I have already had several years an A850 in use, which I had bought myself mainly because of the beautiful Sony 70-400. The imaging results were extremely convincing for me. As a landscape photographer but I had always struggled with the problem of the focal plane to be placed so that later nowhere in the picture a disturbing uncertainty had to be registered. Especially in the more powerful telephoto range, this problem can be significantly despite all the known rules of thumb.
After a friend bought the A65 and my focus peaking (edge ​​enhancement) had demonstrated, I began seriously to deal with the A99 and have finally bought.
The problem described above, find the best sharpness In addition to the image, is through the electronic viewfinder with my view not high enough to be estimated possibility of Focus peaking now no longer a problem. One can see very well, from where to where the image will be sharp enough in most situations this assistance. This possibility played a key role for me and has proved itself brilliantly.
There is another extremely valuable effect of the electronic viewfinder: Everyone knows the problem that often only a slight change in the vertical camera orientation generated in terms of color (especially of Heaven) completely different picture. This was my only really aware when I photographed for the first time with a digital camera that automatically indicated on your monitor Life-view image. Of course, this can be explained and, if you take a lot of time and careful consideration, also to a certain degree predictable. But the situation (the "heat of the moment") is the most opposed. Since the electronic viewfinder of the A99 creates a live view image, this is also a great help compared to the optical (in itself is very beautiful) viewfinder of A850 because you actually picture so see how it will look later. Added to this is the possibility of the image in the viewfinder to zoom.
What I do miss as already on the A850, is the possibility of combining RAW with JPEG in the highest quality. There are situations where the possibilities offered in both cameras in JPG open up (eg DRO), sometimes lead to better images as it allows subsequent processing of RAW images. Unfortunately, you can not set the highest JPG quality level in the combination but. This is very unfortunate, since one often does not know in advance whether you will achieve in the specific situation with the additional features of JPG or RAW image with the better result. Of course you can take one after a RAW image and a JPEG of the highest quality. My experience, however, that I did then not done in most cases (and it stayed with the RAW image).