Apples and Oranges

Well I hate to compare cameras because there always seems to be a trade off ffrom one kind to the other but here goes. I printed the picture below large today, 24x36. It was shot at 100iso 11mm, ND grad, a77
The print itself is as smooth as a babies butt. No jpeg compression, no noise, no artifacts of any kind. The sky has a very pleasent clean look.
My E5 though it makes for great prints they do have some noise even at 100 iso and also artifacts. But you have to get close to see it. But it's there.
The lens was a Sony 11-18mm, not as sharp as my 9-18mm Olympus but not much distortion to correct for. The 11-18mm is sharper in the middle and falls off on the corners. So see there's the trade of.

http://farm7.static.flickr.com/6041/...e3de2e16_z.jpg
Bridge, the other side by Cosmonaut's, on Flickr

Good looking image! I used the 11-18mm a bit on my a700 and have to agree with your assessment. Glad to hear the sweet spot is able to keep up with the a77's added resolution. It's definitely a lens I would have been a little worried about based on what I remember of it's corners... As long as you shoot for it, and make sure you have some good leading lines pulling you away from the corners and into the sweet spot, it's manageable. The above example is proof of that...

Back to the image though, I definitely like it. Good crop, good choice of BW to highlight the textures in both the wood details and mood of the sky... I'm sure it'd look great as a full sized print...