So, it’s been a while and Easter has arrived. In addition my family making a ham, this year, we went to the Filoli Garden in California and amidst the thousands of tulips in bloom at the gardens, I found this composition that caught my eye:
"Easter Embrace" - Photograph A Week Project
Photographed with the Sony A77 DSLT and the Sony 70-200/2.8G. The shape of the tulip was quite egg-like and the entwined flowers around it just made the shot for me. Love it.
Well, I’ve owned the A77 for a few months now, and have been shooting as much as I can with it.
Banyan Tree - Edison Estate Home - Florida
I’ve got to say, I really enjoy shooting with the A77. Before my trip, I also got the vertical grip for the A77 so that I can shoot verticals without having to hold the camera at an uncomfortable angle, especially with a heavier lens mounted.
People have complained at length about the EVF for DSLR(s) and when the A77 came out, that was no exception. People wanted to “see” what they were shooting in all the infinite colors which their sensors could not capture. The fact of the matter is, for me, being able to see what the camera is capable of seeing is more useful. I can see when the camera hits its limits, which occurs much sooner than when my eyes might hit their limits. With the live histogram displayed with the live image from the sensor, I’m able to compose and adjust the exposure so that I’m not clipping highlights or colors. That is something that I can’t do with an OVF. Continue reading
On a recent flight, I had the opportunity to take some photographs from the window seat of the SFO => DFW leg of the flight. Above, is a photograph of a cloud formation I saw.
Before seeing that, however, I was able to get a nice shot like the one below:
The more I shoot with the A77, the more I love using this camera. The LCD and EVF makes composing at problematic angles a breeze.
The 24MP sensor does a great job of capturing the details, even through the fairly scratched up window panes.
Panorama of Brisbane shoreline and pier
My work recently relocated further up north from Palo Alto to Brisbane. While this has increased the distance of my commute and taken my away from readily accessible places to dine and shopping centers, it has given me easy access to some stunningly beautiful scenery along the length of the commute as well as in the areas surrounding the offices where I work. The above image was stitched together from four horizontal shots made with the Sony A77 mounted on a panning ball head.
One of the biggest complaints people have made about the Sony Alpha A77 DSLR is that the camera produces images with more noise than normal. And that is true. For the given sensor density, noise is a fact of life, at least with the current level of technology. For these shots, since I was going to be doing long exposures anyways, I went for the sub ISO 100 settings of ISO 50 and ISO 80. The end result are images with very low levels of sensor noise, even when capturing exposures as long as 30 seconds long.
Brisbane Westward - Evening
The above shot was stitched from 2 photographs shot wide to provide a good view of both sky and water. It isn’t as post processed as the wider panorama, but I’m okay with that for this version of the image.
Still learning the ins and outs of this camera. It is very different from the A700 that I had been shooting with before, and I’m sure that with newer firmware updates, there will be incremental improvement to image quality as well as increased proficiency, on my part. The location is also new to me. Understanding how the environment changes with the light, such as the fog rolling in and the rapid change of the skyline colors.
Definitely will be producing more photographs of the area.
One thing I noticed, when shooting stopped down apertures, was the presence of dust and hair. This kind of freaked me out since this was an SLT, but I was able to clear things up with an arctic butterfly and the camera’s vibration-based cleaning cycle.
A flock of Chocolate Cake Turkeys made by Carrie
This Thanks Giving, we got together with some of our family to have dinner and spend some time together. My brother and I also got to do some photographing of the food and of some really nice edible decorations Carrie made. Case in point, the chocolate cake turkeys above and below.
Carrie's Chocolate Turkeys
Carrie's Chocolate Turkeys
Of course, it just isn’t Thanksgiving unless there is an actual meal.
Thanksgiving meal.
Thanksgiving meal, Cranberry Relish and Sweet Potato CranCherries
Delicious imported meats and dates.
A Pumpkin on a Stick by Carrie
Of course, it’s not quite Thanksgiving without people, so here is my brother-in-law, Daniel.
Daniel
Our cousin Carrie, in addition to making the cool chocolate cake turkeys, also created the following shark and pumpkins!
Carrie's Happy Shark
Carrie's Candy Pumpkins on dining table.
The photographs above are taken with the A77 at various ISO levels. All of which were hand held. Post processing the files was definitely quite a bit different from processing files from the A700. For one thing… sharpening the files is problematic. Due to the high level of luminance noise, if you apply sharpening, even a clean image will suddenly blossom with white sharpening artifacts, looking like it was riddled with luminance noise. :(
Sadly, this appears to be the case, even when using ISO 100 with flash. In contrast, my brother’s Canon Rebel T2i is shooting some fairly clean images.
It looks like the learning curve will continue with the A77. But basically, the camera likes and needs a lot of light. It really likes bright scenes.
Sony DSLT-A77, Tamron 17-50/2.8, ISO 3200
So, while walking around the greenery around the office buildings, I saw some mushrooms having pushed through the wood chips. I also noticed the light was rather poor, only some LED and flourescent lighting from the walkways. Sounded like a good time to give the higher ISO capabilities on the A77 a try, since up till now, it’s all been lower ISO(s) in good light.
The above was shot at ISO 3200, which would have been at the bleeding edge of unusable on the A700 in similar light. However, with the A77, the performance was such that I not only used higher ISO(s) to fairly good effect, I also hand held the shots.
Sony DSLT-A77, Tamron 17-50/2.8, ISO 3200
The above shot was done with the Tamron at the wider focal length to bring in more of the scenery. It was amazing how much of the scene not only exposed well, but there were plenty of details being pulled out by LR3/ACR. Now, there was noise. Plenty of it, in fact. Much more luminous noise than I had gotten from the A700. However, the images are also much larger, and once scaled down to what would have been the A700 sizes, produced much more usable images than the A700 would have been able to provide.
Sony DSLT-A77, Tamron 17-50/2.8, ISO 16000
The shot above was photographed at ISO 16000. Yes, it was quite noisy. No, in its current level of quality, I would not use it for general use… perhaps in those “it’s either get the shot or get fired” kind of situations. I’m really hoping that the quality will improve with the upcoming version 1.04 firmware for the Sony DSLT-A77, which is supposed to address some of the image quality issues at higher ISO(s).
Sony DSLT-A77, Tamron 17-50/2.8, ISO 3200
As with most things, however, it really comes down to what you intend to use the tool for and whether you can live with the issues and faults of the tool. I knew about the noise issue going in. But I also knew I was going to be able to get much more serviceable shots with the A77 because of the improved handling of the camera. Given that only a small fraction of of what I shoot falls into the low light/high ISO range, this was a more than acceptable tradeoff. When the Sony DSLT-A99 comes out, it will have a lower sensor density and thus better low light/high iso performance. I might trade up for the improved ISO IQ and the full frame, but the A77 is a joy to photograph with.
No regrets other than wishing I had gone with the body and 16-50/2.8/SSM Sony “kit” lens, which would have provided weather sealing and silent autofocus for video.
Speaking of video, will be posting some in the near future.
You can check out higher resolution shots at my gallery.
