Sony A230At 452 g without the battery, lenses and accessories, this little camera is a lightweight in terms of body makeup, however, it is slightly bigger than its competitors in the same league and is therefore able to offer a bigger screen (2.7 inches) and a challengeable better auto-focus feature (a 9 point system) but there is a slight (0.5 second) loss in continuous shooting. Not a bad trade if you ask me, but does make for a hiccup of you are shooting mostly active scenes.

Sony has worked very hard to create a camera with a smooth transition from ‘point and shoot’ to the upgraded quality of result that an SLR camera provides without the complication of too many menu listings. However, if you are upgrading from a point and shoot to the Sony Alpha A230 (or any SLR for that matter) don’t get caught in the ease of using this camera and just pointing and shooting :) while you will have fantastic results, there are some really great options to play with that will only serve to compliment your picture quality.

The Sony Alpha offers a 10.2Mp resolution and you can play with the self timer mode when shooting pictures of yourself :)

The Sony Alpha’s LCD turns off automatically when you bring your eye up to the view finder (a snazzy little infa red light picks up the movement and does this for you) at the same time the camera will start up auto focus. You have a larger optical viewfinder image with the Sony A230 than you get with the more expensive models because of it’s secondary live-view sensor.

The way the menu is set up is super easy to use. It functions with tabs across the top of the menu and then you have the ability to scroll through the options in each tab. Simple and quick.

You can change the screen display size to medium and large (no more squinting at the screen) and a little added fun bonus is that you can change the screen colour (Pink, Grey-blue, reddish-black and black)
The Sony lenses are obvioulsy compatible with the Alpha A230 and so are all Maxxum and Alpha lenses.

The Numbers: 2.5 frames per second in continuous capture. The Sony Alpha A230 is fed by a NP-FH50 Lithium-ion battery which they claim will allow for 510 snaps without using the LCD (using the view finder). Of course this means that in a real life situation with a bit of view finder a bit of LCD usage the 510 will drop so if you want to do all day shooting, I advice that you purchase a back up battery

Sony has added a special feature to this camera which puts it a little above its predecessors; a built in support for certain Sony flashes using wireless TLL flash exposure.

And I really liked the ability to adjust saturation, brightness and contrast in photo mode, as well as playing with the creative style settings in the menu.

My Conclusion: I am giving the Sony Alpha A230 a 3 star rating. I don’t recommend it for advanced photographers, but it definitely gets my vote for beginners moving from a ‘point and shoot’ to an SLR.

Check out this video review (it also reviews the new Alpha A380):

Click here to buy the Sony Alpha A230 online from SAcamera.co.za »