The mirror needs more damping to make it sound more expensive and little less like a cheap car door shutting. In use, the A350's shutter sounds a bit tinny and suffers from a slight recoil. It's nice but you can turn it off if you don't want to use it. Two small detectors located under the viewfinder can sense when you're looking through the viewfinder and will then wake things up and turn the autofocus system on. Above the screen is the slightly dim optical viewfinder its dark and pokey nature may be to do with the incorporation of the Live View sensor. The anti-glare coating of the screen does seem prone to smearing and clouding whenever a smidgen of nose grease gets deposited on it. It's not as good as a proper tilt-and-swivel screen but it's handy for candid or low-level shots. Overall, though, the usability of the camera is a bit confusing and it takes a while to get used to the layout.įinally, at the back of the A350 is a 2.7-inch LCD screen that tilts upwards and 20-degrees downwards for when you're using Live View. In total, there are nearly 20 switches, knobs, dials and sliders, which can make you wish you were an octopus in order to keep on top of this feature-laden beast.
SONY A350 LENS KIT ISO
On the A350's top plate is a large exposure mode dial, a sliding Live View switch, a drive button and an ISO selector.
Beneath the navipad is another sliding switch to turn the image stabilisation on and off. Above the navipad sits an EV compensation button, AEL lock and a frame expansion button. It's not quite as fast as using dedicated buttons, but it works well enough. To the right of the screen is a rather cheap-feeling navipad and a function button that offers quick access to flash mode, metering, focus, AF area, white balance and the D-Range Optimiser settings. There are four buttons beneath the On switch for playback controls. The Power switch is an unpleasant slider on the left that feels like it should be on the right, near the shutter button for those 'decisive moment' shots. It's perfect for high-contrast conditions, such as keeping the detail in skies while bringing out more detail in the shadow areas of an image.Īt the rear there are switches all over. Once you've used this setting you'll wonder how you managed without it. Nikon pioneered a similar system, called D-Lighting, which is much the same. This handy setting boosts shadow details without burning out an image's highlights. The image processing is carried out by Sony's oddly named Bionz processor and includes a very effective D-Range Optimiser function.
SONY A350 LENS KIT FREE
The sensor also has a special anti-static, indium-tin coating and a sensor shift dust-busting mechanism to keep the sensor free of dust. The technology works well and enables up to 2.5 to 3.5 extra steps of exposure without blur. This means that any Sony Alpha-mount or Konica Minolta A-bayonet lens will benefit from image stabilisation. Moving on to the image sensor, the A350 has a 14.2MP CCD chip that also incorporates Sony's Super SteadyShot image stabilisation technology. Still, the ultra-fast Live View autofocus is so quick you'll soon forgive the slightly dodgy live image and framing. It's for this reason that the colours look slightly 'off' in Live View and why the live image only shows 90% of what the camera is recording.
The secret to this innovation is a secondary sensor in the pentamirror that's used to feed the Live View image to the A350's screen. The A350's Live View boasts an autofocus speed that's every bit as fast and snappy as when it's not in Live View mode. The switchgear and quality of the materials just don't match what the Pentax has to offer, although when it comes to sheer number of features and functions, the A350 can hold its own.įor starters there's a new breed of Live View and a tilting 2.7-inch LCD screen. However, where the Pentax is an extremely well-built camera with large quantities of metal and excellent environmental seals from dust and moisture, the A350 is more of a low-budget, plastic-feeling affair.