The real A550

[David Kilpatrick]

Finally arrived today. I had a camera guide to finish and with the hour change, by the time I had photographed the A550 in the studio (un-handled) then got over to my local photo store to pick up some 3 inch screen protectors the sun was close to setting. I went to the riverside at the same time of day, and in similar conditions, to last week's visit with the Canon 7D.

All I can say is - what a different experience! I shot 2.2GB of pix by the end of sunset and afterglow, in the town as well, and the HDR function with two exposures (bang-ba-a-a-ng because the second can be pretty slow...) is real fun. I had to keep navigating back to change to RAW then to FINE, and rather neatly, the camera will remember it was set to do HDR when you switch back from RAW to JPEG again. Also, it can do HDR with flash - it will wait for the flash to recycle (about 2-3 seconds) before the second shot. The colours are amazing, the high ISO is as expected in JPEG form (can't see raw yet in ACR which is the fastest browser), and unlike the Canon the focus is nailed every time no matter what focus mode is used.

177 shots taken and I must go through them and chuck out a few, narrow down the sample. First: you can shoot moving scenes with HDR if things are moving towards you, but it does not work well if anything is moving sideways. Second: some interface changes like the loss of program shift are annoying. Other parts of the interface are an improvement.

David

[david antony]

Thanks, sounds pretty good so far, looking forward to more of your findings & sample photos, also the initial reports in Photoworld magazine.

[aster]

Counting down the hours to read your thoughts on the camera and the capture intricacies you experienced...

-1...-2...

Yildiz

[David Kilpatrick]

The initial Photoworld report is incomplete - not all my info was correct (for example the manual focus check live view is not 15 seconds, it's longer, have not timed it yet but you get a reasonable time to work with it per shot).

Here is a first sample - ISO 800, processed using Raw Developer from raw, with quite a heavy use of shadow and highlight curves to pull the tones around, and a big shift in colour temperature. No luminance noise NR, maximum Early Stage NR, maximum ChromaLogic NR, no sharpening:


Original: http://www.pbase.com/davidkilpatrick/im ... 8131/large full size can be seen

There's one more sunset pic at 800 on the pBase page so far.

David

[ianmiddy]

David - I suspect the answer is yes, but I'll ask anyway - does the 550 suffer from the same LiveView issue as the A3n0 for studio use ?

[as detailed http://www.photoclubalpha.com/2008/07/2 ... io-solved/ ]

Cheers

IDM

[David Kilpatrick]

Yes. The system is the same, gain can not be disconnected. But, the good news - Manual Focus Check live view gives you a 100% view, accurate focus, and has fully auto gain. It does not use the stopped down aperture (but nor does QV live view). It is not as convenient as the full time quick live view, but you can compose and work with studio flash using it.

David

[ianmiddy]

Manual Focus Check live view gives you a 100% view, accurate focus, and has fully auto gain. It does not use the stopped down aperture

Is it possible to get DOF Preview on lenses with Focus-Hold, or is that one of the menu items that's been removed ?

Thanks

IDM

[David Kilpatrick]

There is no depth of field preview with M-AF lenses. You could actually use a manual lens with Manual Focus Live View. I've just checked my chip-adaptored Samyang 85mm and it works well. If you have any kind of stop down function available on the lens, you can use Manual FCheck and get depth of field, studio flash work, manual focus. I should be able to use my medium format lenses on tilt-shift for example. You can also move the area to be magnified round the sensor, so you could check for tilt accuracy.

It looks as if the A550 has some potential for studio flash and technical use with manual lenses.

David

[Javelin]

I think the question has to do with the ability to reprogram the focus hold button on some lenses to be a DOF preview button? I think on my A700 there is a menu option for that

[David Kilpatrick]

Since the function does not exist on the camera, there is no reprogramming possible - and no option provided.

David

[RubberDials]

...
All I can say is - what a different experience! I shot 2.2GB of pix by the end of sunset and afterglow...
David

Any twilight football?

[pixelbleed]

hi all! first time posting here. finally get my copy of a550 and fully satisfied with its performance (previous a300 owner). the iso are superb! . i also tried the studio wireless with MF Check LV and imprested with it. but david i notice that when in speed priority continuous adv mode if you busrt 7fps with iso 3200 and above (available light), the image seem to have weird color cast some of it yellowish and blueish like a gradient effect. do you encounter this?

[David Kilpatrick]

I have not used speed priority mode yet but at 5fps and 3200 yesterday there are no unusual colour shifts, all looks neutral (poor shots, just firing bursts at ducks on the river to see how it felt). I've been doing some macro with bellows focusing with MF Check LV today, just to see how it works. The LV time is variable, it can be as short as 15 secs if the gain is very high - but it will actually show a focusing image from f/11 at 10X with a 25mm lens on a bellows... pretty good!

David

[RubberDials]

Waiting for a decent comparative review of the a550 has made me think seriously about the viability of running a Sony system.

Apart from the long delays between announcements and availability (all of the recent lenses have been an age in coming) we have the fact that review sites and magazines care far less about Sony products than they do about Canon or Nikon and are very tardy with their reviews.

[alphaomega]

RubberDials, is your current Sony/Minolta system (including available independent lenses and accessories) meeting your photographic requirements? If not, there is a simple answer, switch system. Every time I see a new release from competition I conclude that I do not require any of it. My requirements are fulfilled by Sony and independents. I don't even bother with competitive reviews now as I have no requirement to switch. It is really a question of "horses for courses".