Sony A350 User Report
by Shawn Barnett
The Sony Alpha A350 measures 5.25 x 4 x 3 inches (130.8 x 98.5 x 74.7mm), and weighs 24 ounces (682g) with a memory card and battery. That's just two ounces heavier than the Sony A200.
Look and feel. As on the Sony A200, a Function button on the back of the A350 brings up a simply worded Function menu for easy access to commonly changed items. The A100 had a Function dial on the top deck that was a little more difficult to use. Now you just press the Fn button and the menu appears on the LCD.
Another new button on both the Sony A350 and A300 is the Smart Teleconverter 2x zoom button. Active only in Live View mode, pressing this button first zooms the live view by approximately 1.4x, then to 2x. According to Sony literature this gives the camera's 70mm kit lens the equivalent of a 200mm zoom. Essentially, on the A350 it's cropping the image from a 14.2-megapixel image down to a 7.1-megapixel and 3.8-megapixel image, respectively without incurring the blur normally associated with digital zoom. The button does nothing else in regular Record mode or Playback mode.
The LCD is a little wider to match the 3:2 aspect ratio of the Sony A300 and A350's sensor. Note the new battery indicator icon with the numerical percent-remaining display. This LCD also swivels out away from the body to tilt down or up for easier overhead or low-angle shooting.
Essentially identical to the Sony A200, the top deck of the Sony A300 and A350 have one unique feature: the Live View/OVF (Optical ViewFinder) switch. This switch engages the Live View mode and may even move the front element of the Pentamirror forward. When compared to the Sony A100, the Sony A350 has a new ISO button, and the mode dial has moved to where the Function dial used to be.
Grip. The Sony A350's grip is different from the A200, as it has no distinct divot for the middle finger, just a soft curve. At left you can see the CF and video out door.
Left side. The Remote control and DC-in sockets are now together, covered by a rubber door that opens from the front. Upper left in the now-traditional location is the manual flash release button, which activates an electronic switch to let the flash pop up. Lower left is the autofocus selector switch.
Missing from the front of the Sony A350 is the depth-of-field preview button, which was present on the A100. Sony might have thought it wasn't worth the extra cost for a feature that most consumers won't know how to use. Frankly, I seldom use the feature myself on other SLRs. It's hard to see much difference in such a small viewfinder, and it's easier to just snap a shot and zoom in on the larger LCD screen. Whatever the reason, it's good to consider if optical depth-of-field preview is important to you. Though that begs for such a feature with the Live View mode, I doubt the tiny secondary sensor would do much better than my eye with the lens stopped down.
Sony A350/A300 Live View
Sliding that Live View switch forward does several things at once. First, it moves the mirror to reflect the light to the secondary sensor inside the pentamirror housing. Second, the same motion closes a shutter inside the optical viewfinder to prevent stray light from entering and affecting either the Live View image or the exposure. (Other manufacturers have this as an optional separate step, which I think is a mistake, because it's too easy to forget to close the shutter.) Finally, it turns on the Live View sensor and the LCD to give you a real-world live image that's in-keeping with the spirit of the SLR. The beauty of the system is that the Sony A300 and A350 only use the secondary sensor to get a live image to the LCD, not for autofocus. Since it happens in the normal SLR pathway, the normal autofocus system is not interrupted as it is on Live View systems that use the main capture sensor, so there's no blackout, and autofocus is as fast as the system can produce regardless of the viewfinder mode.
Optical Viewfinder. A normal pentamirror arrangement reflects the light out the optical viewfinder eyepiece.
Sony Live View mode. With a simple shift of one of the mirrors, Sony deflects the image up to another optic that reflects the image onto a secondary sensor. Because no partially silvered mirrors are used, the image is fairly bright.
The only disadvantage could be that if the Live View sensor or its optical components are slightly out of alignment with the main sensor, what you see in Live View might not be what you get in the final image.
Sony A350 Live View with Tilting LCD
Sony Swivel LCD. Though it's a shame it doesn't face more angles, the Sony A350 and A300's LCD is very sturdy, while most Live View digital SLR cameras don't even have a swiveling LCD; certainly none in this price range.
The other major difference between the Sony A200 and the more expensive A300 and A350 is that they both have a tilting LCD. First it tilts down not quite 45 degrees, then it tilts up beyond 90 degrees. It's not as nice as some models that also swivel left, right, and even forward, but those cameras are quite a bit more expensive than the A300 and A350.
Like all Live View SLRs, I'm surprised when I actually use the feature, and pleasantly surprised when I remember that a given camera has a swiveling LCD. The truth is that up and down are the main ways you're going to shoot with Live View, at least in horizontal format, and the Sony A350 delivers good results. But I still do shoot vertically a lot, and it would be nice to swivel left and right for low angle kid shots and even overhead shots that include a tall building or other subject where I want a different perspective.
What's positive about this design is that it's pretty solid, and seems less likely to break in heavy use than the more versatile swivel screens.
You also don't have to choose which Live View mode you want, as you do with many competing Live View SLR designs. You have one choice, and it works just like it does when you look through the optical viewfinder.
An image of the AF points is displayed on the LCD, and when you half-press the shutter button, the chosen AF points are surrounded by green brackets. It works like a digicam does, and it works like an SLR does.
There is no alternate mirror-flip-up mode where the phase detect AF takes a stab at focusing while the screen goes blank, and you don't have to wait for Contrast detect to work, either. There is no Contrast-detect. Instead, Phase detect is always available in the usual way: through the partially-silvered main mirror, which reflects light via a secondary mirror to the AF sensor below the exposure chamber. (See the cutaway image below.) This new system makes autofocus in Live View as fast as AF through the optical viewfinder. Sony has found the holy grail of Live View mode.
Cropped and soft. You do end up with a cropped view of the final image, however, when composing via Live View mode. In fact, it's more cropped than the optical viewfinder. While the optical viewfinder gives 95 percent coverage, the Live View mode gives only 91 percent coverage. The Live View display is also slightly soft, especially indoors or in low light, making pre-shot focus verification more difficult. I'm most often pleasantly surprised, though, once the picture pops up crisp onscreen after capture.
Optical Viewfinder. Of course, there's still the Optical viewfinder, which I shoot with more often. Unfortunately, compared to the Sony A200, the optical viewfinder of the Sony A350 appears dramatically smaller, thanks to the Live View sensor in the latter models. Both vignette in the corners when I look through the viewfinder with my glasses, but I do get a bigger image with the A200, which is better for seeing detail. For reference, the Sony A350's viewfinder appears about the same size as the Rebel XTi's, whereas the A200 appears just slightly bigger than the new Rebel XSi. My one major complaint about the XTi after using it for awhile is its small optical viewfinder, so I'd have to apply the same complaint to the Sony A350. It's certainly not a deal-breaker, but is a notable tradeoff for the Sony A350's Live View capability.
Still, the benefit of Sony's implementation is real, making composing and focusing in Live View mode as natural as doing so through the optical viewfinder. Even when shooting outdoors at night, I found the Sony A350 as simple to use in Live View as a digicam, but with the speed of an SLR.
I still get startled when I put my eye to the Sony A350's optical viewfinder and see blackness. First I check for the lens cap, then I remember the Live View switch.
The LCD is usable outdoors in bright sunlight, but you have to work at it. Unfortunately, it's in style to have a beautiful glossy cover glass over LCDs these days, so you have to look through a very sharp reflection to see the softer, transflective LCD image. It works in bright sunlight, but you sometimes have to move your head to avoid reflections for a better view, because the reflection of the sky, for example, can overpower the LCD. And beware reflections of the Sun, because the beautifully glossy cover glass will give you a pretty faithful view of that bright orb, making it even harder to see that LCD beneath.
Flash. For the intended market, it's good that Sony made the A350's flash a pop-up design. The old one had to be lifted into place. Here you press a button on the left of the camera's pentamirror housing and it pops up. What that means is that the auto exposure modes can activate the flash when they deem it necessary, rather than suggesting the user raise the flash. The flash doesn't go up as high as the one on the A100, however, and that's probably because the bodies of the A200, A300, and A350 are molded to make room for the Live View mode components in the latter two cameras. The flash on the A100 is hinged much further back, where the A350's is hinged about 3/4-inch forward. The flash bulb also ends up a little more forward, but that still means you'll have trouble with some lenses and lens hoods, which will block the short little strobe's light over much of the frame.
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