Category Archives: Geek

Full Circle, Full Frame!

The Sony Alpha 900 is launched!

Finally, the flagship model from the Sony Alpha line was officially announced, with a headlining full-frame 24.6 megapixel sensor!

It is, in most ways, very alike to my A700 in handling, ergonomics and button layout. Killer features like Quick Navi and Dynamic Range Optimization stay in.

What’s Great:

HUGE VIEWFINDER
Sony Alpha 900 = 100% coverage, 0.74x magnification of 35.9x24mm = 26.566×17.76mm
Canon EOS 1Ds MkIII = 100% coverage, 0.76x magnification of 36x24mm = 27.36×18.24mm

Honestly, it would be hard for me to tell the difference between 1 millimeter of viewfinder size. What more with such a difference in price (in favor of the Sony.)

Micro Auto Focus Control
Micro auto focus control for up to 30 different individual lenses (it can tell between one 50mm F1.4 and another, apparently!)

Intelligent Preview
It takes a sample shot, lets you tweak WB, exposure, aperture, shutter speed and even DRO with the changes being shown on screen. Tweaking DRO is by far the coolest thing to see! Of course, the best application for this is tweaking WB, and getting dirty with Kelvin values and Color Correction Filter factors. Unfortunately there’s no way to save this picture even if you captured the moment.

True Mirror Lock-up in Drive mode
Landscape artists really appreciate this.

User Changeable Focus Screen
Now I can put a Type M or Type L screen by myself, and change the appropriate setting in the menu.

Selectable APS-C Mode
You can choose to shoot an APS-C sized image when a full-frame lens is mounted at 11 megapixels.

Memory slots 1, 2 and 3
Just like on the Dynax 7, you get quick access to 3 presets.

Peripheral Illumination Control
This comes with Sony Image Data Converter SR3! Allows you to correct vignetting, besides adding Sony’s Dynamic Range Optimization tool.

Weather Sealing
Sony notes that it is not waterproof or splashproof though.

Compatible Power
It uses the Sony NP-FM500H, the same battery used for the A200, A300, A350 and A700.

Consistency – Spot Meter AEL Toggle is still there! I use this often to spot meter off a subject.

Release without lens is still there! (Some feared that the A900 would not work with M42 lenses in Aperture Priority, like the A200/A300/A350, forcing you to set the shutter speed to match the meter in Manual Exposure mode.)

Parallel Link Mirror Box
The mirror lifts upwards instead of swinging up. Interesting new mechanism this is; it saves space while giving room for SteadyShot to do its magic on the CMOS sensor.

SteadyShot INSIDE
Sony has since rebranded their sensor-shift stabilization for the A900. In previous mockups, it claimed to have Super SteadyShot. Perhaps, Super wasn’t such a super word to use.

Dynamic Range Optimizer
Like the A700, with off, on, advanced auto, and 5 custom levels. This is supposedly tamer than the A700’s, which is a pity; I am a big fan of the A700’s DRO Level 5.

Basic Top LCD
Unlike the complex top LCDs on most dSLRs, this only shows you basic shooting information and whatever settings you’re changing. Tap ISO and you see only the ISO in large LCD letters. This is probably the same as what you see in the viewfinder.

The reason why professionals want this is for bright sunny days and real dark places where the rear LCD’s light would be too distracting. Of course, I never needed it, because I could find all the information inside the A700 viewfinder when I change settings.

Yep, the top LCD shows oooH in High Speed Continuous Drive Mode just like in the viewfinder.

Built-in Eyepiece Shutter
Every professional camera’s gotta have one.

What’s Improved Over The A700:

– You can now switch between CF and MS card using QuickNavi (previously, you were forced to use the Menu, even though the CF/MS icon was on the QuickNavi screen.)

– exposure bracketing can now be set to 2 stops (until the A700 V4 firmware was leaked, we were limited to 0.7 stops). The A700 with V4 firmware can do this anyway.

– repositioned PC Sync port cover. Mine on the A700 is a flapper; the strap pulls it off often.

Bummers:

– no Live View (even as a manual-focus implementation)

– AF sensors 8 lines, 1 double-cross, 10 assist… but they’re not very spread out, and I wish it had more cross sensors. However, there are early claims that these outer sensors with assist sensors may be very effective already.

The double-cross sensor, like on the A700, is an amazing thing though.

– no pop-up flash. I can’t bring this with my Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye (which would finally be circular on full-frame) to parties and just mix ambient light with flash. Or rather, it would be too heavy!

– no grip sensor… but then, there’s no Eye-Start AF!

I actually used Eye-Start AF, so I’m sad about its omission.

– 1/8000th of a second fastest shutter speed (possibly for reliability, as the Dynax 9’s 1/12000th of a second shutter wasn’t even rated for 100

Guess That Lens II!

5 Replies

Now for another round of Guess That Lens!

Say whaaat?

Pretty good bokeh.

Sharp with an amazingly close minimum focus distance!

More flowers for you.

I love it when a lens renders highlights like on the left of this picture.

Though not so much when they blocken up out-of-focus backgrounds.

Like here, again. Oh and the out-of-focus flower isn’t that well done.

So yeah, let them guesses roll! So far, nobody has gotten the first Guess That Lens right…

B.S. O.D.

Guess That Lens!

6 Replies

I bought a lens to replace my Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4.0 EX which was sent for repair due to gear stripping.

It can be pretty sharp when focused correctly.

With decent to good bokeh…

…and a pretty good close minimum focusing distance.

Horsing Around Animatedly

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And to end the FEI KL Grand Prix at the Putra Stadium Bukit Jalil, 23rd November 2007 – some bandwidth-eating animations!

Jump and land.

Tracked with the Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan and Minolta 200mm F2.8G HS APO. The 200mm is amazingly fast, easily the fastest screw-drive lens in the A-mount – it could be out of focus as the horse is about to jump, and I could lock focus on it at the jump!

Now you may ask, wouldn’t the Nikon D90 be better suited for capturing such videos?

No.

It’s manual focus only in video mode, so you’ll have a hard time as the horses will run around the field and you’ll have to continuously refocus and track at the same, a quite daunting task. So daunting, I haven’t even done it myself!

Well, I’d wait for what Sony and Olympus would offer for video – they seem to be the smartest when implementing something. After all, Sony has the fastest Quick AF Live View with Olympus being second with their contrast-detect AF, which is loads faster than what Nikon and Canon have done so far.

More pictures here, and outtakes here.

Horsing Around

This Week In Geek

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Canon

The Canon 1000D and 50D come to the table.

The 1000D is a Frankenstein between the 400D and 450D, featuring the better grip and ergonomics of the 450D, that slow Contrast-Detect AF in Live View, but without the spot metering that the 450D has.

Well, at least it’s cheaper and seems relatively new. It looks like Canon’s way of catching up to the Sony A200 and Olympus E-420, the 2 cheapest dSLRs yet.

The Canon EOS 50D is finally a worthy upgrade, without the half-baked implementations of new technologies that came in the 40D – the 40D had a low-resolution 3″ LCD; the 50D now has the same 640×480 3″ LCD that the Sony A700, Nikon D90, D300, D700 and D3 have. It also adds a HDMI port which we’d seen on the Sony A700, Nikon D90, D300, D700 and D3.

The 40D had Phase Detect AF in Live View, which meant a mirror blackout; the 50D has the slow Contrast-Detect AF in Live View that was introduced with the 450D. Oh, and Face Detect too!

The 40D was limited to ISO3200 when the Nikon D300 and Sony A700 were offering ISO6400 even in APS-C. The 50D stops at ISO12800… at 15 megapixels. Whether this is still good quality is yet to be seen.

The 50D adds AF Microadjust, which was already on the Nikon D300, D700 and D3…

The 40D did 6.5 FPS while the 50D only does 6.3 FPS. Let’s hope it’s not like the 40D, where the 6.5 FPS only happens at shutter speeds faster than 1/1000s!

Finally, the joystick on the 40D was previously useless; now the 50D has a Quick Control mode which lets you change settings on screen using the joystick… quite like the Sony A700’s Quick Navi system, or what Olympus has had for quite a while now! (I hope I can finally use the joystick to scroll through pictures instead of spastically rolling the thumb dial repeatedly…)

Well done catching up, Canon!

So why doesn’t Canon make video mode in their dSLRs? Probably because they already make HD camcorders!

Nikon

Now the real groundbreaker is the Nikon D90, the long-awaited replacement to the D80… including the only thing worth mentioning, HD video recording mode.

Of course, this isn’t the full HD experience – it’s only 720p not 1080p; it’s only 24 frames per second, you can’t step up to 60 frames per second where all professional video is recorded.

Oh, and it’s manual focus only.

In theory, the CMOS sensor should be able to give 2848p!

You can shoot casual stuff with this but when the subject is moving away from the plane of focus, be prepared for a fair bit of skilled MF-C – “manual focus continuous“. I’ll tell you that this is not easy! You’ll need a tripod for sure, because turning the focus ring will certainly affect your stability. (And how the heck does VR know whether to activate because you’re still, or stop because you’re panning, since you might be doing both in a video?)

Even if it could auto-focus, it would do so very slowly, like Contrast-Detect AF does it. Camcorders and point-and-shoots use Contrast-Detect AF also, but those are much faster because the sensor size is 4x smaller. An APS-C sensor needs 4x more precision which is why it’s much slower to focus. The Olympus E-420 and E-520 are notably faster because they have a 2x crop sensor, 1.4x smaller than an APS-C sensor.

However, the plus point, which would entice amateur movie makers, is that it would have the shallow depth of field of APS-C! Your average camcorder has a crop factor of 6x (hence, 4x smaller than the 1.5x crop). So you can put a 30mm F1.4 lens on, crank up the ISO to 1600, and record a movie in dim conditions… as long as I can get shutter speeds of 1/48th of a second or faster.

Me, well, I’d rather use a HD camcorder that has a 10x zoom constant F1.6 lens. So it’s F1.6 all the way; you can use it wide (50mm in 35mm equivalent) in low light, and tele in the low light. Videographers who shoot wider would get a wide-angle or fisheye converter, with no light loss! F1.6 fisheye anyone?

Oh, and there are no Nikkor VR lenses that go brighter than F2 (the Nikkor 200mm F2.0 VR). The F1.8 and F1.4 lenses are not stabilized.

So supposing, for versatility, a Nikkor 16-85mm F3.5-5.6 VR is used; that will give VR and some zoom capability. With F3.5, you might not get to expose your frames at at least 1/48th of a second, and your video would get this unpleasant slowmo strobing effect. (30 FPS would be less forgiving, needing 1/60th of a second to avoid looking slowmo.)

Edited: Oops, I knew there was no Nikkor 17-55mm F2.8 VR but for some reason I typed so at 4:38 AM heh.

The video recording in 720p is limited to 5 minutes, but no real director makes a single shot last 5 minutes.

So what about the rest of the D90? 12 megapixel CMOS supporting ISO6400, sensor cleaning, 4.5 FPS, interactive information display, 640×480 3″ LCD, Face Detect in Contrast-Detect AF in Live View, in a D80-style body. Ironically, in some ways, I prefer the D90’s button layout over the D700’s and D3’s.

I wonder if you can still fire the shutter while recording video! How about a mike jack? Or are they expecting a serious videographer to have a boom mike and later have the audio synced to the video? The least Nikon could do is add another mike to make it stereo.

Who knows, when this becomes popular, you won’t see the crowd raising phones at a concert; instead you’d see a sea of dSLRs.

This feature will certainly be copied and enhanced by other brands (my bet is on Olympus and their Micro Four Thirds system to do it right, first) so I’m not exactly so excited that I’d want to go out and get a D90 now. Even if I liked taking video… as shooting at F1.4 even, I might not get the 1/48s exposure I want, in dim areas. A fisheye at F8 and sunny days would be fine though.

I’ve a feeling that Sony will add the Smart Teleconverter in the A300/A350 to video mode. So you can digitally zoom videos too!

Olympus

They’ve made a new concept, called Micro Four Thirds, with a shorter flange distance, for more compact, bright and wide lenses.

Ever wondered how Panasonic could make a 10x zoom F2.8 lens on their FZ-20? If the lens can be assembled much closer to the body, you can do so much more. A smaller sensor also lets F2.0 zooms on the Four Thirds mount exist.

Micro Four Thirds also almost certainly promised video recording. I’ve a feeling that Olympus will once again come out with the technology first – they did, after all, make the first Live View dSLR with auto-focus, the Olympus E-330.

I sure hope that they can scale their 25mm F2.8 pancake into a 25mm F1.4 on Micro Four Thirds while retaining the pancake form. That, and a 14mm F1.4, would be perfect to put in my front pocket.

Sony

Well, we’ll see what Sony has to launch at Photokina.

Sony HVL-F58AM pre-production hands-on!

8 Replies

An embargo has been lifted, so I am honored to present to you shots of an unshootable object!

Yes, it’s the Sony HVL-F58AM, nicknamed the Cobra Head, for its amazing, revolutionary flash swivel system!

It comes with a new hotshoe foot that can carry the weight of it even when it’s turned sideways and back.

The pouch is extra big, with a bigger head for its bulky body. That means the flash head has to enter the pouch first. Note the straps which are crossed – you can hook it to your belt in landscape or portrait orientation! Very, very cool.

Note that the flash hiding in the pouch, in the picture, is a F56, not the F58.

I love transforming things and this is no exception – it folds neatly in half to fit into the pouch. When it folds, it makes a loud crocodile-like snap!

If the F58 is the Cobra Head, then its hotshoe foot is the Bat Clapper.

I only had a brief hands-on experience with a pre-production F58, without the manual. This is not representative of the final product.

So, can it be triggered by our pop-up flash?
Yes.

Do you need to press a button to unlock the swivel mechanisms?
No, full freedom left and right, and forward and back.

Is it heavy?
Strangely, it feels lighter than the F56.

Is there a sync port and a port for an external battery pack?
Yes to both, exactly the same ones as on the F56.

Can the F58 trigger the F42 in Commander mode, while mounted on the body?
Yes, but I don’t know how to change the F42 from RMT1 to RMT2.

Can the F58 trigger the F56 in Commander mode, while mounted on the body?
I could not figure out how to, but this does not mean that it cannot. However, there might be a provision to this, as the F58 was not a production copy.

Is there a strobe mode?
Yes.

Can the F42, F56 and F58 be triggered at the same time, using the pop-up flash?
Yes. If the final version of the F58 cannot trigger the F56 in Commander mode, then those who want to use a F56 and F58 at the same time, will have to trigger both wirelessly.

17 to 35

6 Replies

Filler with the Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX.

It has good separation but poor rendition of contrasty out-of-focus highlights especially with trees.

Good color, albeit with traces of Sigma yellow. (And this is at 2500K mind you.) Patrick took this picture!

50cm minimum focus distance can be annoyingly far, but this lens harked back to film days. The later Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX DG was fixed for digital sensors and didn’t produce internal flare. Then again, internal flare is a rare occurence to me and where I shoot.

35mm.

Poled.

With a 2x teleconverter to make 70mm F8.0. I like the stippled bokeh effect.

This is, unfortunately, the only zoom lens I have in the ‘standard’ range – the other is the Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8. The 17-35mm, being a ultra wide-angle lens on full-frame, is chunky and rather big to be a everyday lens.

Many a time I wished I had a APS-C lens like the Sony Carl Zeiss 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 DT or the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8. Of course, my cash is prioritized to other ranges so this won’t get replaced all too soon. Kinda like how I had the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT kit lens for a very long time, since it wasn’t in a critical range – I’d want something wide to normal and normal to tele instead. Based on this philosophy, my ideal APS-C range would have the Tamron 10-24mm F3.5-4.5, Sony 35mm F1.4G and Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 EX DG II HSM or Sony 24-105mm F3.5-4.5. I could shoot with just one lens each day and not feel like I wish I brought the other lens!

Oh and Alphanatics is up! I should mention it since the Sony Alpha 9th August 2008 seminar… which also launched the site, of which I am one of the site admins.