Sony Alpha A77 with 16-50mm lens review

This newly launched kit lens is a serious piece of kit. It retails for around £560, and that’s a highly competitive price for such a sharp lens that maintains a bright f/2.8 aperture throughout its zoom range – that’s four times brighter than most kit lenses’ f/5.6 aperture at their longest focal length. This goes some way to compensating for the noisy sensor, as it makes fast ISO speeds a less frequent necessity. However, for this money you could pick up a Canon EOS 60D and Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM lens to get the best of both worlds.

The A77 is available body-only for £1,149 inc VAT at Jessops. For those who don’t have a four-figure budget, the A65 is a stripped down version of the A77, with the same sensor, screen and viewfinder but a plastic body, single control dial, simpler screen articulation, no top-mounted screen and a navigation pad rather than a joystick. Continuous shooting is a little slower at 10fps and there are 15 autofocus points. This all seems fair and sensible, but we’re disappointed that Sony has also removed the customisable ISO function – in the A65, it’s fixed at 100 to 1600. It’s available body-only for £800, or for £880 with Sony’s basic 18-55mm kit lens. That’s a much more palatable price, but when we tried a 18-55mm lens on the A77, it failed to do the 24-megapixel sensor justice.

The A77 was a pleasure to test, and its unique strengths – massive resolution, gorgeous electronic viewfinder, innovative shooting modes – are very much apparent in everyday use. However, so too are its sluggish controls and noisy output at fast ISO speeds. Comparing body-only prices, it’s about £200 more expensive than the Nikon D7000 and the same as the Canon EOS 7D. We haven’t tested the 7D, but between the Nikon and the Sony, it’s the Nikon that gets our vote with its unwaveringly high-quality results.