α560/α580 are coming

[OneGuyKs]

DPR and LL are not known to be overexcited but some posters are known to be stuck in stone ages or just complain about one brand. Once again this is a distraction and change of the topic. A55 will give sharper photos more often in everyday use since it does not suffer from mirror blur.

[bfitzgerald]

Oh I think they are known to be over zealous. I remember when the G1 came out and it was almost crafted from the hands of God himself (an exaggeration but it got nice reviews missing some critical flaws) What I find interesting is that when the A500/550 were out mirror slap was a "non issue", now the moving mirror is gone it has suddenly become a massive issue that effects every shot! That's the most interesting point to make on this one.

It's not stone age just a preference some people have.

[bakubo]

What I find interesting is that when the A500/550 were out mirror slap was a "non issue", now the moving mirror is gone it has suddenly become a massive issue that effects every shot!

Touche! Barry, when you are right you are right.

[OneGuyKs]

What I find interesting is that when the A500/550 were out mirror slap was a "non issue", now the moving mirror is gone it has suddenly become a massive issue that effects every shot! That's the most interesting point to make on this one.

Yes, it's interesting. When A500/A550 had no MLU, it was a big issue. Now some of the same people are saying that SLT advantage of removing mirror blur from all shots that even A700 can't do since it has MLU only in 2 sec mode, is not an advantage.

[Greg Beetham]

DPR and LL are not known to be overexcited but some posters are known to be stuck in stone ages or just complain about one brand. Once again this is a distraction and change of the topic. A55 will give sharper photos more often in everyday use since it does not suffer from mirror blur.

The subject of this thread is 'a560/a580 are coming' not about being stuck in the stone age, or the A55.
Greg

[David Kilpatrick]

The anti-shake mechanisms of the KM and Sony cameras have always been programmed to ignore mirror slap, for a reason - this is information I have from the designers, during a photokina interview. If they responded to the mirror vibration, the response would be slightly out of phase and would create worse sharpness.

The issue of a mirrorless shutter action for hand-held photography at typical margin speeds (1/30th, 1/60th) is not in any way related to the issue of mirror up, which is only used for tripod mounted shots, and for which all comparative tests have normally been done on tripods, with SSS/AS disabled.

The shutter-only actuation of the A55/33 improves hand-held shots at the normal lower limit of hand held shooting, while the mirror-up function has no bearing on this.

Sorry, no touché for Barry - he's not talking about the same argument. Lack of mirror slap for hand held shots, which the A55/33 offer, is nothing to do with the MLU argument which applies to tripod work. The issue with the 550/etc was whether or not the mirror jolt was less than with A100, A700 twin-motor cameras offering MLU. The conclusion generally has been that the A2/3/5 series with a single motor and mirror/shutter cycle do have a gentler mirror action, and that MLU is not quite as important. Had it been removed from a twin motor design of 5D/7D/A100/A700 type it would have been more of an issue.

David

[bfitzgerald]

I'm not sure I've got this one right. A human hand absorbs shock (erm as it's fleshy and not solid like a tripod) Not very convinced that mirror slap is likely to have a serious impact for hand holding. Instead of energy from the mirror vibrating a tripod (cheaper ones of course more prone to this) it's going to be absorbed by simply holding it in your hands.

Minolta claimed a counter balance on the Dynax 5 to reduce mirror slap (if that's true hard to say) I never heard Sony tout anything like that for any model that did not have MLU. I know one thing, whilst the A200 does sound quieter than the 5d..it absolutely needed MLU no question.

Nobody ever got to the bottom of the MLU fiasco, nor do we really know if the newly designed mechanism supported MLU or not or Sony just removed it. Even the schematics didn't help much as the A700 mechanism looked very much like the A200 one. I'm not doubting some mechanisms have less slap..my film 5 and 60 seem quieter and more refined than my other bodies. But you can never really eliminate the need for MLU on these cameras.

[David Kilpatrick]

Hasselblad's free 'Phocus' raw converter will handle 580 files. I don't much like the look of the results from it, and suspect that it is treating all compressed ARW files the same way; also, there's no ability to use the CA control on non-Hasselblad files. RPP (Raw Photo Processor) also handles 580 files, again, not impressed by what it is doing.

Will need to see whether a batch process can be run on a PC to spoof A55 identity.

David

[alphaomega]

Hasselblad's free 'Phocus' raw converter will handle 580 files. I don't much like the look of the results from it, and suspect that it is treating all compressed ARW files the same way; also, there's no ability to use the CA control on non-Hasselblad files. RPP (Raw Photo Processor) also handles 580 files, again, not impressed by what it is doing.
Will need to see whether a batch process can be run on a PC to spoof A55 identity. David

I await further news with interest. In the meantime I have set-up IDC to export files to LR3 as 16bit TIFFs in the expectation that most of the file information will be available. A brief trial indicated that CA removal is quite effective. On the other hand the Jpegs look quite good, so I will shoot RAW+Jpeg and pick whatever format is most appropriate in the circumstances. I would expect to be able to use well exposed sunny Jpegs without any problems. Just a Level and maybe a little Shadow/Highlight.

[David Kilpatrick]

The EXIFtool fix works well - I think the files are technically identical to the A55, as far as colour/gamma etc goes. I'm finding the focus accuracy rather less accurate than the A55, but switching to Focus Check live view (which permits autofocus as well as manual) results can be made 100% perfect very easily for anything critical.

Here are two from today processed via ACR 3.3 after EXIFtool spoofing to A55 identity. The holly berries show too little depth of field even at f/11 with the Sigma 18-250mm, iSO 200. The night scene of the abbey, carefully timed after noting yesterday's evening sky optimum time (5pm), is a corrected portion of the frame using the 16-80mm CZ and manual focus, ISO 100, tripod of course. Despite using a 35 degree 'tilt' correction in ACR, plus lens correction, the final image is about 11 megapixels cropped from the 16 and this - for us - is where the A580 wins over the A700.

[David Kilpatrick]

Whatyever the EXIFtool program does, it leaves the raw files showing up correctly in Bridge/ACR as DSLR-A580v1.11, and model DSLR-A580 - so important information for me, at least, is not being lost. It just seems to make the files recognisable by any program which can handle A55.

David

[bakubo]

The night scene of the abbey, carefully timed after noting yesterday's evening sky optimum time (5pm), is a corrected portion of the frame using the 16-80mm CZ and manual focus, ISO 100, tripod of course.

Nice shot! Some months back I read The Pillars of the Earth and this looks pretty much like what I imagined the ruins of the church in the early part of the book to have looked.

[alphaomega]

These are beautiful pictures. I had the same thought when buying the A580 that the 16Mp sensor would provide more room to use the Lens Correction Filter on architectural images to re-instate verticals. Similarly I will feel more inclined to crop away to provide a "tighter" composition without loss of IQ with A580 images.

[David Kilpatrick]

Here's what you need to see - this is not sharpened for display, it's from an Alamy quality file 35MB size, small section at 100% from the shot:

[agorabasta]

The resolution comes really cheap these days

What really impresses me is the range of red hues in that berries shot. And I'm not too easily impressed in colour matters.