Reichmann quote:
"The bottom line on this long-winded discussion is that I am finding the Sony's in-body stabilization to be very much to my liking, and something that makes me hesitate every time I go to pick up another camera which doesn't have it."
It's a big problem - seriously - for anyone testing cameras who actually attaches some value to the shots taken. You can tell from Reichmann's shots that he intends them to be usable stock/art images not just tests. I get pretty negative towards the idea of taking a non-stabilised camera out, when the A900 is sitting there unused and would almost certainly get me better shots.
I'd like to show you an example at 105mm, where I pushed the limits of getting the depth of field needed, plus the hand-held exposure, and the sensor performance:
This very dark image (raw defaults) is 1/40th at 105mm (basically two stops over safety on a high resolution image for large use) at f7.1 - sufficient stopping down to clean up any softness, but also neeed to get the palm trees and the distant lighthouse and sail sculpture (trademarks of this location) sharp. ISO 400, because I know from experience I can do this with anything from 100-400 but not from 800-6400:
That is, I can do this cleanly and keep the noise under control despite using +2 exposure boost in ACR plus some fairly extreme adjustments to white balance, vibrance and saturation. Knowing what can be pulled out of the A900 makes it a hard decision to abandon it in favour of an untried alternative but most of this month I've had to do just that.
David
