Sony a (alpha) SLT-A65

As with my previous reviews I’ll not linger too much on the technical specification as the internet is awash with those and very detailed reviews are available. Instead, I’ll look at the user experience.

Technical specs can be found here:

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/dsi-body-a​nd-1-lens/slt-a65vk#pageType=TechnicalSp​ecs

My wife and I are keen (very) amateur photographers so we decided to treat ourselves to new cameras for Christmas. After extensive research we decided on Sony, an unconventional choice but I think one of the best options for any amateur wanting to upgrade to an SLR style camera.

We bought both an a55 and a65 at the same time. The a55 review is also available and referenced in this review.

The a65 has a bit of an identity crisis as it is not a replacement for the a55 and not quite a scaled down version of the a77. The reason I say this is that even though the feature set is stolen from the a77, this is not a Pro Camera. However, it also does not have the very beginner friendly features of the a55.

The a65 uses Translucent Lens Tech, which Sony hopes will be the next big thing for Digital Photography and it is widely agreed that with the a77 and now the a65 they have got it right. With the a55, there were some issues with ghosting. It must be said that these issues were near impossible to detect by most users.

The a65 can shoot 10 frames per second at the highest resolution. So you will never miss that action shot again! That combined with the very fast Auto Focus means that you can quite comfortable shoot moving targets and track objects with great focus and ensure that you get a useable shot.

The A65 has slightly fewer focus points compared to the a77 but more than enough to kick dust in the face of all of its competitors.

The a65 has an AUTO mode that is pretty much what you would expect from Digital Camera but also an AUTO+ setting. In AUTO+ the camera makes some amazing choices, it auto detects scenes and processes the picture accordingly. The fast shooting speed is used here again, in many situations the camera will shoot 5 different shots in a fraction of a second, all at different setting and choose the best one. The results are truly amazing, especially when shooting in low light.

The one, slight criticism I had of the a55 was the viewfinder. Sony has obviously realised this is a problem and the EFV on the a65 is now a brilliant AMOLED screen that delivers crisp and clear images.

Another nice feature is that the LCD screen is now full frame as opposed to the widescreen on the a55.

The body is very slightly smaller than the a77 but still felt very comfortable in my hand, not too small at all. I do wish that it had the option to add a battery grip however.

The body is made of durable plastic with rubber grip. All round the camera sits very comfortable and I really like the control layout.

The camera has image stabilising built into the camera body, so even if you bought a lens that does not have stabilising the camera will compensate.

It should also be mentioned that you can shoot full HD 50p video!

At the price this camera is selling for you can simply not find a better SLR style semi-pro camera (In opinion at least!)