I read that same review on the Sony...
This criticism is coming from a site that also evaluates premium performance $7000.00+ cameras in the hands of truly professional photographers.
...it is not the ideal tool for shooting fast action.
Yes... but in their opinion, the "Ideal tool" would be a large body Cannon 1DX which is ridiculously expensive.
I would say that what they mention is far from a "significant problem"
The other key phrase that, for me, makes this irrelevant to us non-pro people is
no live view updates, no aperture control...if you want AF during the burst
My feelings on this is.... Who can adjust aperture or look at an update in an event window of .10 seconds???
Also, unless you are using a fixed lens with a small F rating... how much control do you have over the aperture ? The lens also plays a major role here.
I talked to Cannon Customer service (factory)...They said that in this new age of 10-14 (or more soon) FPS, these considerations (live update and focus control in .1 seconds or less) becomes a moot point for a
human being using the camera. At that rate of burst, there is simply no time for the shooter to adjust this and although their Pro Level cameras do have this feature... they could not think of any photographer that would be able to use this feature in a way that would allow them to adjust their camera during the burst. Essentially, this feature is something that has become irrelevant in this new age of high FPS action Digital photography. The new 14 FPX 1DX has auto aperture/Auto focus available that is seamless... and in these cameras, the Pro Photographers are shooting in this mode (not manual)... simply because it is not humanly possible at that rate. The auto update is something that, if activated, becomes a blur across the screen/viewfinder at those speeds.... and is effectively not a useful tool when trying to manually adjust for this in these "small event windows"
... Now, if you were talking about adjusting this at the much slower rate of 3.7fps... yes, that is something that might factor in if you are lightning quick and prefer to have manual control in this situation.... IMO, that would be something that the best Professional photographers might need.. but then again, they are not using this kind of camera budget.
When I talked with the Tech support at B&H (they don't work on commission)... They simply said that in terms of burst image production... for less than $4000, the A-55/77 are in a league of their own. And, without the movable mirror, the durability of the A-55 camera is "rock solid" in comparison to a moving mirror camera.
The T3i has been a strong consideration for me..but with the movable mirror and the slow 3.7 FPS performance... It did not rank as high for me in my intended use... It has a max burst of 3.7 FPS and only 9 step AF....A-55 with 10FPS and 17 step AF... The EOS 1D-X with 14 FPS and 61 point AF
The only thing that I see that the A-55 does not greatly overshadow the T3i, for the non professional action-sports photographer, is that the T3i has progressive 1080i video where the Sony is interlaced 1080i. Unless you are showing on a huge projector, this is not really a concern for me in terms of perceivable video quality. For the best 55" HD flat panel... the average person would not notice the difference.
In the
$1000 ballpark (w/lens) I really don't see anything in the A-55's league for shooting action sequences and giving amazing performance for all but the true professional photographer.
Some Eye-Candy..
The $7000+ Cannon EOS 1D-X... one word... WOW!!:face-icon-small-ton
.