Sony Alpha SLT-A33L review

It’s disappointing that there isn’t full manual exposure control for videos, but exposure lock is available, and switching to manual focus allowed us to set the aperture too. The HDMI output is active while recording videos and composing photos – something that’s standard for video cameras but rare among stills cameras.

The battery lasted for 128 minutes of video recording in our tests – better than most dedicated AVCHD cameras. It’s also much better than the disappointing photo battery life: 370 shots when using the LCD screen and just 270 shots with the viewfinder. Each video clip is limited to 29 minutes – a result of EU duty laws that whack 4.9% import duty on cameras that record over 30 minutes That’s absurd enough, but it gets worse.

Sadly, this promising video mode comes crashing down due to sensor overheating. This issue isn’t unique to Sony but in the A33 it sets in fast, limiting recording to around 11 minutes before the camera switched itself off, and even sooner in hot weather or if the camera had been on for some time. Disabling image stabilisation improved matters but it’s annoying that it’s not possible to leave it disabled for video and enabled for photos.

Although the translucent mirror is good news for autofocus, the disadvantage is that less light reaches the sensor. That probably explains why noise levels were a little higher than from competing SLRs. There was some evidence of it in JPEGs at ISO speeds as low as 200. Noise reduction kept it in check all the way up to 1600, but by this point subtle details such as hair and skin textures were heavily suppressed too. ISO 3200 to 12800 produced shots that were OK for sharing on the web but not for printing.