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The Sony Alpha A330 has been marketed as a bridge between SLRs and ‘point and shoot’ cameras. I agree with this completely. I was happy playing around on the 2.7inch, 1,080,000 pixel LCD. It was clear and bright and easy to see in harsh lighting.

Some of the Sony Alpha’s features include: a 9 point auto focus, an ISO range of 100 to 3200 (although there was a little noise in the pictures in the higher range above 1600), dynamic range optimizer and a tilt and swivel screen (my favorite kind of LCD as I have mentioned before).

The Numbers: snapping up 2.5 frames per second in continuous shooting mode and around 510 shots (without using Live View) in one battery charge. The battery is a Lithium-Ion battery pack NP-FH50, upgradable of course.

The Sony Alpha A330 has automatic eye focus when you bring your eye up to the view finder (this is made possible by a little infa red light that detects the motion of your eye up against the view finder) Very handy as you don’t have to go fumbling through the menu to turn the auto focus on and off.

Sony has allowed space for Memory Stick PRO Duo, SDHC Memory Card and SD Memory Card.
The menu has this really great feature, new to the market, which is a graphic user guide built into the menu. I found this really handy as I am a visual person. If you find that this kind of menu doesn’t suite you, you can turn it off and go back to the normal menu viewing mode.

The way the camera menu is set up allows you to use it easily with one hand.

Sony Alpha has added a nifty little feature that I thought was a really clever way of functioning. It has a main 10.2 megapixel CCD for still pictures and a smaller CCD recessed inside the viewfinder housing. The smaller CCD gives you a live preview of your final picture and ensures accurate and fast AF in the live view mode by freeing up the larger 10.2 megapixel CCD.

Sony’s color changing menu still tweaks my fancy. I know, being a girl you’d think I go for the pink, but I honestly love the reddish brown menu. The other options are a black background with white text and a white and grey background with black text.

The Sony A330 has a built in flash as well as an accessory shoe that allows external flashes to be used…I recommend the HVL-F20AM that is really easy to use. The external flash allows for a higher output and gives you the option of bouncing the flash light of ceilings and walls (etc) to help diminish heavy shadows and the result is a more illuminated image.

SteadyShot INSIDE™ is an in-camera image stabilizer which helps beginners who have a bit of a shaky hand. This features keeps the camera steady at the point of shooting and the outcome is a less blurred of streaky picture. (nevermind the beginners, I had a few too many cups of coffee and then went shooting in Kirstenbosch Gardens…this feature was fantastic;)

You have the option to plug the camera directly into the television and a remote control makes for easy navigation.
A handy feature: for anti dust assistance, the Sony has a Sensor shake system as well as a static free anti dust coating on the lens. Another playful feature is the self timer which you can set to 2 or 10 seconds.

My conclusion: I’ll give this one a 4 out of 5 for a bridge camera from point and shoot to the wonderful world of SLRs.

Take a look at this useful video review: