Sony A850

Sony has spent the better part of two years burnishing its DSLR credentials in an attempt to muscle in on the high-end turf dominated by Nikon and Canon. The company rolled out its first full frame (35mm sensor size) digital SLR (DSLR) camera, its Alpha A900 flagship, to much acclaim in 2008. Now it's back with the Alpha A850, which brings many of the powerful features of the A900, including the full frame sensor, down to a price point that confirms we are (or at least, were) in a depression.

A Great Bargain
At $2,000 the A850 comes in a full $700 less than its high-end predecessor. Sony did dial back a few specs, but not many given the huge price gap. You'll find a slightly slower burst mode (three frames per second instead of five), less viewfinder coverage (98 percent instead of 100 percent) and the A850 does not include an infrared remote, although it is compatible with one. That's about it. Given the competition (more on that later) this is really an outstanding camera for the price. A steal, really.

The Benefits of a Full Frame Sensor
Sony packed 24 million pixels onto its 35mm-sized CMOS sensor. Aside from the sheer decadence of 24-megapixels, the full frame sensor lets owners of older Minolta lenses designed for 35mm film SLRs enjoy the full potential of those older lenses. You do need to be somewhat mindful of lens choice when using a full frame digital SLR, however. Sony's other digital SLRs feature smaller, APS-C-sized sensors and lenses designed for those cameras won't cover the entire surface area of the A850's (or A900's) sensor, leading to an effect called vignetting (or a blurring of the image at the edges).

Don't worry. If you use a Sony lens designed for a smaller sensor, the A850 will automatically crop your image, using only the pixels that fall within the light path of an APS-C sensor. That's an 11-megapixel image, though, so you still have plenty of pixels to play with.

Image stabilization is provided in the camera body itself, with a sensor-shifting mechanism. This ensures that no matter what lens you choose, it will be stabilized. Another nice touch: the viewfinder will show you a five bar read-out that indicates how much the stabilizer is working and warns you when there's too much camera shake.

Superior Image Quality
Needless to say that the images produced by the A850 are stunning. Fine quality JPEGs are huge, routinely in the 4.5-5MB range. If you were so inclined, you could likely print your own billboard with the files, or crop them super-tight and still retain razor-sharp prints.

We tested the A850 with a new 28mm-75mm, f2.8 lens (sold separately for $800). This wide aperture lens just pours in the light, giving the A850 excellent low-lighting handling, even without a flash. Which brings up to a minor quibble: there's no pop-up flash. That's not at all unusual in a high-end DSLR, but the $2,000 price might just entice a few eager amateurs to step up, and they could benefit from one.

Burst Mode: Fast But Not Super Fast
There are a pair of Bionz image processors inside the A850 to handle the torrent of data produced by this sensor. The camera delivers a three frames per second (fps) burst mode. It may not sound like much compared to the horsepower of some lower resolution DSLRs, but when you consider it's ripping through huge files, you'll appreciate the technological hurdle. Still, it's a bit slower than Canon's full-frame 5D Mark II (3.9fps) and much slower than Nikon's full frame D3s (9fps). Of course, it's less expensive than both those models and delivers double the resolution of the Nikon - so it's not an apples-to-apples comparison.

Competition? What Competition?
There's an old saying in baseball: hit 'em where they ain't. Sony does that well with the A850 - bringing a range of capabilities into a price point that its two main full-frame rivals haven't tried to match. Canon's 21-megapixel 5D Mark II might be faster and records HD video, but like the A900, is $700 more expensive than the A850. Nikon's D3 family is also speedier with a greater range of features, but either significantly more expensive or half the resolution (and still more expensive).

Strong Build
The A850 certainly feels like a pro camera, or a lethal weapon if swung carelessly on a lanyard. It's housed in magnesium alloy and sealed against moisture. The camera isn't light, weighing in at 1lb, 14oz before the battery and memory card. Mount the new 24-70mm lens on it and you definitely don't want the A850 dropping on your toes.
It's large size does provide plenty of room of controls, and Sony makes nice work of the camera's design, with most of the core functions quickly accessible through large buttons on the exterior of the camera. In addition to dedicated controls, there is a custom button adjacent the bright, 3-inch LCD which you can program as well as three spaces on the mode dial for saving frequently used camera settings.

Intuitive Menu
For the most part, the A850's menu system is straightforward. With so many features packed into the camera, it's a tall order to condense them into a manageable array, which Sony does well here. Given the lower price point, it would be nice if Sony had included a little more explanatory text in its menus or an option to streamline the operation of the A850 for less advanced users (they do this quite well on their camcorders with an "Easy Handycam" mode). Presumably, if you're dropping $2,000 on a DSLR body, you should know your way around an advanced camera, but a few Wall Street types still flush with bailout money might want to dabble in photography and could use a helping hand.

Great RAW Preview
One downside of the A850 is the lack of a live view mode for previewing your scene on the LCD before shooting. The viewfinder is excellent, though, with 98 percent coverage and there is a preview function which brings up a low-res RAW image file which you can tweak. Using that preview you can optimize settings like white balance, exposure compensation, etc. before you shoot to get the exposure you want. The previews aren't saved to memory.

A Great Camera at a Great Price
We all know the cliche, you get what you pay for. Well, in the A850 Sony delivers an awful lot for a price that's hard to beat.

The Good:
• Superb image quality
• Great handling
• Solid build

The Bad:
• No pop up flash
• No Live View mode

Sony Alpha A850 at a Glance
• 24-megapixels
•  3-inch LCD
• Full frame CMOS sensor
• Dual memory card slots for CF and Memory Stick
Price: $2,000 (body only)

Click here for the full Sony A850 specifications.