2/20/08
Rain, clouds and mucho hiking the past couple of weeks, and in-between I’ve managed to test my lens collection for auto-focus performance on the Sony A 700. Although I haven’t tested the A 200 or A 300 series bodies, I can tell you the A 700 is substantially better in both speed and accuracy as compared to the A 100. Also, I’ve been reading the reviews of the A 200, and it seems this body is better than the A 100 for focusing too, but not quite as good as the A 700.
It appears if you want a legitimate upgrade to your A 100, you might have to go with the A 700, the reason I say this is, with the A 200 you don’t get a direct manual focus mode (which is very handy for some Sony lenses or aftermarket lenses) or DOF preview button (which I use for display shots or macros) and finally, no mirror lock up with the 2 second timer, again, handy for super telephoto and/or a tripod that’s over-extended. I have some updates on the A 700 review page concerning D-Range Optimizer and Creative style comparisons. Go here to see the updates at the bottom of the page. Also, since the auto-focusing performance is better on the A 700, I’m going to update my lens reviews to indicate this, which will vindicate Sony to some extent; eh, maybe I’ve been a little hard on ’em.