SLT-A77

So, with some errors due to an upload failure of Picasa I finally can put some text with the pics.

I was bragging about my new Sony SLT-A77 but I didn't show you pictures which would back up my bragging. Well, here are some pictures and more to follow.

What I really like about the SLT-A77 is the fact that it is a nice camera to hold. And the EVF is superb. It has highlight clipping but what you see is what you get couldn't be more true when you take your shot. It looks exactly like what you saw through your EVF, which is an OLED by the way. 

The lenses are maybe not up to par with the range that Nikon/Canon offer, but there are some nice Sony lenses there. The 35mm 1.8 is on of my favorites. It has a nice pricetag and the results are sharp and colorful.

@  Panorama Terrace Schiphol  shot with 35mm 1.8 (f2.8)

Effects are of course present in this camera. Like the NEX-3 this camera offers effects that are applied directly. So no point of return if you forgot to turn off the effect. The effect on the right is the toy-effect. You can select horizontal or vertical lanes. The photo is then saturated giving toy like miniature look.

So much for Schiphol. Now let see some macro shots.

 This shot and the next was taken with a Tamron 70-300mm lens. With "macro" option 1:2. You can use this magnification factor between 200-300 so bring along a tripod. Dispite the low cost (bought it for 125 euro incl vat) of this lens I'm pleased with the shots. The bee shot is a bit blurry but that's because a piece of gras was trying to hide my subject. I am no macro purist so keep that in mind but I like to experiment from time to time.

The following flower shots were made with the kit lens (18-55). A normal use lens for normal use. But what I like about the camera, well you can read it above but this is new. The 24 mp count!

Honestly, we as non-pro don't need 24 mp. Even the pros don't need 24 mp, but that's up to them. And the high iso noise above 3200 iso doesn't advocate this high count either. Did I mention the data? Raw data can take a big place on you harddrive when shooting 24 mp. 

However, once you go cropping you'll forgive your A77 for being such a heavy load on your drive. And in daylight shots with iso never exceeding 800 it's great.  The cropping you can do looks almost endless. The spider below the flower can be magnified as if it was a macroshot of a 6 mp camera. Pretty nice for a pro-consumer.

 So there you have it. The first shots of my Sony SLT-A77. In my next post I want to show you the difference between srgb and adobe rgb. There's much said about this but I never saw a site which showed you the difference in not only color rendering but also the shadow area. Stay tuned.

Shots with my NEX-3

A camera which I used for less than a year. The Sony NEX-3. Although it was pretty much capable of producing some very nice pictures, it was a drag to manual focus (even with peaking focus). Plus, some of my pictures looked perfectly sharp on the screen (which is also terrible if you're used to a viewfinder. I even wished for my Canon 350D in low light scenery) but when viewed back on my computer screen the focus once so perfect was gone. But nevertheless, it served as a nice novice camera. Below are some pics shot with the NEX-3.

On this pic you can see the "out-of-focus" problem which I mentioned. And serious, on the screen it looked perfect.

I like this one. This was shot at Koog Zaandijk, near "De Zaansche Schans". Shot has been processed with Picasa.

New information sign. Funny it says via Castricum, Alkmaar... That's the only way to go to Den Helder by train. No other secret route that I know of.

Lazy cat. This was shot manual focus. It worked nice but I had enough time to focus.

Boring, but it helps you enjoy the mediocre pictures more.

Built in FX on the NEX. Just green.

Or high pola...

One of my favorite settings. High contract B&W. Too bad about the subject. These are just a sample of the built-in fx. You can do it in most editors, like GIMP/Photo/Paintshop but working with built-in effects has something definite to it. To be clear, you select the picture effect and you shoot. Jpeg only :(

So if you have a great subject but your choice of effect doesn't add anything extra... Can't reset it.

Because of a malfunction of the AC, the fire-escape was open giving me a change to make this shot. Was taken with a really cool feature HDR. (Cool for me because it was the first time I used it)

Opposite to the built-in effects, this also shoots a normal unadjusted jpeg. Which is great if you've forgotten to turn it off. It renders the 3 bracket-shot by itself. Sony does a very nice job compared with other camera brands with the same feature.

Construction, construction. They're building a new place for a bank or something like that. No crisis at all.

Shot was taken with a very very nice feature from Sony, Handheld Twilight mode. 6 frames shot at ISO 6400 and camera generates 1 pic. Again, nice.

Local skatey thingy, single shot. After edited with Neat Image.