Is the A65 an improvement over the A55,s problem area,s

[jowidde66]

Is the A65 an improvement over the A55,s problem area,s. Mainly on overheating ,using video mode,battery life.Which should I purchase?

[blaireau_photo]

Hello jowidde66 - welcome to the Sony Forums

Performance wise, the a65 does bring advantages in terms of video capability and battery life. The battery life on the a65 is capable of taking around 60% more shots than the a55 and it is also capable of shooting video at 24p which gives a real 'cinema' look to movies taken with the camera.

In terms of overheating, it would appear from user accounts that the problem isn't as noticable as with the a55 but it will be interesting to see if any other users who have bought the a65 have an opinion on this matter.

Thanks,

Simon

[jowidde66]

Thank you for the reply, It would be good to hear from someone who has an A65 who previously owned an A55?

Also is the high mp of 24. any advantage or disadvantage to an amatuer user?

Thank you.

jowidde66

[scdonal97]

the A65 & A77 use an electronic stabilisation system in video rather than using the sensor shift system.

this means that the sensor doesn't heat up anything like as fast as an A55 with SS switched on.

I believe that they also paid more attention to sensor design & cooling for video.

[Mick2011]

Also is the high mp of 24. any advantage or disadvantage to an amatuer user?

The only disadvantage is the extra space these files take up on your PC hard drive(s).

In every other respect a larger pixel count equals better image quality, so setting the camera to record fewer pixels (Menu > Image Size) will result in more compact image files – more pics per memory card – but lower image quality.

You could argue that you only ever display your photos on-screen, or as small 5x7" prints, so there's no point in producing a file big enough to make a 30x40 print every time you press the shutter. On the face of it, you should opt for a smaller file size as default, or even look at a lower-definition camera.

I think this overlooks the fundamental point of shooting SLR, which has always been about portability and versatility, without loss of quality. For the most part, even in the hands of the most skilful photographer in the world, 80-90% of what the camera produces will remain unused, deleted or at very least under-exploited given what it's capable of producing, by the time the images come to be archived on a hard drive.

The point holds equally for any keen amateur user, because s/he will invariably capture something to be proud of and be glad of a high-definition file capable of showing it off at its best. I'd also make the point that a high-definition file will look much better displayed at 5x7" than (say) a 3-megapixel file at the same size, even though 3MP is easily big enough to do the job.

You could always shoot STD (Standard) files, which uses high compression to fit more images on a memory card, but I'd urge you to consider the value of increasingly-inexpensive cards and HD storage. IMO you're not really getting the best out of the camera unless you shoot RAW and handle the processing on the PC, given the modest investment this represents.

The key to all this is becoming skilled at editing. You can always resize, compress or simply delete files once you're finished editing, and how 'brutal' you are with this should depend more on you as a photograper than how big your hard drive is.

Just my 2p-worth

Mick