Is Sony now the best?

Night, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Field, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

Crossing, originally uploaded by jiihaa.

I wrote here of having the Sony NEX-5 in my hands, thanks to a colleague who bought one because of the excellent low-light capabilities.

Well, today I had a couple of minutes to try the Sony A33 which is another potentially revolutionary camera design. This one was bought by another colleague. Sony seems to be doing rather well nowadays in cameras.

The A33 was nice to handle, just the right size, and quite responsive. The 18-70 mm f/3.5-5.6 lens made the combo quite large, but it was also versatile, and when using 70 mm one could focus close enough for excellent closeups.

Of course, when using such a lens the relative benefit of the bigger sensor - less noise at high ISO - isn't such a big one compared to the f/2.0 lens of the LX3 or LX5. But of course the A33 beats the LX3 or LX5 easily in image quality. On the other hand, it is no way pocketable.

It is interesting to see Sony suddenly becoming such a common choice of camera. And there are benefits, for example backward compatibility of lenses. I have the impression that one could use even the old Minolta MD Rokkor lenses with these cameras - manual focus only of course. Am I mistaken?