New camera announcement Aug 14

[Dr. Harout]

Nicely said Greg

[HUM469]

I have never "dropped" a camera before either, but mine seem to like to get attracted to ther moving objects in the vicinity. In the case of the A700 and the cracked tile, unbeknownst to me the strap got knocked off the table the camera was on inside a restaurant, and a lady passing by was very embarrased when her purse snagged the strap and yanked it off. In the case of the fall to the dirt, it was sitting on a bench in Havasupai where I am still not sure what happened. A group of kids had gone running by about 10 feet away, and over the camera went. Perhaps wind coupled with vibrations thanks to the pounding feet? Maybe some strange kinetic magnetism that is currently unknown to science? Other cameras have fallen because of paniers getting ripped off a bike trying to avoid a car, a bag I thought was zipped not being so, careless friends and children, and in the case of the one that was run over, a very powerful gust of wind at just the wrong time.

As for my flash fall, it was imprudent placement. I had the A700 strapped to my rather heavy backpack on the highest point of rock, and took the remote and flash with me to the next point in an attempt to photograph myself with the setting sun behind. I was slightly out of range though for the wireless control to trip the shot, so I kept inching the flash closer and closer to the edge trying to get it to pick up the control. Finally, right on the lip, it did flash at the very same instant that a gust of wind caught it. The effect out of the corner of my eye looked like a rocket launch as it got really bright and accelerated away from it's light at the same time, fipping over backward as it fell out of site. Apparently it's first point of contact was on one of the legs of the little included stand since the little clip that holds it in broke off, and the second point of contact was the body near the battery door hinge, popping the door off cleanly without breaking, but leaving a small gouge in the plastic. A few other light scratches on the houseing (but none to the lens), and there wasn't a single fatal issue. I've used it on the same flash on the mountain top since then without a single issue.

[Greg Beetham]

Yep, just goes too show there are hidden dangers lurking everywhere, just waiting to pounce on our gear.
hmm Einstein postulated that gravity could bend light and was eventually proved correct, I wonder if you might have demonstrated with that F36 accident that light has thrust as well.....just kidding.
btw I like those sunset shots with just enough fill flash too simulate a camp fire effect, nicely done, night portrait mode perhaps?
Greg

[Greg Beetham]

Nicely said Greg

Thanks Doc
Greg

[HUM469]

Thank you Greg, but no, I have never used any of the scene modes on the A700. Bother were shot as cRAW+JPG, in the case of the first one, I think I was in P mode, in the second I was in A, for the JPG bother were set to clear, +1 sharpening, 0's on the other parameters, DRO+2 in the first, +3 in the second, and both used wireless flash from a single 36. In both cases the camera was set to expose for the background by way of exposure lock and the flash was held by a friend of mine. For the first one, I wanted close to no shadows, and had him hold the flash near the camera, but higher than would be possible with it on camera. In the second, I wanted a more dramatic look, and wanted to feel like light was coming from the lightest clouds on the right, so I had him hold the flash off to that side and lower for the harder, more directional look. It is an awful lot of fun having such a simple wireless setup, that is for sure. But the one thing I still cannot do is manage to beat the JPEG in situations like this. I know there is a slight bit more detail and DR to be had in the RAW file, and I take the storage space to get it, but so far in these oddball cases, I cannot seem to get a RAW processed to look any better than the accompanying RAW. Oh well, at least I am not unhappy with the JPEG result when I cannot out do it by hand...

[Alain]

I use both ISO 200 and 100. There is a significant improvement in the noise level of blue skies at 100, over 200, and that counts for me. I don't often need to pull in the 2 stops of raw headroom you can get at ISO 200. But whenever it counts, yes, I use 200. The D3/D700 also have a base sensitivity of 200 and it is not a good idea to use the 100 setting (LO1) unless you have to, in the studio or for some other reason.

Thanks for that info. I didn't know that about the blue skies at ISO 100 on the A700. I will keep it in mind. With the Canon 30D, KM 7D, and Canon DRebel/300D I tried to use ISO 100 as much as was possible, but with the A700 I thought ISO 200 would be the one to use except if I just had to have a slower shutter speed.

That's exactly why I posted these earlier links to the A700 noise tests where it's pretty obvious that ISO 100 noise performance is better than ISO 200.

Signal to Noise

http://www.diwa-labs.com/photoalbum/vie ... &id=191636

Grain size

http://www.diwa-labs.com/photoalbum/vie ... &id=237835

It's not just blue sky that is affected, it's a ton of stuff. If you are shooting a scene with a large expanse of the same general color (you may be able exclude the very brights), or if you have substantial shadows in your shot of a normal-brightish scene, you may want to consider using 100 instead of 200. 200 has the wider DR but worse noise/shadow noise and this is evident even in something as simple as flower closeups. ISO100 can give a smoother background/bokeh than ISO 200 due to lower noise, and this lower noise principal carries through to many other areas of your photography, like frames filled with blue sky.

-Sonolta

Hi

Has someone tried the 125 and 160 iso values, can we get best of both worlds (High DR and really low noise)?

Alain

[Javelin]

someone somewhere had tested that. it was a while ago and he concluded that iso 160 was the best of both worlds. he didn't have anything to say about the blue sky noise though just that ISO 100 looked flatter. ... I've been to too many forums now and i'm mixing up what I read where and from who.

Has someone tried the 125 and 160 iso values, can we get best of both worlds (High DR and really low noise)?

Alain