First Look: Hands on with the Sony Alpha A55 SLR-like camera

When Sony announced its new Alpha A33 and A55 cameras included "Translucent Mirror Technology," I was intrigued. I haven't seen technology like that on a digital camera recently and wondered just how well the pair would perform with a translucent mirror and a high quality electronic viewfinder (EVF) in place of true through-the-lens, SLR style, viewing.

Yesterday I tried out the A55 at a press event. Five dancers ran, strutted, leaped and danced in front (and at me), while I fired still shots and captured video. As an experienced photographer, here's what I noticed about the A55:

The viewfinder and LCD. I found the EVF quite good, delivering a very clear image that didn't get grainy or produce a jittery picture when panning, the way some EVFs can. Of course, the studio was quite well lighted. I expect that in low-light that EVF will get more grainy, increasing the chances of getting a jittery image in the viewfinder. But overall this EVF, which has 1.1 million dots, appeared very clear and crisp. Likewise, I felt 3-inch swiveling LCD (which is not a touchscreen display) did an equally good job in liveview mode and playing back stills and video.

A view of the Sony alpha a55's swiveling LCD
screen and some of the controls on its body.

Lots of physical controls. As you can see from my photos of the camera's body, the A55 includes a lot of controls, switches and dials. Sony's other recent SLR-like cameras, the NEX-3 and NEX-5, force you to dive down into their menus to select various settings. That's because, being smaller and thinner than the A55, they don't have much room for a lot of controls. The A55 itself is roughly 25 percent smaller and lighter than Sony's full-fledged SLR, the A550. So if you like the look and feel of a camera loaded with controls, you may find the a55 to your liking. However, if you're looking for a camera closer in size to a point-and-shoot, consider the NEX series or other brand of SLR-like cameras.

Being able to use SLR lenses. Unlike the NEX series, the A55 doesn't require an adapter to use Alpha SLR lenses. I tried out several lenses, including a 24-70mm zoom and 70-300mm telephoto zoom. All worked very well: I didn't feel the camera body was too small or compact to handle any of them.

Fast performance. The main reason Sony included Translucent Mirror Technology in the A33 and A55 was to increase shooting and focusing speed for both stills and video. For stills, Sony claims that unlike any other camera, which needs to refocus between each shot, the A55 can refocus on the fly during burst mode. Although I was unable to tell if the A55 was refocusing during the 10 fps burst modes, I was impressed with the speed of shooting at such a fast rate, finding it to be one of the fastest burst rates I've seen in a consumer-level SLR or SLR-like model. However, when my camera was set to a combination of RAW + JPEG and I shot in burst mode, the camera did take several seconds to empty its buffer, once it was full, before I could shoot again. This doesn't directly affect the burst mode, but may affect how you shoot. I also liked how well the camera quickly refocused on changing subjects as I captured HD video.

Menus. I found them straightforward. The menu structure provides several ways of getting to the same setting, though some people may find this confusing. It would have been nice, if a lot of work, if Sony had included the same kind of shooting tips feature here as on its NEX models, which provide wonderfully illustrated how-tos within their menus.

Overall, I was impressed with the A55's handling, balance and performance. We'll be sure to report on how it compares against competing SLR-like models when we get it into our labs later this year and into our digital camera Ratings (available to subscribers).

—Terry Sullivan