Photoclubalpha

Hello all, I am wonder...what iyour thoughts are on the best Alpha to use for landscape pictures and why you have picked that camera?

Thanks
Tim B.

Hi Tim - I'm going to start with 3 choices .

1. For a luxury choice I'll take the A900, with the addition of some nice CZ glass (I'm assuming a camera has to have a lens). Nice full-frame field of view, and a 100% view finder.

2. To make sure I have a camera to take those shots which suddenly appear when I'm out and about I'll take a "carry it everywhere" Nex 5 with the 16mm. (I'm classing the Nex as an Alpha.)

3. Finally I'll take my faithful A700 with Tamron 17-50/2.8 as my current trusty companions - nice viewfinder, and very forgiving of the bumps it gets while out and about.

In some ways a tricky question as I think all of the Alphas can take great landscapes. (The electronic spirit level on the newer Alphas would be a nice feature, but I wouldn't buy a camera purely on that basis.)

It's easy the A850. Best sensor in it's class.

It's an easy choice really.

If you are serious about landscapes you will know that you need the maximum resolution and lens edge sharpness that you can afford.

It has therefore to be the A900 as this will give you 100% view in it's class leading viewfinder. The A900 is also still in production at the present time which the A850 is not. The 850 also does not sport a 100% viewfinder.

Go for the ZA 16-35 lens and you won't go far wrong. Whilst the ZA 24-70 is a nice lens it does tend to vignette with corner softness at the 24mm end of it's zoom range but very useable everywhere else in the range. The 16-35 has none of these traits!

Fit a circular polarising filter on the front of the 16-35 and put the lot onto a good solid tripod with remote shutter release, not forgetting to disarm SSS and you are away! I am assuming that you will deal with any requirements for gradient ND filters etc post processing, otherwise you will need to add a collection of these filters to your camera bag! It soon mounts up to a lot of dosh! But it's all worth it IMHO.

I was all set to go digital medium format three years ago until I read a report on the A900 and also managed to see some landscape images taken with the A900.......I was sold! I have never regretted it.

Simmondsphotography wrote:Fit a circular polarising filter on the front of the 16-35.

Not the best idea, unless you plan on leaving the sky out of your photos. With the field of view that you get at 16mm on a FF, you can get some pretty wierd effects in the sky with a ploarizer and an Ultra wide angle lens. Graduated Neutral Density and Reverse Graduated Neutral Density filters are the way to go....

Where does one go to find out about the value of ND filters, graduated or not?

jbtaylor wrote:Where does one go to find out about the value of ND filters, graduated or not?

http://newschoolofphotography.com/what- ... guide.html