The Sony A230 is an entry level DSLR from Sony. All in all, it is a very good camera, considering its relatively low price. The camera shoots 10.2 megapixel images which can be displayed on its 2.7 inch LCD screen. It has an ISO range of 100-3200, a built in anti-shake system, eye-start auto-focus and Dynamic Range Optimizer. The camera is slightly cheaper than the A330 model, which features Live View and a tilting LCD screen, and is much cheaper than the 14 megapixel A380. If you buy it with a decent lens, the camera will probably set you back about $450.
The Sony A230 really excels is in its ease of use. Most of the controls and features are fairly self-explanatory and easy to use. The intelligent auto mode seems to produce good looking results, and the manual settings are easy to change. Unfortunately there aren’t enough external buttons, which means you can expect to do a fair amount of navigating through menus with the camera’s D-pad. The A230 is fairly chunky, and is quite heavy. It feels well built and robust, although some of the panels are a bit plasticy. It uses a special rechargeable Sony battery, which can be annoying. The camera has an unusual grip which many people do not like. I have no problems with the grip, however, and find it to be rather well designed in fact. The view finder is very small, meaning it can be quite hard to use the manual focus properly. The LCD is good enough; having reasonable outside visibility but still reflecting a fair amount of light. The Steady Shot feature on the Sony A230 seems to work fairly well when shooting at lower exposures. The camera also comes with numerous scene shooting modes, like landscape and portrait, which are helpful for novices no doubt. The camera has no internal memory, but instead an SD card slot. Overall, while it does have some annoying features, the Sony A230 is fairly easy to use.
The Sony also has very competitive image quality. The images are sharp and vibrant, and the colors tend to come out very well. Noise isn’t a big problem, although you can expect to see some when shooting with the highest ISO settings. The camera shoots in standard or fine JPEG or in RAW. It handles night photography well, allowing you to set shutter speed up to 30 seconds, or even longer with bulb mode. The anti-shake feature works really well, allowing you to shoot sharp images at relatively long shutter speeds.
The Sony A230 is a very good camera. While the lack of external buttons can get annoying from time to time, it is generally very easy to use, and will deliver very high quality images without you having to mess around with the settings too much. As an entry level DSLR, the Sony A230 is one of the best options out there, especially because you can pick one up for a very reasonable price from Amazon or another online retailer nowadays.
Review courtesy of Charlie Nourse on http://hubpages.com/hub/Sony-Alpha-230-A230-camera-review
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