Gadgetory

Sonia's Alfa SLT a 37 is a relatively uninspiring update to the a 35 which is the company's entry-level fixed mirror camera it's not a bad camera in fact it's one of the fastest models in its price class and it's capable of producing very nice photos up through ISO 800 I'm mixed feelings about the 837 s design which is the same body as the a 35 it's relatively compact for its type and overall the control layout and interface deliver a pretty streamlined shooting experience but the camera has the dimmest EVF I've ever seen even with the brightness boosted so despite having a decent resolution it's not very enjoyable to use and now this model has a tilting LCD which the 835 lacked it's pretty small and low resolution the camera has the usual assemblage of sony features new to this generation is the auto portrait framing feature in superior auto mode when you frame a picture of a person in a landscape orientation it will automatically create a crop that more attractively positions the person's in the photo and it'll save both it and the original this is a really clever and useful idea for newbies however after cropping it Sony feels compelled to blow - back up to 16 megapixels which if there's noise that will accessor bait the noise and even at low ISO s it will just mush up the regular detail with interpolation if you're planning on shooting video keep in mind that you can only use the manual exposure settings with manual focus if you want to use autofocus you give up the ability to set shutter speed or aperture that said the video looks pretty good and the photo quality's exactly what I expected it's very good at ISO 100 and 200 and usable up through ISO 800 or ISO 1600 depending upon your scene color and exposure consistent and relatively accurate as well I'm a bit disappointed with the new kit lens the 18 to 135 millimeter f-35 to 5/6 I tested it because I think it's gonna be a popular choice and because it has a similar design to one of my favorite Sony lenses the 16 to 50 f28 unfortunately it's not very sharp and it can't focus as close as the 18 to 55 millimeter kit lens it is pretty well designed for manual focus and in conjunction with the peaking capability in the camera it actually makes it possible to manually focus despite the problems I mentioned before with the LCD and the viewfinder as for performance the camera focuses and shoots very quickly in both bright and dim conditions and the processing overhead doesn't bog down shot-to-shot performance although the continuous shooting is relatively fast for this cohort I found the autofocus tracking couldn't keep up the 837 is a solid entry level DSLR class camera that will serve anyone on a tight budget who's looking for something to shoot active kids and pets I'm Laurie grinning and this is the sony alpha SLT