Sony A55 Criticism Clarification

By: In: Media, Photography

In this post I register a criticism of the Sony A55 camera. I say:

That problem is in the middle of the sweep the camera decided to change the exposure and that exposure shows up as the line visible in the tree. The line is even more obvious in the full photo

This elicited a response from a Facebook (on facebook too, this would have been a great comment on the article!) friend:

I’ve read your article “Sony A55 – One Defect. [sic] Was the camera on Manual mode that time or at Aperture mode?

Ron raises a good question and here is the answer.
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Sony A55 — One Defect

By: In: Media, Photography
Sony A55 Sweep Fault

Exposure Fault

The Sony A55 Sweep Defect

The image to the right is a snippet from a full sized panorama image taken from my Sony A55, notice a problem?

In an earlier post I described the Sony A55′s sweep mode. That is the the ability of the Sony A55 to stitch together one panoramic image from a number it takes as you sweep the panorama with the camera. I often use a series of individual images to create such panoramas, taking the images is usually not too difficult (but there are a few gotchas to watch for when doing this sort of photography), but stitching together the images is rather tedious. In general, I like the feature and will be using it regularly, but it does have one problem and that problem should be evident to even the point and shoot photographer.

What is that problem?

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Sony A55 — Stock Lens & A Sweep

By: In: Media, Photography

A Sony A55 Sweep

Tiny Beads Make Me Happy

What you see here is not one image but a series taken and then automatically stitched together by the Sony A55 into one panorama image.

The camera has a sweep mode. You point the camera at one end of the panorama you want to capture, press the trigger, and then sweep the camera view across the panorama you want to capture. The only settings I can see that affect this mode are sweep to the left or sweep to the right. The camera will call bully on you if you try to trick it in this regard.

Interestingly enough, the camera also saves the imagery as video.

The only downside I have seen is I believe I have one such sweep where the exposure changes in the middle of the sweep and that exposure shift is clearly visible even to untrained eyes

Obviously, sunsets and wide vistas will be the normal subject of this mode, but I say why not use it to capture other shots and see what happens? Such is the case with the truck photograph you see above.

What are particulars on this photo?
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RIP Baby Lupine

By: In: Gardening, Media, Off Season, Outdoors, Photography

Baby Lupine

Germinating Lupine

And its all over baby lupine.

What this image is, is a lupine flower just after it germinated and is one of a set of three seeds that germinated (out of about eight total). The photo was taken using my 50 mm macro lens and today I do not have the exif data immediately handy (DigiKam is having problems) so I can not tell you about the exposure. However, the photo is about as close as I can get, the full sized full resolution photo is incredibly detailed and he hairs (in the center of the sprout) you can barely see are very large, in focus and reveal, incredible detail. However, I do not want to give you too much, but look below for a snippet of those lupine hairs! The other piece of legacy equipment was my Benbo tripod and I used the delay timer to trip the exposure.

Lupine Hairs

The Fine Hairs of the Lupine

This image is not scaled up at all, but it is clipped out of the full sized full resolution image. The detail is incredible and this is one reason I just love macro-photography, there is so much to explore at the minute level.

Why the RIP?
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Sony A55 — My First Published Photograph

By: In: Gardening, Media, Off Season, Outdoors, Photography

I don't know, must've been the roses

Don Juan

This is the first photograph I am publishing from my Sony A55. The exif data shows the shot to be using my 70-210 mm F/2.8 lens zoomed out to 210 mm (315 mm 35 mm equivalent) and the camera choose ISO 1600 as its sensitivity, and the exposure is F/9.0 with a shutter speed of 1/30th of a second. The photo is handheld and is taken from about 8′ above the bloom. The straw is a bit out of focus which is good, as the subject is the rose itself.

I have scaled down the photograph quite a bit and when the photograph is at full size the amount of detail visible in the rose is incredible. However, you need to settle for a 300×278 watermarked photograph. It isn’t the greatest photo, the bloom is the first one coming out a less than ideal growing conditions and is not so much a thought out composition, but just a shot taking the new tool for its first spin.
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Sony A55 — Further Impressions

By: In: Media, Photography

Legacy Lens Capability

This was one of the biggest selling points of the Sony line to myself. You see, that Sigma 300 mm F/2.8 lens set me back a few bucks and it wasn’t the dollars down the river I was concerned about, it was sending more down the river to replace the lens. I recently read some photography columnists and writers say just get new lenses. Well, I can not justify that extra expense and when one sees the format difference between 35 mm and APS-C multiplies the focal length by 1.5x and doesn’t cost you any speed, what is the problem?

So far, my old Minolta lenses work fine with the Sony A55. They focus quick and expose properly. However, I do have one lens that got a little beat up and the autofocus does not work (you can hear the mechanics working but the linkage between the AF motor and the lens focusing mechanism is broken) and I suspect manual exposure settings on that lens are also broke. I could get good auto-exposed manually focused shots, but when I attempted to set the exposure in full manual all of my shots turned out severely under-exposed. Yes, I did set the manual exposure to what the camera was doing in A, S, and automatic modes. I will have to check out how my other lenses manually expose.

My 2x tele-converter similarly works fine. It communicated just fine between the camera and lens and I was able to auto-focus fine with it.
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Sony A55 — My Initial Impressions

By: In: Media, Photography, Videos

I just picked up the Sony A55 camera body. It is isn’t quite right to call it an DSLR as it isn’t really one, but it is close enough. SLRs have mirrors that allow the photographer to sight the photograph directly through the lens and when the button is tripped the mirror is pulled out of the way and photograph is recorded. Most DSLR style or class cameras have retained this. However, the Sony A55 has a fixed mirror that allows some of the light through to the exposure plane and causes a bit of the light to go to sensors that drive the view through the eyepiece or the screen.

Initially, that difference shied me away from the camera, but a big boss piece of glass — a 300 mm F/2.8 lens told me to get over those objections or else! That lens is one I purchased years ago for my Minolta Maxxum 7000i (film) camera. Of course my 50 mm macro, and a 70-210 zoom (all with a 2x teleconverter) joined in chorus and I finally broke down and bought the camera.
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The Usual Suspects Line UP!

By: In: Media, Photography, Skiing

Lining UP to race

Lining UP to race

Children line up and wait to race. Wow, this must be incredibly frustrating as I hate to wait to go when ski racing. This photo was taken at Ski Brule’s J4/J5/J6 USSA Ski Race Finale on Saturday March 6, 2010.

I suppose these children do not have to worry about inane conversation, but they certainly have to worry about standing around and stationery in their ski gear. When waiting for anything in my skis my legs hateses it, they hateses it! I guess, these skiers have less mass to support than I do and as my father always used to say: their legs are younger than mine.


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Skier Tuck!

By: In: Media, Photography, Skiing, Technique

For Intermediate Skiers

For Intermediate Skiers

One of the things us skiers do is to tuck, that is to assume a more streamlined body posture. It makes a huge difference, especially when the difference between first place and off the podium is hundredths of a second, and that is no exaggeration.

If you have watched competitive skiing you know what I am talking about. Racers spend from more to less time in a tuck from downhill races to slalom. The more and tighter turning required means less time tucking and more time in a more upright position.

Now, what does a good tuck look like? Read on!
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