Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 Review

Features
The Sony Alpha A350 is a 14.2-megapixel beast backed by Sony’s Bionz image processor. The sensor has a 3:2 aspect ratio, 1.5x crop factor and the camera offers RAW, JPEG, and RAW+JPEG format options. It also includes a D-Range (DRO) Optimizer feature, which helps preserve shadow and highlight detail. Sony covered all the basic exposure options: program auto, aperture priority, shutter priority and manual, with a bulb option available in the manual setting. The A350 also has most of the standard scene modes: portrait, landscape, macro, sports, night and sunset.

The A350 has most of the features we’ve come to expect from digital SLRs: sensor anti-dust system, two stops of exposure compensation in 1/3 EV increments, ISO 100 to 3200 sensitivity, and Live View. (I’ll discuss later how Sony’s take on Live View is different.) No budget SLR is going to have top of the line specs, and some of the A350′s feature compromises are the tiny 0.74x magnification viewfinder, no secondary LCD on top of the camera for displaying control information — it all displays on the main LCD or in the viewfinder — no depth-of-field preview button, and slow 2.5 FPS (frames-per-second) maximum capture rate. Both the A350 and A300 have a slower, 2 FPS shooting rate when Live View is active; the A300 bests the A350 with a 3 FPS max-shooting rate using the optical viewfinder, thanks to its lower resolution.

As I mentioned, the highlight of the A350′s features is the 2.7-inch, 230,000-pixel, tilting LCD with Live View. Hands-down, this is the best Live View implementation available. Although many other cameras feature Live View, there’s always a compromise. The Canon EOS 40D has it, but you have to focus manually. The Nikon D300′s Live View has two auto focus modes, but it either blacks out the display while the mirror is up for traditional phase-detection auto focus, or forces you to use slower contrast-detection auto focus. The Sony Alpha A350 has no compromises: An innovative mirror arrangement simultaneously directs light at both the standard auto focus sensor and the Live View sensor. You get the same auto focus performance whether you’re shooting in viewfinder mode or Live View mode. The frosting on the cake is the ability to tilt the display for low-angle and high-angle shooting. You won’t be able to call it a “grab shot” any more, now that you can see what you’re shooting.

Sony backs up the point-and-shoot flavor of the A350 with a host of other user-friendly features: Super SteadyShot image stabilization, Smart 1.4-2x Tele-converter and Eye-Start Auto Focus. Super SteadyShot is a great feature for consumers looking to save money. Although it some argue that in-camera image stabilization is inferior to lens-based solutions, it’s hard to complain about 2.5 to 3.5 stops of stabilization in an $800 digital SLR. The Smart Teleconverter feature is really nothing more than a 1.4x or 2x crop. The 14.2-megapixel A350 has plenty of pixels to spare, but the 2x setting does take you down to a 4-megapixel image. The Smart Teleconverter even has a dedicated button on the back, though you can only use it in Live View mode. The Eye-Start Auto Focus is a bit of an odd feature: The camera focuses when you put your eye to the viewfinder. Sony says this will save you time by having the camera already primed, but I found the biggest benefit is that it saves battery life by shutting off the LCD.

Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 thumbnail (left) and RGB histogram display (right)

The playback menu has some nice features and takes advantage of the fact that the LCD display is slightly taller than the 3:2 aspect ratio of the photos. You can look at one photo full size while thumbnails of the other images are displayed across the top. You can also bring up separate histograms for the red, green and blue channels. This particular display mode will also show you burnt highlights, but only on a very small thumbnail. None of the other display modes show you the burnt highlights, which is a shame.

The ability to create folders with the settings menu is a real timesaver. Instead of having to browse through all the photos on your memory card, you can quickly jump between the folders you’ve set up. I also liked the interface for zooming in on a photo: It immediately jumps to full zoom so you can check sharpness, while also showing a thumbnail of the full image to help you navigate. Unfortunately, it’s very slow, taking 2 to 3 seconds to load. The A350 is also slow to show a review of the shot you just took, taking about 3 seconds.

Camera Menus

Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 playback mode		Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 information display
Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 Fn menu		Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 main menu
Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 in Live View mode display

Design
My first impression of the A350 was that it looked cheap. But much of the blame falls on the 18-70mm plastic-mount kit lens, which is pretty cheap looking even for a kit lens. Thankfully, the image quality of the lens is better than its appearance. The rest of the A350 holds up pretty well for a budget camera. The body is small and light and has a nice texture that feels good in your hands. The rubber on the grip is a bit thin and hard, but gets the job done. The only part of the design that made me truly wince was the plastic flash hot-shoe. I hope it’s easily serviced because I don’t have a good history with plastic parts on flashes.

Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 two-way tilting LCD

The A350′s novel, two-way tilting LCD is hinged on the top and bottom so that you can tilt it up if you’re shooting with the camera below you or down if you’re shooting with the camera above you. The clever hinge design means that the tilting feature adds very little size to the actual body. As much as I would enjoy even more tilting directions, I think Sony made a good choice with the design.

The LCD display shows your current camera settings. This is important, as there is no secondary LCD display on the top of the camera. In Live View mode the settings overlay the live display like a point-and-shoot camera. When using the camera in optical viewfinder mode, the LCD display can be set to show a summary or detail view of your current settings, or it can be turned off altogether.

Sony Alpha DSLR-A350 control layout

The control layout has changed a lot since the A100, but it feels like Sony is still figuring out how to pack them into the compact body. My thumb rests on top of several controls and there is a tight squeeze between the LCD and the buttons to the left. I did a quick hand survey and it seems the grip and layout are targeted at medium-sized hands.

The A350 hides many of its features behind a dual-purpose “Fn” button. During shooting, the Fn button accesses flash, metering, auto focus, white balance and D-Range Optimizer settings. During playback it lets you rotate images.

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