Sony A900 - Retro Review
Sony jumping into the full frame DSLR market in 2008 wasn't a surprise (announced over a year earlier), but it was a pleasant one. Nobody else was pushing such a high resolution sensor, and certainly not with features like in body image stabilisation. Its design shared a lot with its crop A700 sibling handling wise, but also burst and buffer performance. An impressive feat given the larger and higher resolution sensor, which is managed by having dual Bionz processors.
Sony A900 + Zeiss Planar | Nikon D700 + 85/1.4D
Key Specifiations
Date:
$ (inflation):
Sensor:
Resolution:
Burst:
DR Stops:
E-Shutter:
SS:
AF points:
IS:
Video:
Live View:
ISO:
OVF:
LCD:
Memory:
Weight:
Battery:
2008 (Sept)
$3,000 ($4,500)
Full Frame CMOS
24mp
5fps / 25 shots
9.7 (14bit)
1/250th
30s - 1/8,000th
9 (10%)
Yes (4 stops)
No
No
100 - 3,200
0.74x / 100%
3.0" / 921k / Fixed
CF + MS
895g
~880 (NP-FM500H)
Ergonomics & Build
I find Sony's professional DSLRs as fugly as they are uncomfortable to hold, although I do like the A900's angled prism exterior. I don't get this as much with the lower-end ones, or maybe I'm just more forgiving. They're even uglier than a typical Canon, although this grip is a little better than the 5D, but neither of these hold a candle to the Nikon's looks and ergonomics (IMO).
Red Squirrel | Zeiss Planar 85mm, f/1.4, iso 100
Viewfinder & Screen
Compared to the competition (Canon 5D & Nikon D700), the Sony A900 has a larger viewfinder with more (total) coverage. The rear screen sounds really close to a modern Sony on paper, but it's rather let down by its viewing angles and dynamic range today.
Göteborg | Minolta 35-70 | f/8 | iso 100
Battery
The NP-FM500H is a decent battery, but all DSLR batteries and performance is pretty much the same and good enough.
Göteborg | Minolta 35-70 | f/8 | iso 100
Speed
The five frames per second burst speed matched the best competition at the time (Nikon D700), but considering it was pushing double the resolution compared to all the competition (plus Canon 5D), it was really quite impressive for the time. The buffer depth is pretty interesting, in that you can have the 5fps for eleven raws in a row, but if you need more and want to keep the raw format you can. Switching to compressed raw will allow you to shoot at 5fps for twenty-five frames.
All professional DSLRs top out at 1/8000th of a second as a max shutter speed and the Sony A900 is no different
Göteborg | Minolta 35-70 | f/8 | iso 100
Image Quality
This full frame 24 megapixel CMOS sensor provided double the resolution of the competition, and thus was possibly the best image quality you could get in 2008. I did get a lot of blurry images with the image stabilisation turned on, so I turned it off and everything was much sharper. I'm not sure what was going on there, it could just be an issue with the unit I have.
DXO PureRAW 4 handled the A900 images really well and gave me much cleaner files. Any shortcomings with the noise of this sensor can be easily fixed by running them through that first, but I do that for anything that comes out well these days, even if it's shot at base ISO. I am looking forward to trying out version 5 of the software next week.
The reason I picked up the A900 in 2025 was to test its handling of colour reproduction compared to modern cameras. What I initially thought was caused by CCD sensors is actually just an older style of colour science that was also applied to these early full frame CMOS camera images too. Putting these images next to ones from the Sony A390 CCD sensor proved this immediately. They both look far more saturated in the reds and greens, in fact the A900 is even more obvious than the newer CCD sensor Sony. I will be working on a massive project that compares these early CMOS cameras to earlier CCD/CMOS and new cameras...
Göteborg | Minolta 35-70 | f/8 | iso 100
Lenses
Taking over Minolta's camera business, Sony's Alpha DSLRs kept their A-mount bayonet and remained compatible with their AF lenses. Sony began to make their own AF lenses and partnered with Zeiss for some special optics, giving them access to a good amount of lenses, although today they're not as easy to find as Canon or Nikon DSLR lenses. These lenses can be adapted to Sony's new FE-mount mirrorless cameras and retain autofocus functionality using adapters like the Sony LA-EA5. This is also possible with Nikon F, Canon EF, Contax G and even manual Leica M lenses*.
* The Sony mirrorless mount is easily the most versatile for older lens support while also having the largest amount of 1st and 3rd party lenses, including some of the lightest and most reasonably priced options.
Bokeh Panos
Going back to shooting the Brenizer technique on DSLRs is a real pain, especially on the A900, when there is no live-view. I can't look through the viewfinder to align the shot overlap if I want to do the rotation properly, so I just had to do it blind and rely on muscle memory. This would be difficult for someone new to the technique. Here are a couple of examples I managed to pull off with the Zeiss Planar 85mm lens, which used about 35 shots each.
Göteborg | Zeiss Planar 85mm | f/1.4 | iso 100
Infrared
I will update this section once I get time to test the infrared capability of the A900 by simply placing a filter over the lens (non-converted). I am curious how these early Sony DSLRs work without being converted because their mirrorless cameras are all completely incapable, as far as I know (requiring conversion).
Red Squirrel | Zeiss Planar 85mm, f/1.4, iso 100
Conclusion
The Sony A900 is a pretty interesting camera in 2025. The resolution is still perfectly acceptable seventeen years on. The noise and dynamic range performance has been improved a little since, but it's not night and day different, especially when you put the files through DxO PureRAW. It is a heavy camera, although only when you compare it to some modern cameras. It weighs less than a Nikon Z8 for example, and that's the smaller pro mirrorless body, so not terrible. There are a few negatives here of course, like the CF memory cards, the lack of any live-view and tilty flippy screen etc., but if you're someone who likes to use the viewfinder, you'll be happy here and as optical viewfinders go this is a really nice one.
If you like the nostalgia of hearing a pleasing mirror slap when you shoot a photo you might really enjoy this experience, and if you like the more punchy older style digital camera colours (that feel like slide film) then you will absolutely love this camera.