2 thoughts on “Sony DSLRA580 DSLR Camera Body Only (Black) Reviews”

1. 29 of 31 people found the following review helpful

   
   Get this camera if you are serious about your photos!, August 13, 2011

   By 

   Silverkoup –

   This review is from: Sony DSLRA580 DSLR Camera Body Only (Black) (Electronics)

   First off I have 3 Sony alpha cameras now. I own an a230, an a33, and now the a580. Each one was a huge step from the last, however to my suprise, the a33 to a580 jump is quite a bit in terms of build quality, focusing, and just pure photography usage. The a33 is a great camera and I have gotten some amazing shots with it, but if you ever plan to use strobes, then forget the a33/a55 combo they aren’t compatible without a work around. Now I was at a cross roads with my photography now that I am earning little bits of money from it, was I to invest further into Sony, or jump ship cut losses and head to Nikon. I was looking into the Nikon d7000 (same sensor of the a580 FYI) and spoke with a few camera store “experts” which suggested just that camera. When asked what made the d7000 better than the a580, other than the metal body and faster shutter, I was told oh uh well it’s a uh well it’s nikon and they make good cameras. Don’t listen to this garbage spewd by Sony haters. Camera companies are heavily swayed by the big 2. The a580 produces stunning photos, very crisp, beautiful color rendition, ergonomics are great nice and beefy, sure it is plastic but personally I don’t shoot jagged rocks while rolling around and flapping my arms like a crazed bird so poly plastics are just fine plus get an accident plan and bang no worries roll as you please. Look all in all if you want a superb camera at a fraction of the cost of Nikon or Canon, look at this and at least consider because Sony’s coming up in the ranks and Zeiss glass, come on Zeiss glass. You won’t be dissapointed plus when folks see me shooting Sony and say oh you shoulda bought a Nikon, my photos shut them up real quick. Give Sony a break they make awsom cameras and the a580 is great.

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2. 21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

   
   Better than Transllucent Mirrors, October 9, 2011

   By 

   WWJDwithCA (Chicagoland) –

   Verified Purchase(What’s this?)

   This review is from: Sony DSLRA580 DSLR Camera Body Only (Black) (Electronics)

   The Sony a580 is an excellent camera that has really been lost in all of the excitement with the new translucent mirror products, particularly the a55 and the new a77. Just surveying the number of reviews, the a77 had four reviews before the product was even released and the a55 with 88! The a580 has seven total reviews and its not only a better camera than the a55, it’s a better camera than the a77!

   The translucent mirror products have the excitement because they are the first real innovation in single lens reflex cameras since the first digital SLR become affordable some 6-7 years ago. The translucent mirror offers two trick innovations: 1. Fast continuos shooting (a77 can do 12 fps) with no interruption of your subject from a mirror moving back and forth and 2. Continuous AF during this fast shooting and during video recording. However, they have two major drawbacks: 1. Poor ISO performance 2. Electronic view finder.

   The a77 will cost you $1400 while the a55 is nominally the same cost as the a580. Very interesting figures when you consider that the a580 is a significantly better camera than an a55 and still better than an a77. With all the fancy features of the translucent mirror technology, it’s still an inferior mechanism for taking quality digital images.

   Take the 12 fps continuos mode shooting of the a77; the a580 still manages 7 fps with fixed focus and aperture demonstrated with the 5 images I posted which is extremely functional, all while not having to suffer a 30% drop in ISO performance. Sure, 12 fps is tremendous for sports photography, but ISO capability is usually just as important, so what did you yield in this case? Well, “What about daytime sports shooting?” Yes, ISO capability is not as important, but now you have too sight through a digital viewfinder that works poorly in bright conditions and can suffer delays where an optical viewfinder is the technology of choice.

   As you can see, the translucent mirror offers advantages, but like Newtons 3rd, an equal and opposite reaction which yields the advantage nearly moot. The live view on the a580 is as slick as they come on true SLR’s. Check out the photo I posted of the Siamese cat; taken and ground level with ease using the a580’s live view, which holds a backup sensor in the view finder so the mirror doesn’t have to lift to see what’s happening. Shooting macro photography and need to make fine adjustments to the focus? Hit the Live View Check and the mirror lifts so you can do a final adjustment on the actual 16.2 mp sensor. Very slick and very professional.

   All of the controls are well laid out and again, very professional. The menus are very intuitive and have help for nearly every function, just wait a few seconds and the help system pops-up. 15 point autofocus works very well, maybe not to pro standards at low light level, but very good and accurate at the price level.

   My family loves the high definition videos. The mp4 feature allows for easy use just about anywhere with excellent picture quality. Again, the a77 can shoot video with continuous AF. Seems like a great feature, but do you really want focusing noises during your filming and do you want to include false AF seeks? Probably not, so your likely going to disable that function a great deal of the time and manual focus anyway.

   So while I do believe translucent mirror technology is the future of photography, and that someday Sony will own the prosumer SLR market niche. There is still one component of the technology missing; a mirror with more than 90% of the light transferring to the sensor, and until then this photographer will be using moving mirror technology. And uh-uhm, save myself a cool $650!

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