Photoclub Alpha

As expected, Adobe has again ‘broken’ the continuity of support for users of earlier versions of their Photoshop CS and Elements programs; the new ACR release to handle the forthcoming EOS 5D Mark II (which Canon tell us is not likely to be on sale in the UK before January) will require an upgrade to CS4 (minimum £300 in the UK) or Elements (no upgrade path offered, just buy a new copy every time they do this). Lightroom users, as has happened before, must wait for their own update.

Following the review on dPreview - more than anywhere else - Sony’s extremely poor JPEG engine with its associated wide radius chroma blur and strong luminance smoothing noise reduction has proved to be a dog well capable of biting its master. Definitely a dog, anyway. But this performance is not what the camera can really achieve. In fact it’s perfectly capable of delivering good high ISO shots in typical situations.

If you are on the verge of making a decision, I’m here to help your think clearly – even if it means breaking some cherished behaviour patterns. I am going to help you think of the Alpha 900 not as a logical progression from the 700, but as a different camera system entirely.

Duncan McEwan spoke, in his usual very steady and friendly manner, about his experience of using the Alpha 900. He showed a selection of images taken - remarkably - over a period of just 10 days preceding the event, using a 24-70mm CZ and his own 70-200mm Minolta SSM. Here is his own ’script’ for the presentation, with a small selection of the images.

OUR final production Alpha 900 body arrived on Saturday September 20th, and went along to photokina 2008 on Monday 22nd where it was used in a routine way - without flash - to take whatever pictures were needed for magazine reports. Sometimes it can be better just to use a camera on whatever difficult or poor subjects the world throws at you, than to devise impressive test situations.

Part 3 of the conference presentations, transcribed from a recording by Shirley Kilpatrick. This section deals with the revolutionary new adjustable focusing screen and viewfinder which enables error-free 100 per cent viewing, and the reasons Sony chose to make a 24.6 megapixel full frame sensor. To start reading with the first Part, go to Part 1.

Here, for some light relief, is an Alpha 700 + 24-105mm Minolta D documentary on the press dinner thrown for journalists from all the countries of the European region when they gathered in Edinburgh for the Alpha 900 launch!

Sony has released - without announcement - a new firmware version for the Alpha 700 which includes an OFF function for high ISO. This is presumed to be in advance of tomorrow’s press conference, where the Alpha 900 will be revealed. Journalists could be expected to ask questions about the NR, and the lack of firmware upgrades to the Alpha 700, and they have acted just in time for this launch and photokina to remedy the situation. Article with image samples and download links:

TAMRON has announced that its new 10-24mm lens will be an ƒ3.5-4.5 design - not an ƒ2.8 as some rumours had it - and will hit the shops in Nikon and Canon mounts first, on September 20th.

It’s not going to be long before we see the Alpha 900, and some cameras are known to be out there on trial in the hands of Sony staff and pre-release testers. I am not one, so rest assured, this is not a leak! What can you expect from the Alpha 900’s full-frame prism finder?

(Note: this post was written in early August - it is now 100% certain that the finder is 100%, and at 0.74X magnification will be - as had been hinted - the largest of all current DSLR finders in apparent visual terms except the EOS 1Ds Mk III which is 0.76X. Comparisons: EOS 5D 0.68X, Nikon D3 0.70X).

At the end of September 2006, I set off for a quick visit to photokina in Cologne, having parted company with Icon’s am-pro magazine ƒ2 and not really needing to report on the whole show in detail. Here’s the report I wrote then, with photos, and some thoughts for the 2008 show.

Well, it looks as if the 14th August UK press conference for exciting digital camera news may not be about the Alpha 900 after all - Sony has just officially announced that some colourful little Cyber-shot models with ISO 3200 capability will be unveiled there, and no mention of the A900. Roll on September 9th!

Here’s Sony’s release on the new Cyber-shots - I apologise for leaving the hyperbolic advertising style adjectives (unusable editorially, and just a waste of words) in place:

SONY UK has notified us of a press conference to announce an ‘exciting digital camera’ on August 14th.

They have also said that full details will be provided soon. It is possible this will be embargoed - we may attend a meeting on the 14th, but have to agree not to publish until a date later on, perhaps in September.

Update: it seems there is an international Sony Alpha press trip on Sept 9/10th to Edinburgh. Members of the Euro technical press have been invited, as a two-dayer with a stack of nightlife (the Festival and Fringe have just kicked into action today) it is an ideal location for putting the Alpha 900 and new 16-35mm and 70-400mm into the hands of journos. But it’s one week after the Sept 2nd close of the Festival itself, with the fireworks display. The Fringe is still running.

It seems very unlikely that the Aug 14th conference would be the long-awaited Alpha 900 launch since it is only a single day, or part of a day, and would not take place so long before an apparent pre-photokina pan-European press event. Judging by previous launches - Alpha 100, 2-day event in Morocco June 5-7th 2006; Alpha 700 2-day event on Lake Como Italy end of 1st week in September 2007; my guess is that the Edinburgh event is the big hands-on opportunity for the flagship full frame DSLR almost one year to the day after the launch of the 700. A very busy year, too, during which Sony has launched three other DSLR bodies and several important lenses.

Well, Edinburgh’s 45 minutes from my door and even if I am surplus to the tightly controlled A-list of such events I may be able to drop in and join them for a drink, as there’s one or two folk going I would like to say hello to. But then, Edinburgh is an airport! Just because the press gets to land there does not mean the city is where they are headed. I’ve been to big press events at Gleneagles (Kodak) and even in the middle of the Berwickshire countryside (Canon) in the past. It could be anywhere in Scotland - and some places in Scotland are not on our doorstep!

It costs me over one working day and around £200 to get to a London event (I’d rather by invited to almost anywhere in Europe than London in summer…) but whatever goes, the September date is an essential launch I am sure, and not just another Cybershot across the bows of the enemy!

- DK

MANY photographers habitually use layers from everything. I don’t! In fact, I try to minimise my time spent on post-processing shots for stock library sale, and work very quickly. If it needs complex setup or demands working using layers to be able to go back and change things, I’ve probably already wasted too much time. Here’s an example of an Alpha 700 shot created from two slightly different versions, and how it was done.

The latest release of Adobe Lightroom, v2, handles all Sony Alpha and earlier KM digital camera raw formats including the Alpha 700, 200, 300 and 350. It is also updated, along with the final release of Adobe Camera Raw 4.5, to handle Nikon D700. Because Canon appears to have left their filetype identical to the A400, their new 1000D was recognised immediately by ACR even in 4.5 beta version.

This article was originally published in Photoworld magazine April 2008. It discusses the reasons for choosing between the 18-70mm, 16-105mm, 16-80mm, 18-200mm and 18-250mm kit lens choices for the Sony Alpha DSLR system and has been updated from the original text.

The parallel development of Carl Zeiss lenses for Sony (AF lenses in the Alpha mount) and independent manual focus lenses for other makes continues. The latest CZ design is a revision of the classic 18mm Distagon last seen in the Contax system, optimised for colour balance and reflection supression with digital SLRs.

Sony has announced the September introduction of the most powerful flash yet for the Alpha system, the Sony HVL-F58AM which incorporates a brand new body design allowing optimum bounce flash illumination regardless of how you hold the camera.

The introduction of a £399 (street price, RRP £449) DSLR with 14.2 megapixels – with or without a useful type of Live View – should have been applauded by reviewers. It’s the single most important point about the camera. No other DSLR approaches this image size and resolution at such a low price.

Our cover photo for the Spring 2008 issue of Photoworld was taken with a Tamron 70-300mm zoom costing less than £120 from most larger retailers or internet shops. The reputation of the lens meant we had to take a look at it, because the current choice in the Sony range is limited to one ‘kit’ 75-300mm costing £179, and the new 70-300mm G SSM lens costing £600.

CLICKING on key mapping points of a face, then adjusting some simple overlaid Bezier curves using movable anchors, it takes only a minute to load a typical headshot portrait into Portrait Professional.

Today I took delivery of a Sony 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G SSM lens. There is no doubt this is the best built Sony SAL lens I’ve handled (the CZ 135mm 1.8, 85mm f1.4 are a class above again). It weighs over 800g with its lens-hood, which is one of the most efficient deep tele hoods I’ve seen.

Now that there are five Sony Alpha DSLR bodies in circulation, with many owners of the original 2006 Alpha 100 considering a replacement, the differences between this ur-Alpha and the 2007-8 generation of Alpha 700, 200, 300 and 350 need examining.

Photoworld 2008 #2 is now being mailed to subscribers!

Our Spring edition features -

This is the latest press release from Sony UK - filling the streets of Miami with club-style foam for their new digital photography ad campaign:

London— April 2, 2008 — Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) today announced Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 beta, a public preview of new and improved functionality to be delivered in the next major release. Lightroom is the professional photographer’s essential toolbox, providing one application for managing, adjusting, and presenting large volumes of digital photographs. Lightroom 2.0 beta will feature enhancements such as dual-monitor support, localised dodge and burn correction and will be the first Adobe application to support 64-bit for Mac OS X 10.5 Intel Macs and Microsoft Vista 64-bit operating systems.

The Sony Alpha 350 14.2 megapixel DSLR pioneers a new type of Live View, related to Olympus’s original Mode A of the E-330 where a beamsplitting arrangement allowed a video CCD to view the actual focusing screen of the SLR system.

Kenro has announced the release of a series of new hard plastic LCD panel protectors from Marumi - including one for the Sony Alpha 100. The price is very reasonable at only £6.99 retail.

There’s a lot of controversy right now about whether or not the image structure of the Alpha 700 files at very high ISO - mainly 3200 and 6400 - is as clean as raw processed results from other comparable cameras like the Canon 40D (does not offer ISO 6400), the Olympus E-3 (does not offer ISO 6400) or the Nikon D300. At the heart of this is the way different raw processors handle file conversion, and most specifically, the current performance of Adobe Camera Raw 4.3.1.

The Sony DSLR A200 is now on sale, following the end of Alpha 100 production. Although it is without any doubt the Alpha 100 replacement mentioned by Sony executives in October 2007, when they first revealed that the 100 was no longer being made, it is not an exact equivalent and represents a mixture of upgraded performance and simplified specification. Because it has gone in two directions at the same time, the A200 poses a problem for A100 owners.