SAL 50F18 also out already ar??

That one havent.

Some dealers got it first before Sony Style. lol

This post has been edited by V12Kompressor: Jun 10 2009, 11:22 PM

wahh...which dealer?? I want!! lolz

the dealers mostly sell as PWP... need to buy a330 then add RM500 for the 50mm f1.8

the said dealer sell A330 at suggested retail price or cheaper?

not sure... it was a few pages back... wasn't that interested with the new camera... hehehe... was more interested with the 50mm f1.8

A330(SAL1855) street price will be around RM1950+-
SAL50F18 will be selling around RM520++

^^aaaaa.... hehehe... what he said... at page 22, post number 424...
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U mean the SAL50F18 sold separately is RM520+? no confirmed price yet?
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Ok peeps! time to OngOng... Good night All!

This post has been edited by Braynumb: Jun 11 2009, 12:13 AM

For those of you who have read my blog entry on the A330, you should read this again as I've edited it a lot after discovering that SAM lenses weren't all that bad, and that the Local Area AF function does have its purpose.


I tried a production copy of the brand new Sony Alpha 330!

Its box is amazingly small; you could come home with it in a paper bag and nobody would know that you bought something big.


The DSLR-A330L package, with the new Sony 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DT SAM lens, goes for RM2,199 recommended retail price. The RRP for the new Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM is RM599 but we know that the street price will be lower.


Although the new SAM lenses feature a Smooth Autofocus Motor inside the lens, the A330 still has a screw drive motor, to auto-focus lenses that do not have motors inside, which is pretty much every Sony lens without the SAM or SSM (Super Sonic Motor) designation.


The rear of the Sony 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DT SAM lens; it has a rectangular recess to hold the focus screw as it won't use it. The mount is plastic as is with all kit lenses. Unfortunately, it seems that one major downside of the Smooth Autofocus Motor in this lens, at least, is that if the body AF/MF switch is set to manual focus, you cannot manually focus the lens.



Switching the AF/MF switch on the body is not preferred when using a SAM lens - the focus ring will feel stiff and rough. You would retrain yourself to use the AF/MF switch on the SAM lens instead, to get smooth focusing! This gets worse if you're using an A-mount body that has a AF/MF switch at the back, as pressing it will not allow you to manually focus the lens smoothly! (The Konica Minolta 7D, A700 and A900 have this.)

Originally, I thought the focus ring could not be moved at all when the AF/MF switch on the body was set to MF - however, after trying the Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM, I found that the Sony 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DT SAM lens has a bit of resistance that you need to overcome before it 'unlocks' and lets you focus, albeit with a rough geary feeling. The Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM lens does not have that initial resistance to overcome, so you can turn the focus ring sooner.

I then tried my Minolta 50mm F1.4 on my A900, leaving it in AF-C; it absolutely would not budge if I tried to turn the focus ring.

I only discovered this after trying both SAM lenses on my A900 with DMF (Direct Manual Focus). So, it works, but with a bit of resistance, that you need to get used to. Does the resistance mean that you're spoiling the lens? I don't know, but you don't need that much force.


The A330 uses the same NP-FH50/NP-FH50AM battery used for Sony Handycams and the Sony Cybershot HX-1. This is a lot smaller, lighter and some say cheaper. Unfortunately you lose the live battery percentage readout that was introduced with the NP-FM500H battery.

The other thing to notice, if you're familiar with the A200/300/350/700/900 battery grips, is that there are no pins to allow for a battery grip. There is no remote shutter cable port either, so it's safe to say that you cannot manufacture a third-party battery grip which is connected by electrical contacts, to the body.

An alternate method is how the YXTM battery grip does it on their third-party Nikon D40/40x/60 battery grips - it has a infrared trigger. Your A330 drive mode needs to be set to Remote Control, though! And yes, the A330 now has an infrared receiver so the RMT-DSLR1 remote control can be used to trigger the A330.


Here are two screenshots. Can you tell what the brightest and darkest aperture are, in the top and bottom pictures? There is also no doubt as to what F1.4 looks like (notice the blurred background hills in the icon?) while F22 appears to be all in focus.

Okay so here's the answer - the top shot is the Sony 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DT SAM lens set at 55mm, where the brightest aperture is F5.6 and the darkest is somewhere beyond F22 (I'm guessing F36.) The bottom shot is the same lens at 18mm, where the brightest aperture is F3.5 and the darkest is F22.

Now compare this to a screenshot from a Nikon D40:


(Taken from http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/nikon/d40-review/.)

Yes, you can see the aperture blades. But how is this useful? If I was a beginner, I wouldn't understand it. I don't think it's even relevant to the lesson.

What does the C5 icon mean?


I changed the Drive mode; when you choose an option, about 1 second later, the helpful description comes up. This Self-timer(continuous) mode, I imagine, will be a lot of fun... set your camera on a flat surface, run to your group of friends, and make 5 different poses!

Yes, just like those sticker picture booths.

Although it doesn't let you use the pop-up flash, you can attach an external flash and have all 5 shots with flash.

Top left: I tried to press the Flash button to activate flash in Self-timer(continuous) mode. It would not let me, but it told me why.

Bottom left: Super SteadyShot is now known as SteadyShot and no longer has its own switch - instead, it is in the menu. I prefer it in the menu anyway because the only time it is off is when I put it in the bag and accidentally turn it off (or forget to turn it on, after turning it off, to bad consequences.)

Top right: Remember the A300/350 and their Invalid operation screen? They've finally rewritten that screen in a manner that is very obvious.

Bottom right: Likewise.


Top: Of course, there was one thing that bothered me in the upper screen - here, it says a Smaller F isolates the subject. Technically, a smaller F number is F22, not F1.4 (it is rightfully written as F/22 and F/1.4 but I don't like writing it that way.)

F1.4 means a bigger aperture which lets more light in. So the help text is wrong... though, that could be alright since most people get it backwards anyway. The only people who know, would already know how aperture numbers work.

Bottom: Another thing that bothered me is that with the less number of buttons, there was no way to scroll through pictures while retaining a magnified view. (Okay, maybe I should've checked the manual just in case.) This feature is useful when checking between burst shots and determining which ones are sharper.


Top left: Quick AF Live View. It seems that Sony has changed the AF point layout; however they retained the same Live View sensor from the A300/350, which isn't the highest-resolution sensor there is, unfortunately.

Bottom left: With the 2x Smart Teleconverter, it looks grainy and low-resolution, just as it was on the A300/350. I wish Sony had improved on this!

Top right: This is a shocker - you can set Custom WB, but you cannot set the WB in Kelvins and color-correction (Magenta/Green) values anymore. This has been an amazing feature included in every A-mount digital SLR body... except this one, and presumably the A230 and A380 too. Olympus and Pentax offer Kelvin WB in all bodies however cheap while Canon and Nikon never bothered putting it in anything below the 40D and D90.

Bottom right: Another shocker - there's no way to quickly change AF points* unless you go through the Fn menu to change AF area. The directional 5-way pad used to be able to change AF points quickly, but now those 4 arrows change Flash, Disp, Drive and ISO now. You use the left and right keys to choose an AF point, and it does not show in the viewfinder.

* This is assumed though as I didn't read the manual; there might be a quicker way which I haven't figured out.

There is one benefit to using the Local Area AF mode; you can choose an off-center AF point and alternate between the off-center AF point and the center AF point.

Half-press the shutter, and the camera will focus on the off-center AF point. Press the shutter all the way down and it will take a picture focused off-center.

Press the AF button with your thumb, and the camera will focus on the center AF point. Hold it down, while you press the shutter all the way down and it will take a picture focused on the center.

If you press down on the AF button (or center of the joystick) with any other Alpha, you'd set the AF point to the center, and if you wanted to return to an off-center AF point, you'd have to navigate to that AF point again!


Okay I was kidding, I did flip quickly through the menu to figure out how to turn on High ISO Noise Reduction. As it turns out, I was using continuous self-timer so I could not turn it on.


Thankfully, the ability to trigger off-camera Alpha flashes is still in the A330, using only the pop-up flash of the A330 and the flash set to WL Flash.

Another interesting thing is that when you change Flash settings, the selected flash mode shows in your viewfinder! This function is not even available on the A900.


Does the A330 ship with Image Data Converter? Yes it does. I guess Silkypix might be limited to the A380.


What else is in the box? A new lens cap which uh, looks like a recycleable tray from a ketchup sauce dispenser! I hope nobody is eating fries, pouring sauce into the lens cap... while getting a phone call, and putting the lens cap on the lens!

We'll see over time how many people do this.


Speaking of the Sony 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DT SAM, this is how close it can focus at 55mm at F5.6. Bokeh is not bad; I am not a pixel-peeper so I cannot tell you off-hand whether this is better than the old Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT (though my memory thinks it is.)


This is what it does at 18mm F3.5, also at the minimum focusing distance of 25cm (measured from the sensor plane, not the front of the lens.)

Anyway, I am not a pixel-peeper, so I cannot compare and tell you whether the A330 has better noise control than the A300. It does seem so, though, retaining more detail at higher ISOs...

As for the controversial body grip, well, I find it to be much like my A100; I had to put my last finger underneath the body grip at times to stabilize it. I'm still trying to figure out how to hold the A330, because every time I figure out how to hold it comfortably, I end up holding it differently the next time I touch it!

I tried the new Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM (Smooth Autofocus Motor) lens today! Here it is, on a Sony Alpha 330 digital SLR.


Left: Minolta 50mm F1.4 (Original); right: Sony 50mm F1.8 DT SAM.

The Sony is fatter but somewhat lighter. It comes with the standard black lens cap (not the cheap plastic cap that comes with the Alpha 330 with kit lens package!)

Note that the Minolta has a built-in retractable lens hood which is so short that it's quite useless. The Sony however has no built-in retractable lens hood; what you see, is two tubes when extending out to focus closer. It seems that the lens simply does not have any provision for a bayonet-mount lens hood; however you can buy a third-party screw-on hood.


Bokeh is nice at F1.8, and the lens is rather contrasty even at F1.8! Note that the depth of field is shallow with a F1.8 lens, and so her nose is already out-of-focus in the picture.


The lens can focus to 34cm close (measured from the sensor plane.) This makes for an impressive maximum magnification of 1:5x!


Another close-up shot at F1.8!


Again, at F1.8 - the collar is in focus but his shirt is not.


So how does it look like on the A900, on full-frame? Normally, the A900 would automatically enable APS-C crop mode and not allow you to disable it. Unless, of course, you press the lens release button to trick the camera, and shoot in M mode to let the A900 shoot despite it not detecting a lens.

Vignetting really isn't that bad, amazingly... many suspect that this is a full-frame lens made into APS-C format.


Vignetting only shows when you focus at further distances - here, the lens is focused at infinity. The corners get dark real quick.


The 50mm F1.8 (again, on full-frame hack mode) exhibits very good out-of-focus disc rendition; no harsh bright-line bokeh. It is also contrasty wide open, in fact a bit more than I'd have liked!


This is my Minolta 50mm F1.4 Original. Pardon the person blocking my view. Depending on the background lights I could get a lot of bright-line bokeh from this lens. (The Minolta 50mm F1.7 also has this.) Also note the classic lower contrast at F1.4.

Thanks albnok - nice review.

this one really good job la.

so the new a330 doesnt have an official batt grip like nikon d60/d40 too?

doesn't look like there's any grip.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores...552921644548357

wah, the SAL50F18 SAM has how may blades aperture ?
The bokeh looks nice, much nicer than C 50mm f/1.8 II

might need to wait later if sony does produce any battgrip for the new lineup....

doesn't look like there's any grip.

http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores...552921644548357

even if there is a grip, it probably wont have a shutter button..

hanafinoor, thanks for reading!

goldfries: Indeed, it feels like a big smack in the head of those who I've heard:

"Think of aperture as a water tap. When you tighten the tap, less water comes in. So less light comes in so it takes longer to fill a bucket."

That analogy works too but these icons are as direct as you can get! I really hope it answers all those "what aperture and shutter speed to use?" questions.

alpha_company, yes, it looks like that is the case. As the YXTM grip for the D40 uses a infrared remote I don't see why they cannot do the same for the A230/330/380!

0168257061: The SAL5018 SAM has 7 aperture blades. Nothing new though, the Minolta 50mm F1.4 had it too and it seems Sony just carried the tradition on. I know the Canon 50mm F1.8 MkII has 5 heh.

However I think the distinction is in removing bright-line bokeh which is so common on 50mm lenses. Bright-line bokeh is responsible for turning your faraway out-of-focus paku-pakis plant into an annoying bunch of sharp lines!