Sony Alpha 850 review

Full frame functionality at a cut down price: so what's the catch?

Sony’s flagship full-frame DSLR – the Alpha 900 – finally gave those loyal to the brand something to aim for when it was launched, and helped to re-establish the manufacturer as a key player in the high-end DSLR ranks. Now Sony has produced what is essentially a cut-price version of this formidable camera, shaving nearly £500 off the cost.

The new Sony A850 sports the same quirky design as its big brother, which harks back to the Alpha range’s Konica Minolta heritage. Some say it’s about time Sony smoothed out some of the sharp angles on its DSLRs, while others feel comfortable with their retro-inspired looks. Whether the modern Sony DSLR appeals to your aesthetic taste is clearly a subjective matter, but one thing that can’t be disputed is the solidity of the design.

The A850 – like much of the Sony DSLR line-up – is solidly built, based around the same magnesium alloy chassis as the pricier A900. The introduction of ‘half-fat’ full-frame DSLRs – cameras with full-frame sensors like their top-of-the-range siblings, but with a slightly more restricted feature set – are the reason for the creation of the A850. The fact that Sony has managed to drive its price tag down is particularly noteworthy, knocking nearly £900 off the cost of its cheapest rival. Cameras like these bring all the benefits of their full-frame big brothers to photographers with tighter budgets, usually with the added bonus of offering a more easily manageable smaller-format body. In the case of the A850, however, size isn’t an issue – Sony’s A900 was compact enough to begin with in comparison to its peers – so nothing’s changed in this respect.

In addition to the same build and layout as the A900, the A850 inherits a lot of its top features: namely the same 24.6MP full-frame CMOS sensor with built-in sensor-shift IS, nine-point AF system, 921,000 three-inch LCD, CompactFlash I/II and Memory Stick Duo/Pro Duo storage options and USB and HDMI connectivity.

Looking at what Sony has stripped off the A850 in order to drive its price tag down, there’s not much missing. The A850 isn’t capable of keeping up with the action as well as its big brother, managing a continuous shooting rate of 3fps compared to 5fps. In addition, its viewfinder doesn’t benefit from the same 100% coverage as that on the A900, achieving 98% coverage instead, although we couldn’t notice a discernible difference. Finally, the infrared remote that comes as standard with the pricier model is an optional extra accessory with the A850.

Bringing this highly specified full-frame photographic tool down to a price point that’s considerably lower than that of the competition is an admirable feat, but there are a few missing features that may make potential purchasers think twice when comparing the A850 to its peers.

Starting with this camera’s continuous shooting rate – at just 3fps it’s the slowest in its class, with the Nikon D700 leading the way with 5fps. The Canon 5D Mark II sports HD movie recording capability, but there’s no such feature with the A850. True, the D700 doesn’t have this capability either, but this looks likely to change with the next update of this model, judging by its inclusion on the manufacturer’s latest top-end DSLR launch, the D3S.

The Sony’s main rivals also sport Live View modes, something that is sadly lacking with the A850. While we’re yet to be convinced of how much of a necessity movie recording ability is with a DSLR, conversely, we’ve seen the advantages of Live View demonstrated time and again since its inception, and consumers are now pretty wise to this feature’s benefits. Sony Alpha DSLRs further down the hierarchy benefit from very good Live View modes, so we’re somewhat surprised the technology hasn’t made it into the top end of the chain yet.

Instead, Sony offers users Intelligent Preview, which is a little like Live View: a preview shot is displayed on the LCD, allowing you to see how your image would look with different settings applied, before you take the final exposure. You can adjust your shutter speed, white balance, ISO etc, and check the effect on the LCD before taking your shot, although you don’t get a depth of field preview effect when altering the aperture. This feature does have its uses, but also comes with a drawback: the preview image captured isn’t full resolution and cannot be saved, leaving you with no choice but to re-shoot the image with your alterations applied. While this isn’t much of a problem if you’re shooting still-life subjects for example, if you’re photographing anything else and happened to capture the perfect moment with your initial test shot, you’ll have to try to catch it again.

The A850’s nine-point AF system that we first saw at the A900’s launch is adequate for the most part, but look to the competition and you can’t help but feel Sony’s selling itself a little short in this respect. In operation, the camera’s AF system is quick to find a lock if your subject is somewhere around the central point, or up to roughly the left and right thirds lines – anything too far off-centre and you’ll endure the frustration of the lens hunting to find its target.

These points aside, the A850 does have an ace up its sleeve. Adding sensor-shift image stabilisation to a full-frame DSLR is no mean feat, but Sony’s proven it’s perfectly possible. The addition of this to the A850’s feature set is not to be underestimated: it’s a desirable extra that none of its competitors can match, and it means that any lenses that you choose to couple with the camera are automatically stabilised.

On another positive note, the A850 – as with the A900 – offers a user interface that is easy to navigate, with well-proportioned and intuitively laid out controls. However, one small gripe we have is the Fn button’s operation – pressing it makes the graphical display on the rear LCD interactive, allowing you to make quick alterations to key settings. This timesaving feature works fine if you’re only changing one thing, however the fact that you’re returned to Shooting mode right after you’ve made your change can be frustrating. If you want to alter anything else, you’ll have to hit the Fn button once again and repeat the whole process.

Additionally, the camera’s dual memory card slots open up greater possibilities for A850 users, however there’s no automatic switching between cards once one is full, which proves to be a bit of pain if you’re in the middle of shooting an action sequence. The other aspect of the A850’s handling that raised issues for us is the time it takes the camera to display a playback image. While this wasn’t a problem all of the time, on occasions we found ourselves waiting for a photo to appear on the screen (shot in good light at a fast shutter speed) for anything up to six seconds. While you’d expect some detriment to a full-frame camera’s operating speed due to the sheer size of the files needing to be processed, this felt excessive and frustrating.

On the upside, image quality in JPEGs straight out of the camera is very good, with plenty of detail and faithful colours. Noise performance is good – on a par with its Canon competitor in the lower ranges and well controlled up to around ISO 1600. Above this point, quality rapidly declines. There’s quite a difference between ISO 1600 and subsequent sensitivity settings, with ISO 6400 being one we’d recommend avoiding. The A850’s in-camera noise reduction measures do a good job for the most part, but expect loss of detail if you leave it switched on. While the A850 does well at low to moderately high ISOs, the Nikon D700 remains the class leader when it comes to noise control.

Although the A850’s native dynamic range is impressive, sometimes the camera will inevitably need a helping hand. To this end, Sony’s DRO (dynamic range optimiser) appears once more in the A850’s features list, helping to produce more even exposures in high-contrast situations. With different strength levels to choose from (Standard, Advanced Auto and Advanced: Level) there’s something to cover most eventualities, and results are impressive.

On the whole, we found the Sony A850 to be an impressive piece of technology, particularly when considering its relatively modest price tag. There are some kinks to work out, but loyal Sony enthusiasts will find it simple enough to get to grips with. This great value-for-money camera will appeal to more ‘traditional’ photographers with no desire for features like video modes.