Good color with both the Manual and 2,700 Kelvin white balance settings, though warm results with Auto and Incandescent. About average positive exposure compensation required.

Indoors, under normal incandescent lighting, the Sony Alpha 200 produced warm color with its Auto and Incandescent white balance settings, Auto being the warmest of the two. Both the Manual and 2,700-degree Kelvin settings produced more accurate results. It was a bit of a toss-up between them, as the Manual setting was a hint warm and the Kelvin option a little more true to white value. Though the Manual setting did preserve a touch of the original mood, the 2,700-degree Kelvin mode produced the most accurate overall color. At +1.0 EV, the average amount of positive exposure compensation, the exposure is just a hair bright. However, results at +0.7 EV were too dim overall. Color looks good throughout the frame, with only the slightest purplish tints in the blue flowers. (Many digital cameras reproduce these flowers with a dark, purplish tint, so the Alpha 200 actually performs a little better than average here.) Our test lighting for this shot is a mixture of 60 and 100 watt household incandescent bulbs, a pretty yellow light source, but a very common one in typical home settings here in the U.S.

Outdoors, daylight
Great results under harsh lighting, with good handling of contrast, detail, and color.

Outdoors, the Sony Alpha 200 performed well, with overall good exposure, if slightly too bright. Contrast is a little high, as you might expect under such harsh lighting, but the camera does an excellent job of holding onto detail in both the deep shadows and bright highlights. The highlights were blown out a bit in the House shot, but not too badly. Color balance is good as well, with good saturation considering the bright lighting. The camera's contrast adjustment did a very nice job of toning down the exposure without creating any strong color variations in the skin (though skin tone does change slightly). Overall, very good performance.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Resolution
High resolution, 1,600 lines of strong detail.

Our laboratory resolution chart revealed sharp, distinct line patterns down to about 1,600 lines per picture height in both directions. Extinction didn't really occur, though lines began to merge around 2,000 lines. Use these numbers to compare with other cameras of similar resolution, or use them to see just what higher resolution can mean in terms of potential detail.

See full set of test images with explanations
See thumbnails of all test and gallery images

Sharpness & Detail
Sharp images overall, though minor edge-enhancement on high-contrast subjects. Minimal noise suppression visible.

Sharpness. The Sony Alpha 200 produced, good detail overall, but with slight softness. Some edge enhancement artifacts are visible on high-contrast subjects such as the crop above left, but overall results are still good. Edge enhancement creates the illusion of sharpness by enhancing colors and tones right at the edge of a rapid transition in color or tone.

Detail. The crop above right shows only minimal noise suppression, as the darker areas of Marti's hair show a lot of detail. Individual strands are still distinguishable even in the lighter shadows, though they begin to merge as shadows deepens. Still, good performance here. Noise-suppression systems in digital cameras tend to flatten-out detail in areas of subtle contrast. The effects can often be seen in shots of human hair, where the individual strands are lost and an almost "watercolor" look appears.

RAW vs In-Camera JPEGs
As noted above, the Sony A200 does a pretty good job at balancing between sharpness and visible sharpening artifacts in camera JPEGs. A little more detail can be obtained from carefully processing RAW files though, without additional artifacts. Take a look below, to see what we mean:

Camera JPEG (Fine)	RAW via Sony IDC	RAW via ACR

In the table above, mousing over a link at the bottom will load the corresponding crop in the area above. Examples include in-camera Fine JPEG (the A200 doesn't have an Extra-Fine setting like the A700), RAW file processed through Sony's Image Data Converter SR version 2 software, and RAW file processed through Adobe Camera Raw version 4.3.1, then sharpened in Photoshop. (I've found that sharpening results in ACR are inferior to those obtained with the Unsharp Masking tool in Photoshop itself. For the Sony A200's images, I found best results with no sharpening at all in ACR and then 250% unsharp masking with an 0.3 pixel radius.)

Note: ACR renders colors somewhat differently than either the A200 or the Sony software, so the greens in the trees are rather different. There's no mistaking the increase in detail though, regardless of changes in color or tone.

ISO & Noise Performance
Low noise at the normal sensitivity settings, with good results even at ISO 400. However, big jumps in noise at the highest settings.

ISO 100 Noise Reduction	ISO 100 Noise Reduction Off
ISO 200 Noise Reduction	ISO 200 Noise Reduction Off
ISO 400 Noise Reduction	ISO 400 Noise Reduction Off
ISO 800 Noise Reduction	ISO 800 Noise Reduction Off
ISO 1,600 Noise Reduction	ISO 1,600 Noise Reduction Off
ISO 3,200 Noise Reduction	ISO 3,200 Noise Reduction Off

The Sony Alpha 200 produced low noise at its lower sensitivity settings, and even at ISO 400, noise isn't terribly high. At ISO 800, the noise level increases, but the camera still holds onto a lot of fine detail. Even with Noise Reduction turned off at ISO 800, fine detail is still good. At the higher settings of 1,600 and 3,200, noise levels are much higher, but even here detail is arguably pretty good for this level of sensitivity. Activating Noise Reduction does blur details more than without anti-noise processing, but results are still more favorable because of the less distinct noise pixels.

Extremes: Sunlit and low light tests
High resolution and good exposure at the default setting. Very good shadow detail. Very good low-light performance, capable of capturing bright images in near darkness.

Sunlight:
The Sony Alpha 200 handled the deliberately harsh lighting in the test above pretty well. Though contrast is a little high, shadow and highlight detail are very good. The camera's contrast adjustment also did a good job of decreasing overall contrast without producing strong color variations. The default exposure did the best job here, as even the tiniest nudge to +0.3 EV produced very strong highlights. Be sure to use fill flash in situations like the one shown above; it's better to shoot in the shade when possible.

Because digital cameras are more like slide film than negative film (in that they tend to have a more limited tonal range), we test them in the harshest situations to see how they handle scenes with bright highlights and dark shadows, as well as what kind of sensitivity they have in low light. The shot above is designed to mimic the very harsh, contrasty effect of direct noonday sunlight, a very tough challenge for most digital cameras. (You can read details of this test here.)

Contrast Adjustment
We really like it when a camera gives us the ability to adjust contrast and saturation to our liking. It's even better when those adjustments cover a useful range, in steps small enough to allow for precise tweaks. Just as with its saturation adjustment, the Sony A200's contrast setting meets both challenges.

Minimum Contrast, normal D-R setting
Contrast set to lowest, +0.3 EV	Contrast set to lowest, Auto Exposure

At its lowest contrast setting, the A200 did an excellent job of preserving highlight detail, maintaining natural-looking skin tones, and holding nice detail in the shadows. The A200 captures good color outdoors, though just slightly on the warm side. Overall, very good results here, especially when the contrast setting is tweaked.

Contrast Adjustment Examples
-3	-1	0	+1	+3

The series of shots above shows results with several different contrast adjustment settings, showing the minimum step size around the default, as well as both extremes. While you can see the extremes, it's hard to really evaluate contrast on small thumbnails like these, click on any thumbnail to go to the full-size image.

One very nice feature of Sony's contrast adjustment is that it has very little effect on color saturation. Contrast and saturation are actually fairly closely coupled, it's a good trick to be able to vary one with out the other changing as well. Sony did a good job here.

Sony's DRO (Dynamic Range Optimization)
While the Sony A200's contrast adjustment feature works very well, their Dynamic Range Optimization system is a critical part of it. This system analyzes the range of brightness of each image, and adjusts the camera's image processing parameters accordingly, to make the best use of the available dynamic range. Three options are available on the A200: DRO Off, Standard D-R, and D-R Advanced. Unlike the A700, the A200 does not allow you choose the strength for the D-R effect. Standard D-R looks at the entire image and effectively adjusts contrast and brightness across the entire image for best effect. D-R Advanced analyzes everything, but makes local adjustments to bring out shadow detail and preserve highlights.

DRO Examples
DRO Off	DRO Standard	DRO Advanced

The crops above show the results of three DRO settings. They were shot in rapid succession, but you'll notice that minor movements by Marti mean that the shots aren't absolutely identical. The cropped areas are very closely equivalent in terms of light level though. As you can see, the bulk of the difference between different levels of DRO is found in the shadow areas. By default, the A200 shoots with DRO set to the Standard level. Interestingly, there's a pretty pronounced difference between DRO Standard and Off, in terms of exposure. I confirmed that the shots above were all captured with the same aperture and shutter speed settings, but the DRO Standard version is a good 2/3 of a stop or so lighter than the shot with DRO turned off entirely.

As noted in the A100 review, we felt that DRO had some limitations, but the technology seems to have matured very nicely in the intervening time since that model was introduced. It works well enough and with little enough impact on normally-lit subjects that I'd be entirely comfortable leaving it in Standard mode all the time. (Sony obviously felt so too (since it's on by default), but it's unusual that I would be comfortable leaving an image-tweaking option enabled by default.)

	1 fc 11 lux	1/2 fc 5.5 lux	1/4 fc 2.7 lux	1/8 fc 1.3 lux	1/16 fc 0.67 lux	1/16fc No NR
ISO 100	1.6 sec f2.8	2.5 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	8 sec f2.8	13 sec f2.8	13 sec f2.8
ISO 200	0.8 sec f2.8	1 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	4 sec f2.8	6 sec f2.8	5 sec f2.8
ISO 400	0.4 sec f2.8	0.5 sec f2.8	1 sec f2.8	2 sec f2.8	3.2 sec f2.8	3.2 sec f2.8
ISO 800	1/5 sec f2.8	1/4 sec f2.8	0.5 sec f2.8	1 sec f2.8	1.6 sec f2.8	1.3 sec f2.8
ISO 1600	1/10 sec f2.8	1/6 sec f2.8	1/4 sec f2.8	0.5 sec f2.8	0.8 sec f2.8	0.6 sec f2.8
ISO 3200	1/20 sec f2.8	1/15 sec f2.8	1/8 sec f2.8	1/4 sec f2.8	0.3 sec f2.8	0.4 sec f2.8

Low light. The Sony A200 performed very well on the low-light test, capturing usable images at the lowest light level with the lowest sensitivity setting (ISO 100). Images are a little dim at the lowest light level, but still usable. Color balance looked good with the Auto white balance setting, and the camera's autofocus system was able to focus on the subject almost down to the 1/8 foot-candle light level unassisted (down to the darkest light level with the AF assist enabled). Keep in mind that the longer shutter speeds here demand the use of a tripod to prevent any blurring from camera movement. (A useful trick is to just prop the camera on a convenient surface, and use its self-timer to release the shutter. This avoids any jiggling from your finger pressing the shutter button, and can work quite well when you don't have a tripod handy.)

How bright is this? The one foot-candle light level that this test begins at roughly corresponds to the brightness of typical city street-lighting at night. Cameras performing well at that level should be able to snap good-looking photos of street-lit scenes.

NOTE: This low light test is conducted with a stationary subject, and the camera mounted on a sturdy tripod. Most digital cameras will fail miserably when faced with a moving subject in dim lighting. (For example, a child's ballet recital or a holiday pageant in a gymnasium.) Digital SLRs like the Sony A200 do much better than point & shoots, but you still shouldn't expect a quick autofocus lock with moving subjects.

Output Quality

Print Quality
Great print quality, good color, sharp 13 x 19-inch prints.

The Sony A200's printed output is really impressive, able to output usable 16 x 20-inch prints at ISO 100. They're slightly soft, but really quite good. 13x19-inch prints are a little better, though. ISO 200 shots print the same as 100, producing a good 16x20 or great 13x19. ISO 400 images do just fine at 13x19, and of course are better 11x14, but not by much. ISO 800 shots are better printed at 8x10, because at 11x14, detail is marred by small circular noise suppression artifacts that are visible in dark objects. But at 8x10, they're gone. ISO 1,600 shots remain quite good at 8x10, even with noise reduction turned off. ISO 3,200 shots, however, need to step down to 5x7; but then they're great. Turning off noise suppression at 3,200, though, is not a good idea, as it still produces a lot of chroma noise even at 4x6. Detail at this size is still quite impressive. It's a very good performance from the Sony A200, quite a nice surprise.

Testing hundreds of digital cameras, we've found that you can only tell just so much about a camera's image quality by viewing its images on-screen. Ultimately, there's no substitute for printing a lot of images and examining them closely. For this reason, we now routinely print sample images from the cameras we test on our Canon i9900 studio printer, and on the Canon iP5200 here in the office. (See the Canon i9900 review for details on that model.)

Viewfinder

Sony A200 Viewfinder

The Sony A200 features a digital SLR design, so the optical viewfinder offers a true, through-the-lens (TTL) display. A dioptric adjustment dial accommodates eyeglass wearers, letting them adjust the viewfinder optics between -2.5 to +1 diopters. The viewfinder eyepiece has a fairly low eyepoint (specified at 17.6mm from the eyepiece, 13.5mm from the eyepiece frame with the dioptric adjustment set to -1 diopter), which isn't quite as good as the A100's 20mm/16mm eyepoint. Magnification is the same, at 0.83x for a 50mm lens and -1 diopter of dioptric correction.

Like the Sony A100, the A200's viewfinder uses a pentamirror design. The advantage of a pentamirror is it's lighter and less expensive; however an all-glass pentaprism design delivers more light to the viewfinder eyepiece, thanks to its more efficient internal reflection. As a result, the Sony A200's viewfinder image is not as bright as the A700's, which uses a true pentaprism.

The Sony A200's extensive information display features a series of focus and exposure target marks in the center of the view that highlight briefly when the AF system is activated. Camera information appears beneath the image area in a small strip, and reports all of the major camera settings, such as shutter speed, aperture, flash mode, EV compensation, etc. To the far right side of the strip is the Super SteadyShot (anti-shake) scale, indicating the degree of stabilization whenever anti-shake mode is activated. The information readout in the viewfinder activates whenever you half-press the Shutter button, and remains active for a few seconds afterward.

A pair of horizontal infrared sensors just below the viewfinder, which we've highlighted with a green rectangle, detect your eye as it approaches the viewfinder, and deactivates the LCD information display if you have the auto-display option enabled. Through the Custom menu, you can also set these sensors to enable the autofocus whenever your eye is in range of the eyepiece, which makes the A200's autofocus seem even more responsive.

Viewfinder Test Results

Coverage
Good accuracy from the optical viewfinder.

The Sony Alpha 200's optical viewfinder showed about 95 percent coverage accuracy with our Sigma 70mm f/2.8 prime lens. This is quite good for an entry-level digital SLR, matching Sony's specification. It does however appear to be slightly tilted relative to the imaging sensor.

Flash

Sony A200 Flash

The Sony A200 features a built-in, pop-up flash, which operates in either Auto, Fill-Flash, Slow-sync, Rear Sync, Wireless, and Flash-off modes. To release the flash from its compartment, press the button on the left side of the pentamirror housing. Close it again by pushing the flash head back down.

The Flash mode is changed from the Function screen. In Auto flash mode (available only in the camera's Auto or Scene Selection modes), the camera automatically determines when to fire the flash based on the existing lighting. In Fill-Flash mode, the flash fires with every exposure, regardless of lighting conditions. Slow-sync mode fires the flash for foreground fill exposure, while allowing the background to burn in. The Rear Flash Sync mode fires the flash at the end of the shutter time, rather than the beginning. If you have moving objects in the scene with lights, as with a car, this will produce a sharp image of your subject, with a "motion trail" following behind it when shooting at slower shutter speeds. The flash is off when it's closed.

The Wireless mode lets the Sony A200 work with compatible remote flash units with wireless capability, specifically the Sony HVL-F56AM and HVL-F36AM. Four separate control channels are available for wireless operation, to allow multiple photographers to work wirelessly in the same area without interfering with each other. You can only control the power to a single flash or group of flash units though: It's not possible to separately control the exposure for two or more groups of external flash units, as it is with the Canon (two groups of external units plus the camera's own flash) or Nikon (three groups plus the camera's flash) wireless systems.

A Red-Eye Reduction option is available through the Custom 1 menu. When Red-Eye reduction is enabled, the camera will fire a few low-power flash pulses before it actually snaps the picture, to make the pupils of your subjects' eyes contract.

The A200 offers two methods of flash metering, set through the Record menu. Its default mode is called ADI, which stands for Advanced Distance Integration. In this mode, it bases its flash exposure on the lens aperture and distance feedback from the autofocus system, as well as on the light reflected back from a pre-flash. By determining how far away the target subject is, the camera knows how much flash power is required to illuminate it, and is less likely to be fooled by subjects that are unusually light or dark overall. Alternatively, the Pre-Flash TTL (through the lens) method bases the exposure determination solely on a small metering flash before the main exposure. Used in conjunction with the spot autofocus option mentioned earlier, the ADI flash metering should be more accurate with small subjects against a different colored background than the pre-flash method.

Flash exposure compensation can be set via the Camera 1 menu, measuring two stops lower or greater, in 1/3-stop increments.

The A200's built-in flash has a Guide Number (GN) of 12 meters or 39 feet at ISO 100. Maximum sync speed is 1/160s. High Speed Sync (HSS) shooting with shutter speeds up to 1/4,000s is available with Sony HVL-F56AM and HVL-F36AM external flash units.

The A200 also has a top-mounted hot shoe for attaching an external flash unit. The shoe design and contact arrangement are set up for Sony's own dedicated flash units.

Flash Test Results

Coverage and Range
Powerful flash at close range, with good coverage. Our standard shots required slightly lower-than-average exposure compensation.

Coverage. Flash coverage was uneven at wide-angle (18mm), but much more uniform at telephoto (70mm). In the Indoor test, the Sony A200's flash underexposed our subject just a little at its default setting, requiring a +0.7 EV exposure compensation adjustment to get good results. The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode produced slightly brighter and more even results, though with a stronger pinkish-orange cast from the room lighting. The Slow-Sync flash required slightly more positive exposure compensation at +1.0 EV.

Flash Range: Wide-angle
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100	1/60 sec f3.5 ISO 100

Flash Range: Telephoto
6 ft	7 ft	8 ft	9 ft	10 ft	11 ft
1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100
12 ft	13 ft	14 ft	15 ft	16 ft
1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100	1/125 sec f5.6 ISO 100

ISO 100 Range. At wide-angle, flash shots at ISO 100 remained bright all the way out to a distance of 16 feet. At full telephoto and ISO 100, the target also remained bright to about 16 feet, though it was slightly dimmer overall than the wide-angle shots, and its brightness fluctuated somewhat as the camera was moved back.

Manufacturer-Specified Flash Range
Wide-angle	Telephoto
11.2 feet ISO 100	7.0 feet ISO 100

Manufacturer Specified Flash Test. In the shots above, the Alpha 200 performs mostly as Sony says it will, producing a good exposure at the rated distance with its ISO set to Auto (which selected ISO 100) at wide angle, though it's a little dimmer at telephoto, as were our ISO 100 standard shots. Our standard test method for flash range uses a fixed setting of ISO 100, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. We've now also begun shooting two shots using the manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims.

Imatest Results

Sony A200 Imatest Results

We routinely use Norman Koren's excellent "Imatest" analysis program for quantitative, thoroughly objective analysis of digicam test images. I highly recommend it to our technically-oriented readers, as it's far and away the best, most comprehensive analysis program I've found to date.

My comments below are just brief observations of what we see in the Imatest results. A full discussion of all the data Imatest produces is really beyond the scope of this review: Visit the Imatest web site for a full discussion of what the program measures, how it performs its computations, and how to interpret its output.

Here's some of the results produced by Imatest for the Sony A200:

sRGB Accuracy Comparison
Sony A200	Canon XTi	Nikon D40x	Olympus E-510

The Sony A200 showed very good color accuracy, as well as fairly accurate saturation levels. Hue accuracy was quite good, with most of the hue shift occurring in the cyans, blues and reds. Average saturation was 101.9% (only 1.9% oversaturated). Average "delta-C" color error was only 5.25 after correction for saturation, which is also very good. (Delta-C is the same as the more commonly referred to delta-E, but delta-C takes into account only color differences, ignoring luminance variation.) Overall, a very good color response for an SLR, especially a consumer oriented model. Mouse over the links below the illustration above to compare results with competing models.

Adobe RGB Accuracy Comparison
	Sony A200	Canon XTi

Using the Adobe RGB color space (which provides a much wider gamut, or range of colors that can be expressed), the Sony A200 delivers more highly saturated color, with an average saturation-corrected hue error of 5.55 "delta-C" units, and average saturation of 106.3%. Again, mouse over the links below the illustration above to compare results with competing models (sorry, no Adobe color error results from Nikon D40x or Olympus E-510).

This image shows how the Sony A200 actually rendered the colors of the MacBeth chart, compared to a numerically ideal treatment. In each color swatch, the outer perimeter shows the color as actually captured by the camera, the inner square shows the numerically ideal color, after correcting for the luminance of the photographed chart (as determined by a second-order curve fit to the values of the gray swatches), and the small rectangle inside the inner square shows the numerically ideal color, without any luminance correction. This image shows the very good hue accuracy, as well as a contrast curve that results in slight overexposure of some of the highest-saturation swatches. Overall though, the colors are impressively close to their "correct" values.

There's a lot in this particular graph, a lot more than we have room to go into here. (This set of plots has also changed a little in the more recent versions of Imatest. Some of the plots that were shown here previously are now shown in other Imatest output. Since we largely focus on the Noise Spectrum plot, we'll only show the graphic above, which includes that plot.)

In comparing these graphs with those from competing cameras, I've found that the Noise Spectrum graph at lower right is the most important. Cameras that manage to shift their noise spectrum to higher frequencies have much finer-grained noise structures, making their noise less visually objectionable. In the graph above, this would show up as a noise spectrum curve that remained higher on the right side, representing higher noise frequencies. The champion at this was the Canon EOS-1Ds Mark II, which produced remarkably fine-grained image noise, even at very high ISOs.

The Sony A200 does a pretty good job of keeping plenty of the noise energy at high frequencies; what little low-ISO image noise that's there is more fine-grained as a result. What's a little odd here though, are the spikes that occur in the Noise Spectrum plot every 0.125 or 1/8 cycles per pixel. The source of the noise spikes appears to be the lighter pixels along the edges of the 8x8 pixel blocks used in the A200's JPEG encoding. To illustrate, below are modified crops from the Sony A200 (left) and Nikon D40x (right). After cranking up the contrast and magnifying by 200% (overall, a pretty significant manipulation, these artifacts aren't nearly as visible in the unaltered image), the abrupt edges of the 8x8 blocks in the A200 crop can be easily seen. Block edges cannot be seen in the Nikon D40x crop, nor can they been seen in converted A200 RAW files. What's even odder though, is that normal compression reduces the size of the spikes, compared to fine. (Do I smell a firmware update coming?) This might be an issue, but the overall noise levels are so low that the noise spikes aren't really visible at ISO 100 under normal conditions. Bottom line, the Sony A200 noise levels are low at low ISO, with a frequency spectrum that has more energy on the higher frequency (right-hand) side of the curve than do many cameras.

Middle gray patch, very high contrast, magnified 200%
Sony A200	Nikon D40x

Here's the same set of noise data at ISO 3,200. Here we can see there is a dramatic shift towards the left of the graph (particularly in the red channel), indicating much courser grain structure to the noise. And indeed, when ISO 3,200 images from the A200 are closely examined, this effect can be easily seen.

This chart compares the Sony A200's noise performance over a range of ISOs against that of other cameras. While I continue to show noise plots of this sort because readers ask for them, I each time point out that the noise magnitude is only a small part of the story, the grain pattern being much more important. Here, we can see that the Sony A200's luminance noise starts out quite low, comparable to most of the competition, then rises at roughly the same rate as the others to ISO 400. It continues to rise to ISO 800, where most of the competition's high ISO NR has already kicked in. (Decreasing noise levels, but at the expense of some fine detail.) Then we see A200 noise levels drop dramatically at ISO 1600, where its more aggressive high ISO NR kicks in. It then rises again, ending up at level much lower than the D40x, the only other camera in this group that has an ISO 3,200 setting. Keep in mind these measurements are at default noise reduction settings, so the shape or position of the curve could be influenced by the settings you choose to use.

Sony A200 Dynamic Range Analysis

A key parameter in a digital camera is its Dynamic Range, the range of brightness that can be faithfully recorded. At the upper end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is dictated by the point at which the RGB data "saturates" at values of 255, 255, 255. At the lower end of the tonal scale, dynamic range is determined by the point at which there ceases to be any useful difference between adjacent tonal steps. Note the use of the qualifier "useful" in there: While it's tempting to evaluate dynamic range as the maximum number of tonal steps that can be discerned at all, that measure of dynamic range has very little relevance to real-world photography. What we care about as photographers is how much detail we can pull out of the shadows before image noise becomes too objectionable. This, of course, is a very subjective matter, and will vary with the application and even the subject matter in question. (Noise will be much more visible in subjects with large areas of flat tints and subtle shading than it would in subjects with strong, highly contrasting surface texture.)

What makes most sense then, is to specify useful dynamic range in terms of the point at which image noise reaches some agreed-upon threshold. To this end, Imatest computes a number of different dynamic range measurements, based on a variety of image noise thresholds. The noise thresholds are specified in terms of f-stops of equivalent luminance variation in the final image file, and dynamic range is computed for noise thresholds of 1.0 (low image quality), 0.5 (medium image quality), 0.25 (medium-high image quality) and 0.1 (high image quality). For most photographers and most applications, the noise thresholds of 0.5 and 0.25 f-stops are probably the most relevant to the production of acceptable-quality finished images, but many noise-sensitive shooters will insist on the 0.1 f-stop limit for their most critical work.

The image below shows the test results from Imatest for an in-camera JPEG file from the Sony A200 with a nominally-exposed density step target (Stouffer 4110), and the A200's contrast and DRO settings at their default positions.

These are very good numbers for a current-model DSLR, in the mid- to upper range of cameras we've tested. The tone curve also has a nice "S" shape to it, providing good gradation in both highlights and shadows. This can be seen when closely inspecting shots captured by the A200, where detail is held nicely in both strong highlights and deep shadows. Nice job!

Processing the A200's RAW (ARW) files through Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) version 4.3.1 improved dynamic range by more than a full stop. (It bears noting though, that extreme manipulation of RAW files to extend dynamic range can introduce severe color shifts in the resulting files: This dramatically increased dynamic range may only be really usable when converting the images to black and white. - As is the case with most cameras.) These results were obtained by using ACR's automatic settings; slightly better results may be possible by adjusting the sliders manually, but I found little improvement in my own twiddling. Worth noting here is that ACR's default noise reduction settings reduced the red- and blue- channel noise (see the plot in the lower left-hand corner) relative to the levels in the in-camera JPEG. ACR also shifted even more of the noise energy into high spatial frequencies, making its residual noise even less objectionable than that found in the camera JPEGs.

Dynamic Range, the bottom line:

The net result was that the A200 exhibited excellent dynamic range, its in-camera JPEGs perhaps helped a little by the A200's default "Standard DRO" (Dynamic Range Optimizer) setting. It should be noted though, that the DRO feature does nothing to increase the fundamental dynamic range of the camera: That's purely a factor of the sensor and associated electronics. What DRO does is optimize use of the available dynamic range, pulling some of the extreme tonal values into the visible range. We saw about 0.2 EV better DR with DRO set to Standard than with it either off or set to Advanced DRO+, but that's more likely a quirk of noise levels and differences in noise processing between the various settings than it is an indication of any change in real (vs perceived) dynamic range.

To get some perspective, here's a summary of the Sony A200's dynamic range performance, and how it compares to other digital SLRs that we also have Imatest dynamic range data for. (Results are arranged in order of decreasing dynamic range at the "High" quality level.):

The results shown in the table are interesting. One of the first things that struck me when I initially looked at test data for a wide range of d-SLRs, was that here again, purely analytical measurements don't necessarily correlate all that well with actual photographic experience. There's no question that the Fuji S3 Pro deserves its place atop the list, as its unique "SR" technology does indeed deliver a very obvious improvement in tonal range in the highlight portion of the tonal scale. I was surprised to see the analytical results place the Olympus EVOLT as highly as they did, given that our sense of that camera's images was that they were in fact noisier than those of many other d-SLRs that we looked at. In the other direction, I was quite surprised to see the Nikon D2x place as low on the listings as it did, given that we found that camera's shadow detail to be little short of amazing.

One thing that's going on here though, is that we tested each camera at its lowest ISO setting, which should produce best-case noise levels. This is in fact what many photographers will be most interested in, but it does perhaps place some of the Nikons (like the D40) at a disadvantage, as their lowest ISO setting is 200, as compared to the ISO 100 settings available on most other models.

Sony A200 Resolution Chart Test Results

The chart above shows consolidated results from spatial frequency response measurements in both the horizontal and vertical axes. The "MTF 50" numbers tend to correlate best with visual perceptions of sharpness, so those are what I focus on here. The uncorrected resolution figures are 1,837 line widths per picture height in the horizontal direction (corresponding to the vertically-oriented edge), and 1,747 lines along the vertical axis (corresponding to the horizontally-oriented edge), for a combined average of 1,792 LW/PH. Correcting to a "standardized" sharpening with a one-pixel radius increased both vertical and horizontal resolution slightly, resulting in an average of 1,929 LW/PH. This is a about average performance for a 10-megapixel camera.

To see what's going on, refer to the plots below, which show the actual edge profiles for both horizontal and vertical edges, in both their original and corrected forms. Here, you can see that the default in-camera sharpening applied is pretty close to ideal, but can still benefit from a bit of unsharp masking. (One thing we're happy to see is that the Sony A200 doesn't oversharpen its images too much, so it doesn't obscure fine detail as much as some cameras do.)

Menus

Sony A200 Modes and Menus

Capture Modes: When powered on, the camera is automatically placed into Record mode. The Exposure Mode dial on top of the camera sets the main shooting mode, with the following options:

•  Full Auto: This mode places the camera entirely in control of the exposure, though the user can adjust the exposure compensation and all options in the Function menu, including Flash, Autofocus, White Balance, Metering, AF Area, and D-Range Optimizer modes.
•  Program AE (with Shift): This mode places the camera in control over both aperture and shutter speed, while the user has access to all other menu functions. Turning the Control dial with or without shifting the Exposure Compensation button cycles through a range of equivalent exposure settings, enabling the Program Shift mode.
•  Aperture Priority: This mode puts the user in control of the aperture setting while the camera selects the best shutter speed. (The aperture range varies with the lens in use.)
•  Shutter Priority: Allows the user to set the shutter speed, from 1/4,000 to 30 seconds, while the camera selects the most appropriate aperture setting.
•  Manual: Provides complete user control over the exposure, including both aperture and shutter speed settings. A Bulb shutter setting also becomes available in this mode, allowing variable length exposures for as long as you hold down the shutter button.
•  Night Portrait/View: Night portrait uses flash to expose your subject in the foreground, while leaving the shutter open a little longer to allow the background lighting to burn in. Night View exposes illuminated night scenes properly while maintaining a dark background.
•  Sunset: Optimizes settings to capture rich, warm sunsets.
•  Sports Action: Enables continuous AF and continuous drive modes while favoring faster shutter speeds to capture moving subjects.
•  Macro: This mode is for close-up pictures of small objects, enhancing color in flowers, etc.
•  Landscape: Optimizes settings to produce sharp, colorful landscapes.
•  Portrait: Optimizes camera settings to reproduce warm, soft skin tones against a slightly blurred background.
•  Flash Off: Disables the flash for shooting in a location where flash photography is prohibited or undesirable, while leaving the camera in Automatic mode.

Sony A200 Menus

Pressing the Menu button provides access to the camera's full menu system. The following options are available in most camera modes as menu tabs at the top of the display:

Rawindex

Digital Cameras - Sony A200 RAW Test Images

The tables below show selected representative images from our test shot series that were shot in RAW mode.

Depending on your browser, you can download the images by clicking on the links, or by right-clicking on the links and selecting "Save Target As...", or similar. Some browsers change the file extension to .TIFF. In that case, just rename to .ARW after downloading. You can see the full set of in-camera JPEG shots, including exposure information extracted from the EXIF file headers, on the Thumbnail index page.

NOTE: These are very large files (10+ megabytes each). They're here for you to use, but please be considerate of our bandwidth; don't just download everything willy-nilly. - Thanks!

Still Life

Multi-Target

Indoor Portrait, No Flash

Outdoor Portrait

Far-Field

Comparison

Sony A200 Feature Comparison

The chart below compares the A200 with other, current Sony SLRs. What we've done below is to present something of a hybrid comparison between these four models. A red cell means that a given camera performs below the others, a green cell means that it performs better, and a yellow cell means it falls somewhere between. In cases where two cameras share a superior capability, both their cells will be colored green, etc. Sharp-eyed readers may find some areas where we haven't chosen to highlight a particular difference. Those cases are simply ones that we don't feel are significant in typical use of the camera.

Note: If your browser is not showing all columns properly, try the "Print this Page" link at the bottom of this page.