With a housing price of 750 euros and new 14-megapixel CMOS, the Alpha 550 takes the lead among the Sony cameras with APS-C format sensor. On a video function, however, one has to do without. The design of the camera is appealing due to the anthracite colored housing top, the feel is satisfactory.
The 3-inch monitor with a high resolution of 307_200 RGB pixels can be tilted and tilted from the housing, making it easier to take pictures near the ground or overhead. In addition, the mechanical image stabilizer (sensor shift) in the housing and live view with "Quick AF" are part of the scope of the camera's performance.
After switching to live view, the camera uses a second sensor to generate the monitor image so that the deflection mirror does not have to be folded up and the fast phase AF remains active. A facial recognition for optimizing the sharpness and the exposure is supplemented by a smile shutter ("Smile Shutter"). The image field coverage on the monitor is 90%. 100% does not exist until the function "MF Check LV" is activated by push-button printing.
Then, the live-view image is generated on the monitor with the mirror tilted up over the main sensor. In the live image, you can precisely focus manually with 7 or 14x magnification, which is particularly useful when using a tripod. Embedded grid lines facilitate image formation. Contrast-AF over the main sensor is not provided with the Alpha 550 however and would be the view of the much faster Live-View option with phase AF also little sense. The phase AF works with 9 measuring points including a central cross sensor. The tripping delay is 0.37 / 0.47 s at 3000/30 lux.
Less well: With the Alpha 550, Sony introduces the image quality degrading digital zoom (1.4- / 2-fold) for the first time with SLR cameras into the game. On the other hand, the Alpha 550 has two tools on board to deal with high contrasts of contrasts. On the one hand the DRO function (Dynamic Range Optimization, available as automatic or manually in five steps), on the other hand the HDR mode - the camera makes two differently exposed exposures, which are subsequently offset by the image processor. Since the camera compensates for a slight distortion of the image, even HDR recordings are possible within the limits.
The camera is oriented in the operating concept to existing sister models, the adjustment falls easily. However, on-screen menus were graphically spiced up, provided with auxiliary texts, and partly with sample images. A good idea is a new display mode in which the time and aperture series are arranged one on top of the other and move in the opposite direction according to the exposure measurement or manual adjustment. A vertical bar marks the current time-diaphragm combination. Directly underneath is the exposure correction scale - a coherent representation.
Image quality
The Alpha 550 has significantly increased the image quality compared to other comparable Sony models. This is especially true for the noise at ISO 800/1600: VN 1.4 / 2.0 compared to VN 3.2 / 3.0 at the Alpha 380. The maximum resolution is 1286 LP / BH, well 200 LP / BH less than At Alpha 380, but the loss of texture is a maximum of 1.6 (Alpha 380: 2.6). Also with the dynamics, the Alpha 550 is better with values between 9.5 and 8.5 screens through the bench (Alpha 380: 9 to 7 screens).
Sony Alpha 550
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