This Sony a200 is the bottom of the range fully fledged entry level d-SLR from Sony. With prices now well below £300 could this be the camera for you to enter the next level of your photography? I believe it can. Offering a wide range of features, lenses and quality that has brought Sony where it is today, this camera will definitely be giving the bigger names something to worry about.

This camera is obviously designed from scratch to bring ultimate simplicity to beginners to enthusiasts alike. The build quality is very good for the price, though not as strong as many other cameras in the market, it looks as though it could still take a fair blow or two, but not three. The 10.2 mega-pixel offering is more than enough for most levels of photography and images can be blown up to at least A3 before any real problems are noticed. The menus are easy to navigate; everything can be found where you expect and offering a wide range of options. It allows for full quality Jpegs and medium quality Jpegs as well as the RAW format found on more expensive models, and of course, you can also shoot full quality Jpegs at the same time as RAW allowing you maximum control of editing white balance and other settings after the event. This means you don’t have to get all the settings absolutely correct out shooting as long as you are competent with a computer and Photoshop. The body is laid out extremely well with quick access buttons and switches to a range of shooting modes as well as autofocus settings and areas. The mode wheel found atop the camera works much better than other models and almost every ordinary digital camera. These modes include, auto, shutter-priority, aperture-priority, portraits and sports, as well as many others. It can shoot up to 3fps, which is not great but is certainly enough for amateur photography. The ISO range starts low at 100 and works up to a total of 3200, although it is not really worth asking for more than 800 as the Sony sensor does not cope well above ISO 400. If you plan on regularly using a high ISO this may not be the right model for you and it may be of considerable benefit for you to think more over to the Canon entry-levels as even these cope excellently with ISO for example the slightly pricier Canon 450d.
All of the pictures taken with these modes can also be achieved by using manual control. This is one of the features that allow it to pull away from many standard digital cameras; you have full control over the end exposure of your image. Shutter, aperture and ISO are just some of the aspects of the image you have to control with only a simple light level indicator allowing you to see if your image will be over or under exposed. This will let you get exactly the image you are after, albeit with a lot of practice. Blurring water and light trails will be easily accessible to you allowing you to capture stunning images.

The kit lens supplied is the 18-70mm, f3.5-5.6 Sony lens that comes supplied with most of the Alpha range. This image works surprisingly well for the cost delivering sharp images even with the aperture fully open. It is not on par with a slightly pricier lens from Canon or Nikon but certainly does the job. Although it is slightly more telephoto than standard 18-55mm kit lenses the extra 15mm is not noticeable and is not a big enough reason to shy away from the Canon entry range, discussed later. Images will be sharp with slightly more chromatic abrasion near the edges than normal but this can only be expected from a camera as cheap as this. Extra lenses are available from Sony as well as many other stockists usual to photography. These range from superb fisheye kits, all the way through the super-wide angles up to extra telephotos. The range is not as complete as longer established Nikon or Canon ranges but definitely fairs up well, also given that old Minolta lenses as well as most modern Tamron and sigma lenses come with the alpha mount.

Its competition includes Nikon D3000 and the Canon 1000D, although these cameras cost a lot more (£399.99.) They offer similar features and are essentially the same beginner cameras but with the name negotiating the higher price. These cameras stand up well to the Sony a200 but for the extra cost you are not getting anything of serious note.