I curse you, Continuous Shooting… :)

The rational of the advice made so much sense… “set up your camera, then put it in continuous shooting, keep the finger on the trigger until the story ends, then go back and choose the best ones, that’s how the pros do it”, well thanks Sherlock :)

But no one ever told me how mentally difficult, to darn near impossible it would be to delete a photo, even the cr#ppy ones, lol. I know hard disks are really cheap now, but it would have been more prudent & efficient to delete the bad ones, trust me I’ve tried to delete a slightly out of focus photo of both M and M. As I placed my finger on the delete button, both palms started to sweat, heart rate more than doubled, vision became blurry and the room started spinning, all I could do was just to walk away, and let it be :)

On a serious note, continuous shooting is an absolute must for me, I would have changed my name to Frano Selak if I had managed to catch Matt or Marcella smiling at two months old on the single shot mode. So do give it  a try, trying once won’t do you any harm, honest :) lol.

Preparing for the next best thing :)

Dear M and M,

Your mother said I am up to my old tricks again :), I’ve been pining for a DSLR since the previous one was stolen, the Nex 5 was supposed to be just a ‘halfway house’ of a camera before moving on to yet another Nikon.

But I never did move on to another DSLR, Sony Nex5 turned out to be a mistress I never wanted to leave, never wanting to get back to the Mrs., in fact there was one crazy moment when I thought I wanted to remain with her forever, then came along the D4.

Totally not worth the price and just a tad over qualified for just taking a few snap shots of you two running around. But right now all forms sensibility have left the building, only remained are the hazy impetuous of pure ‘tech lust’, lol.

 

So you both may be wondering ‘what are my old tricks’? Passing on current ‘gears’ to a family member in hoping your mother will give me the nod to get the next greatest and latest (often it doesn’t work, so I think I’ll need to change strategy here).

As you can see here, I am literally forcing Matt to use the camera, well not quite, he came up with the camera wanting to take a picture of me, of course it was a too good of an opportunity to just let it pass, it has lots and lots of buttons and dial that all three and a half year old child could only love, perfect, I began to teach (exaggerate) how each button is so much more awesome than each of his button on his simple point and shoot. Soon he will be running up to his mother asking if he could keep the Nex5 forever… leaving the path open to the almighty D4 and then taking over the world… haa haa haa, all I need now is the ‘ka-ching’ to get the darn thing.

(While reading through the post correcting all the mistakes (there are probably loads left), I came to wonder how on earth did I take this photo, I am sure it will come back to me soon)

Pixel Binning, just tell me when and where :)

As usual I was looking around sonyalpharumors.com (I think the name describes itself fairly clearly), their latest poll was “Select your future A77 firmware upgrade must have features”.

The third most wished was the ability to ‘Pixel Binning’, I have never herd of this before but after finding out more, I was surprised that it came third.

Pixel Binning is the ability to choose  lower resolution (less Megapixel) and have the pixel join up (so to speak) to make bigger pixel, this should achieve higher (better) signal to noise ratio (I am probably messing this up), so your camera should take cleaner pictures in low light situations (less ISO required).

I’ve been to the Sony store a few times now, only to play around with the A77… only to walk away without taking out the plastic :) Now, if the next firmware have this pixel binning and it works properly… wow, just tell me when and where :)

Betting on a long shot (cont.) – Making a U turn.

Now, only an hour later I am beginning to change my mind… Image stabilisation is the issue here. Without any research, I believe that all of Sony A-mount lenses do not have stabilisation, instead they rely on in body stabilisation, so if I use the A-mount lens with the LA-EA2 adapter on my Nex-5, I won’t have image stabilisation (the native E-mount lens for Nex has OSS (lens stabilisation)).

So the plan to use A-mount lens on my Nex-5 may not be such a good option after all, back to the drawing board, must remind self to buy a lottery this evening, lol.

Betting on a long shot :)

With the announcement of the new Sony SLT A77 the greed inside me have been stirring again, since the Nikon D90 was stolen I have been living (very happily) with Sony Nex-5, the aim have always been to move to full-frame after the Nex-5, I have no preference for the brand but the investment in the (future) lenses would ensure that I’ll have to stay in that brand’s eco-system until I win the lottery :)

So what have I been looking at, as of right now with the stagnation in the full-frame option, I have been looking at the mid range camera bodies, Nikon D7000, Canon 7D and the latest Sony SLT A77 and Nex-7, the plan was to stick a full-frame lens on one of these APS-C body.

Each of the body is in the range of between 1,400 USD to 1,800 USD (body only), a good Full Frame zoom lens will set me back another 1,000 to 2,000 USD. Putting the two together is a bit much, so I have to come up with an alternative solution.





 
Instead of focusing on the body, I have decided to look at the lens (Sony, Canon, Nikon) first, this will dictate my eco-system for the future. Canon seems to have a better range of lens follows by Nikon and then Sony.

Now my Nex-5 comes into play, I am leaning towards investing into a Sony’s full-frame lens because I can use it now with my Nex-5 (via the adapter LA-EA2), that would save me on getting a new interim body, all I have to wait now are for the reviews on how the LA-EA2 (with phase detection) performs (I am not too concern for the bulk it adds).

Rumours has it that the LA-EA2 will be around 300 USD, add this to the price of the FF lens may be the best solution for me at this time, but this of course is in hope that Sony will release a good FF body in the future, my preference have always been low noise in low light conditions, Nikon seems to have this cornered (low pixel density), let’s hope Sony has some tricks up its sleeves :)

Not this time Sony, I am waiting for something very special from you :)

After the burglar took my Nikon D90 and all the lens, it was replaced by the Sony Nex 5, what was at that time supposed to be a very short term solution, supposedly until the arrival of the D700’s replacement. Several months (perhaps years (lost count here)) later the Nikon D700’s replacement is still a dream away, and with each click of the shutter on the Nex 5, I am finding myself becoming more and more obsess with the Sony.

I have never thought the smaller size would matter, but it really does, to have an APS-C in a much smaller package meant a lot less hassle to take out the camera just to take a couple of shots. I was so keyed up to get the FF D800 (or whatever Nikon was going to call it), but right now my decision have made a total u turn (perhaps because I am certainly not a professional). FF is still the way to go, but I am not going to put up with the weight nor the size of the ‘usual’ DSLR.

There is a rumour of a ‘Translucent’ FF from Sony that is supposed to be making an appearance in 2012, I am still in two minds about this route, splitting the light between the EVF and the Sensor is bothering me, although there are some massive advantages, but loosing the light? eeemmmm, frown, frown, frown…

I was excited about the Nex 7, and was already counting the money in my pocket (to give to the camera shop :) haa haa haa), but Nex 5 is still performing well, so I have decided to let this one go, perhaps the next Nex (Nex 9?) will be a mirror-less FF that will accept all Alpha mount lens, with lightening fast and 100% accurate autofocus, and EVF with 100% coverage, in body stabilisation, built in flash, built in GPS, and full weather seal, just realised I’ll certainly be waiting longer than the infamous D800/900.