I just had to get an A55

[Vaughan Brean]

A55.. Groundbreaking, innovative, ludicrously fast, compact, well made, technically advanced

I like it

I must admit though, it seems almost too good, I hope photography doesnt become too easy.....even composition has "rules" and may be automated in the future....maybe ??

[bfitzgerald]

Composition does not have rules! (logical guides yes rules no) No matter how much hand holding we get from cameras they don't take good photos people do. And..it's this exact reason I refuse to entertain EVF's I like a bit of getting to know a camera and using my brain once in while thinking ahead to how the image will be with my eyes (and through and optical finder) Easy is boring even at 10fps if taking good photos were a dead cert I'd never pick up a camera again.

You have to take mediocre ones to appreciate the good ones. Camera makers can make life easy but remove the challenge and you have no reason to bother taking photos.

[Argonaut]

Barry, you're a scream. I mean, isn't the EVF just the kind of challenge you want? Isn't it about time you dropped that OVF crutch and behaved like a man??????

On a more serious note, my a700 was left in my rental car in Panama City, Panama when I turned it in, never to be seen again. It had a chip with two National Geo level antbird shots in it. Plus I only had the camera for 5 months (got a great deal on closeout). Nuts!hiccup!

So my a55 is on order and will be here in a month. I'm going to wire it to deliver 5000 volts to anyone without my fingerprints.

[Vaughan Brean]

[bakubo]

It had a chip with two National Geo level antbird shots in it.

Yeah, right, a likely story. The fish that got away. Just kidding.

Sorry to hear you lost your camera, but the A55 will be an interesting change.

[bfitzgerald]

Barry, you're a scream. I mean, isn't the EVF just the kind of challenge you want? Isn't it about time you dropped that OVF crutch and behaved like a man??????

I'm an experienced user and so are many around here which means yes why some are asking for an EVF just does not apply! It's not a macho thing it's just reality I know how to set WB I know about exposure I simply don't need an EVF and a lot of EVF fans scream about how much easier it makes life..why? Unless you're a complete newbie how much hand holding do you want? Might not be popular but it has to be said.

And BTW the OP has owned far more cameras than I have so I guess he's on a mission to try everything A200/A350/A230/A700/Nex and more. I don't suffer from compulsive camera buying myself

I've read Vaughan's threads on DPR and they simply don't make sense no matter how easy you make life for any user you've still got to actually take photos yourself. I know that might sound frightening to some but hey..no challenge no fun right?

[Greg Beetham]

Well I like to try and take birds, often they are sitting on a thin branch or blossom that's wavering in the breeze so I quite often use MF and snap the shot at the instant I can see the bird is in focus in the OVF. What I wonder is, how much of a delay is built into the EVF? there must be some over what I can see at the speed of light in an OVF. And another thing, I often have to use daylight flash fill here because of the intensity of the backlight and what about the delay in the flash in the new SLT's? how is that going to effect wanting an instant response?
Greg

[stevecim]

I haven't tried the new A33/55 but my biggest complaint about my Pana FZ10 was the delay in the EVF, I love shooting at air shows and trying to track a F16 high speed fly by was not fun. Sure the FZ10 is a old camera and the EVF in the A33/55 is no doubt better. The question is how much better? I wonder if there is a way to measure the delay?

[David Kilpatrick]

Just for an experiment I tried shooting side-on head portraits of one of our chickens feeding (their heads move very fast, and so do they) using the 500mm f/8 mirror with 2X converter, manual focus at f/16 with F58AM flash. First of all, EVF on A55 allows viewing and focusing as if using an f/1.4. Focus is pretty good without using magnification, which would be impossible hand held with a 1500mm equivalent tele. And I was at minimum focus too, the chicken often came too close. Two of five shots were OK for timing and framing, one missed the shot entirely as the chicken's head moved out of the frame in the flash delay, two were out of focus because of movement of the subject. The sharpest shot was not very sharp either, but this really is an extreme example. Kenko DG7 converter, apart from the serious problem of focusing with such a tiny depth of field it does no favour for crispness.

The full picture is at 1600 ISO, no luminance noise reduction just chroma NR in ACR, auto flash at f/16 of course, it was raining at the time. The clip is at at 50% of full resolution, otherwise with it being 16 megapixels, I could not fit enough of the shot on at 100% to be meaningful over a 1000pixel maximum.

[Greg Beetham]

What conclusion can we reach David? the second shot seems to have potential for sure or was that a lucky fluke? I think personally the whole arrangement was a little too extreme for practical assessment, what I mean is, the very shallow depth always had the potential too fog the results no matter how fast the response was. But otoh there doesn't seem to be a double flash ambient image, but that most likely is due to there being a very poor ambient anyway...could be different with a very bright day and subject backlit at f16, hard to say for sure at ISO1600...that could save the day, but you might not be able to use ISO1600 on a bright day either, probably no more than ISO400 would be possible...then there is the distance question.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

The 'second shot' is the shot. The first shot is a very small section at 50% pixel view. All this proves is that the A55 enables a shot which would completely impossible with an OVF camera (I can promise you, I've tried the combination) and that the A55 at ISO 1600 given just the very smallest amount of NR (25/50 chroma in ACR 6.3) and zero sharpening produces a certain quality of image.

Of course it's not a practical example, normally I'd just stick a 50mm lens on and move in close, this subject does not run away and is more likely to peck the lens than keep its distance.

The A55 EVF has similarly useful quality when used for extreme macro work (for example, stopped down on bellows at 10X magnification), in near-darkness (especially with flash - even a night-time scene is clear for composition and expressions), and when using manual lenses such as the 85mm Samyang (no need to open the lens up to focus, can be done at any aperture and viewed at full brightness).

Then again you can set manual and get a preview of exact exposure instead - which allows a night view, for example, to be adjusted along with its histogram (visible in finder if you like) to be precisely tuned. Filter effects, polariser etc are all very clearly indicated and so is any need to use exposure over-ride. Where the OVF fails is with sunsets or sun-in-sky shots; it favours shadow detail and can lose highlight detail, even if the final image contains more.

David

[Greg Beetham]

Okeydoke the EVF is pretty handy for lots of things including macro and that sounds good. (btw David you kept saying OVF but I knew you meant EVF) But was the F58 on camera flash 'delay' any problem at all? and would there be a problem with a brightly backlit subject that has some degree of movement possible with a 300mm or 400mm lens (used on aps-c) at the time of exposure?
Greg

[bfitzgerald]

I'll make a nice quote I read somewhere "live view on the back LCD has effectively made the need for an EVF almost redundant"

[pakodominguez]

Redhair!
Nice portrait

[pakodominguez]

The A55 OVF has similarly useful quality when used for extreme macro work (for example, stopped down on bellows at 10X magnification), in near-darkness (especially with flash - even a night-time scene is clear for composition and expressions), and when using manual lenses such as the 85mm Samyang (no need to open the lens up to focus, can be done at any aperture and viewed at full brightness).

Yep, Same goes for the NEX. I did play with the NEX5 + bellows and enlarging lenses:

100% crop: