Some people ask, what’s up with the Sony A700 vertical grip? Why is the shutter button not at the corner of it?

The answer is ergonomics.

Xian Jin, with a Nikon D80, Nikkor AF-D 85mm F1.8 and the MB-D80 battery grip. Notice that his right hand is higher up. In fact, he is pulling the camera up so that his left eye will be able to look through the viewfinder.

Me with Asyraf‘s Canon EOS 1Ds Mk I with Canon 50mm F1.8 Mk II. With this, the vertical grip is built into the body. Personally, it felt like I wish my left eye was at the same level as my nose to hold this more comfortably. My right hand certainly felt like it was reaching for the top level of a cupboard.

The 50mm is a slow focuser with the 1Ds, but that’s another story.

However, this is not so with the Sony Alpha 700, Sony Carl Zeiss 16-80mm F3.5-4.5 DT and Sony VG-C70AM portrait grip. (This is not mine; it’s George‘s.) My right hand no longer feels awkward, and I can lower my elbow, for better stability. Also, more of the camera’s weight is held by my right hand.

Thanks to KJ for taking this shot.

Also, the joystick and all buttons accessible by the right hand are duplicated on the vertical grip. This is different from say, the Canon 40D, which has fewer buttons, and you cannot reach the joystick when in portrait mode without stabbing your eye first.

An added bonus is that the Drive, WB and ISO buttons which are originally harder to reach with the right hand in landscape orientation are now very easy to reach with the left hand. Also, the Fn button of the A700 can be reached with your left thumb in portrait orientation!

A normal landscape orientation grip. Note that the distance between both hands is almost the same in both landscape and portrait grip!

That said, I will not be getting the vertical grip so soon. I don’t have space in most of my camera bags for it, and I can make do with the chunky grip of the A700. Sometimes, I prefer to rotate the camera clockwise (with vertical grips it’s always anti-clockwise.)

Okay, this is old news, and I’ve been running around with a Sony Alpha 700 with Version 2 patched in, but here it is anyway:

Click here for Sony Alpha 700 Version 2 firmware update.

I quote the page:

The Firmware update improves the following issues:
* The picture sharpness is better under low contrast conditions.
* Noise is reduced when working at high sensitivity ISO setting.
* The flash control is better at close range with a non-ADI control lens.

Unfortunately, I did not have a controlled environment to test the before-and-after pictures. Also, I rarely ever flash at close range with a non-ADI control lens.

David Kilpatrick over at Photoclub Alpha has published a great article about the Sony A700’s improved Advanced Dynamic Range Optimizer. I have to agree, as I’ve seen amazing results with the new DRO (on the Sony A100, DRO was meek and humble.)

DRO set on Level 4 or 5 looks like a HDR image, with less fakeness! I’ll post my own pictures in a separate post.

Click here to read Advanced DRO – the A700�s magic bullet

And now, for geeking on a different mount – the Four-Thirds mount has a new professional body in the form of the Olympus E-3!

I have to admit, I really like its specifications, and after touching one in real-life I am convinced it is awesome.

It’s got a white-balance sensor! Wireless flash is finally supported, with compatible flash units. Highlight/shadow spot metering is interesting.

Kelvin WB can be set from 2000K to 14000K (insane!) when competitors go from 2500K to 9900K only.

Of course, there’s always good ol’ One Touch WB (you can bind the Fn key to that). This would make it the JPEG shooter’s dream.

Its 2.5″ LCD screen may seem old, at 320×240, and not as bright as the Sony A700 (at 640×480). However, it swivels! Perfect for the random times when you’d want to camwhore with it.

And yes, Live View is not fun when you don’t have a swivel screen. Thank goodness the E-3 has that! In addition to that, when pressing the AEL/AFL button to trigger AF in Live View, the screen freezes its last frame and shows you which AF point is being focused on. This is unlike the Canon 40D, which blacks out while focusing. (Canon has by far the worst implementation of Live View AF, this generation.)

The grip is rubbery. It is also chunky, like my Sony A700. It also goes into the fashion of having separate vertical grips, yay! The buttons are all over but are in the right place.

The E-3 claims to have the world’s fastest AF with the Olympus Zuiko Digital 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 SWD. Having tried it, I’ll believe that claim! In Live View, however, it seems notably slower, despite seeing it focus in the viewfinder as you press AEL/AFL (minus the mirror flapping bit.)

Honestly, I did not feel disappointed with its AF, unlike some other more expensive professional-level bodies which I tried.

The Olympus Zuiko Digital 50-200mm F2.8-3.5 SWD, equivalent to a 100-400mm F2.8-3.5 on film.

However, I do have a gripe with it. I’d like to be able to set different AF modes for Live View and uh… viewfinder mode.

I’d want to use S-AF[MF] (Single AF, with Manual Focus Override) for viewfinder mode. Half-pressing the shutter should AF, and this is the amazingly fast AF they advertise of.

I’d want to use MF for Live View mode. NOT S-AF[MF] because, if I focused on something using AEL/AFL but did not shoot, and waited for the moment and pressed the shutter all the way down, using S-AF[MF] would REFOCUS if the object had moved out of the AF point, causing a random shutter lag, very unbecoming of dSLRs! Thus, MF is best for Live View, where I tap AEL/AFL to focus anyway.

Fortunately, the AF mode is on the top-left ala the Canon 1D series, but it is a hassle to press the Live View button and then change the AF mode accordingly.

A good reason to go into the Olympus line is for the Four-Thirds lenses, like this here Olympus Zuiko Digital 14-35mm F2.0. With a 2x crop factor, it feels like a 28-70mm of film, or about a 18-50mm of APS-C. Yes, F2.0! You don’t ever get F2.0 zooms elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the Four-Thirds system is still new, and you won’t find second-hand lenses, and third-party manufacturers don’t make much Four-Thirds-mount lenses, possibly due to the different range. However, you can get an adaptor for most mounts to the Four-Thirds mount, but that means the lens has to be operated manually, preferably one with an aperture ring.

A few months back, there was a competition on ClubAlpha.net, Sony’s official Alpha forum. Take a picture of yourself with the A100, it said.

I shot this with my Sony A100 with Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT at 70mm F36 (to get as much of both of us in focus.) Of course, this was not valid because the camera itself was not in the picture. (That’s my Minolta Dynax 7 used as a frame.)

40mm F36. This time, the Dynax 7’s back was opened and it was set to a 10 second exposure (to give me enough time to get into the reflected frame.) The apparent mirror in the frame is a real mirror held to the back of the camera!

Needless to say, I didn’t win anything because I wasn’t (apparent) in the shot, or the camera wasn’t in the shot.

I was in Singapore for the weekend, to catch Megadeth and Heaven And Hell. But that’s not what this blog entry is about!

I stayed off Clarke Quay, a 5 minute walk from the camera geek hub of Singapore – Funan IT Mall, Peninsula Plaza and Peninsula Shopping Centre. These three places also had guitars, while Funan had computer equipment… very much like Bintang Walk, the geek hub of Kuala Lumpur.

Look mommy, the first ever digital SLR – it was a Kodak!

Singapore was indeed heaven for people afflicted with Gear Acquisition Syndrome; all sorts of weird, rare lenses and cameras were available. Loads of old Sigma lenses, in all mounts – Nikon F, Contax/Yashica, Olympus OM (yes, manual focus), Minolta MD (yes, manual focus), Pentax K, and Minolta AF.

Loads of old Minolta 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 kit lenses (both in silver and black).

P&G Photographic Centre in The Adelphi had the Vivitar Series 1 Q-Dos for Minolta MD mount, for SGD320! This rare lens had a switch that would add a red and blue filter to make stereoscopic images! They also had loads of M42 lenses, ironically all 28mm F2.8 lenses.

I have never felt so much love for my Minolta X300.

Loads of old Minolta MD mount lenses. (Back has 50mm F1.4 and 135mm F2.8 lenses, a weird 35-70mm F3.5, 35mm F2.8, 28mm F3.5, and the original push-pull design of the Leica-collaborated Minolta 70-210mm F4 MD, which later became the beloved autofocusing Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan lens.

The Camera Workshop in Peninsula Shopping Centre had a new Konica Minolta 7 Digital for SGD1650! They also had the great Minolta 24-105mm F3.5-4.5 for SGD405, the original companion to the Dynax 7 film SLR, also sold there!

Sweet mother of god, the Minolta Dynax 9 professional film body.

Guess what lens this is!

…a Pentacon 300mm F4, with M42 mount!

The Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 wasn’t hard to come by, either, at SGD820, in different mounts; Cathay Photo, Peninsula Plaza, stocked Teleplus 2x MC4 and MC7 teleconverters for all AF mounts. In Malaysia, we can only find the Canon and Nikon mount ones! These were a cheap SGD150. Cathay also had the Sony A700 (one of the few who had it) and the Portrait Grip for 449 SGD. Lensbabies in all generations and mounts were there, with the LB 2.0 going for SGD255.

Prime Camera Center had a mint Minolta Dynax 9, a professional film SLR, for SGD1800!

K13 in Peninsula Plaza had the unheard of brother to the well-loved Minolta 70-210mm F4 beercan; the auto-focus Minolta 70-210mm F3.5-4.5, for SGD280!

They also stocked converters to Canon EOS mount, in the key of Yashica/Contax, Olympus OM, Nikon, Leitz and Carl Zeiss. Quite like what FourThirds is doing, too.

However, the one thing that made me wish I had a credit card right there was Alex Photo, Peninsula Plaza, which had a Canon FD 58mm F1.2 for SGD300 and a Minolta Rokkor 58mm F1.2 for SGD400!

Yes, that means that I could make myself a 58mm F1.2 Pete Ganzel edition by sticking a Minolta AF mount on it! Or, I could just use it on my Minolta X300 film SLR, which has a Minolta MD mount…

I headed down to Orchard Road, and got lucky in Lucky Plaza. Photo Graphic & Video Mania had the Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 for A-mount for SGD735. APO Foto had the Sony 70-200mm F2.8G SSM for SGD3450! The Sigma 24mm F1.8 for A-mount was also interesting at SGD560, while they also stocked the (reboxed) Vivitar Series 1 70-210mm F2.8-4 for SGD355.

Oh, and the Dynax 9 in a box. For SGD2300!

Back to Funan IT Mall, Alan Photo had the goodies, like the Canon 200mm F1.8L USM (that rare-earth one, replaced with a dimmer 200mm F2L IS), the big ol’ Nikkor primes (200mm F2, 300mm F2.8, 400mm F2.8, 500mm F4, 600mm F4).

Yes, that’s a white AF-S Nikkor 300mm F2.8D next to the AF-S Nikkor 200mm F2 VR, the only VR lens brighter than F2.8. All the other big Nikkors became redundant when Canon rolled out IS versions of all these big telephoto lenses.

(OF course, Konica Minolta/Sony never made their lenses redundant, by implementing in-body stabilization; and we get to pick stabilized 20mm F1.8 lenses, 24mm F1.4 lenses, 135mm F1.8 lenses, 500mm F8 reflex mirrors, 600mm F4 lenses, etc.)

And now, for shots from the Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX full-frame Minolta/Sony A-mount lens, shot with the Minolta Dynax 7 film SLR on Fujifilm Superia ASA 400 film!

I shot almost entirely in Aperture Priority, as I believe it’s the most practical mode. No point shooting Manual Exposure if you’re just going to set the lightmeter to 0. This was at F14.

Instead of the much-heard of Sigma yellow (where Sigma lenses have a yellow cast) I got a magenta tint instead.

Also, there is very little light falloff! The lens on the Sony A700 has loads at 17mm F2.8; this is because the lens was made for film and was not optimized to send light towards the edges at right angles to hit the CMOS on its head.

Upping the green levels help; this is 17mm F2.8 at the minimum focusing distance of 50cm.

Bokeh is nice, but sometimes shows some brightline. Definitely not creamy either. Shot at F2.8.

Shot at F2.8, surprisingly sharp. Compared to the Sony 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 DT, which has a 16.5mm equivalent field of view, it is technically 0.5mm less wide. However, it is 1.33 stops brighter, so its depth of field is smaller. However, the Sony 11-18mm goes as close as 25cm, which makes up for it.

This was shot at F6.3.

Flare was well-controlled at F11, and a bit of Photoshop made my office building pop.

F2.8, focused on the elianto sign, and yet it was in focus all over.

Another macro shot at 17mm F2.8.

Go green! Go Fujifilm Superia go! Also 17mm F2.8.

He looks like he’s hauling a stash.

While at it, here’s something from the Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye instead. Shot at F8 in Sunway Pyramid.

And now, back to the Sigma, with the Dynax 7’s Smooth Transition Focus mode, which does a multiple exposure of 7 frames with different apertures.

This was at 17mm F4.5 1/8th of a second. A funky side effect of the 7 frames is this stroboscopic effect!

And so, on the 2nd of October 2007, I went to the Sony Alpha 700 launch in Renaissance Hotel Kuala Lumpur. One of my works also made it to a 20×30″ print! My portrait was taken by Azrul K. Abdullah. This picture however was taken by KJ.

I love it when people go, “How’d he do that?”

The shot was from the Incubus Tribute gig at Jamasia.

One of the many displays; I did not get a good look at them…

…until it was pointed out that there was the unreleased Sony 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G SSM lens! Note the focus hold button, distance window and focus limiter (with, oddly, a Manual Focus option.)

This is meant to be the faster, high-quality optics version of the Sony 75-300mm F4.5-5.6. The G designation specifies a Minolta/Sony lens of high grade, quite like the L lenses of Canon.

Shot from one of the Sony PhotoTVs. My Sony A100 was too contrasty to capture the tonality that the TV showed!

Regretfully, I did not pixel peep at the HDMI-ready TV. I should’ve! It would supposedly allow you to view a photo like a large print up close.

And then it was revealed what was powering the TVs; a single A700! George the Sony Alpha product manager then used his (supplied) Sony A700 remote control to go through the menus. It was on slideshow mode all this while!

My new Minolta AF/Sony family picture! (Click for bigger picture.)

From left to right, back row: Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye (with M42 to A-mount adapter), Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX full-frame ultrawide lens (NEW!), Sony HVL-F56AM flash behind, Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8 push-pull lens, Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 push-pull lens, Cosina 70-210mm F2.8-4 push-pull lens, Minolta 70-210mm F4 ‘beercan‘ lens, Sigma 70-210mm F4-5.6 push-pull ‘softie‘ lens.

From left to right, front row: Sony Alpha 700 with Tamron 1.4x teleconverter, Minolta 50mm F1.4 (pre-RS), Minolta Dynax 7 with Kenko Teleplus 2x teleconverter.

The Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT kit lens and Minolta 28-80mm F3.5-5.6 silver kit lens (for the Dynax 7) have since been sold. Yay!

(I’d also like to thank KJ for scouting and finding the secondhand Tamron 200-400mm F5.6 for me; and thanks also to Yik Sen who bought it bundled with a film body and sold me the lens.)

All the A-mount bodies I’ve ever owned! Left to right: Sony Alpha 700, Sony Alpha 100, Minolta Dynax 7. The A100 has since been sold to Lex, with the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT kit lens.

I wouldn’t have sold the kit lens if I had a choice, but Lex didn’t have a lens to use on it otherwise.

While I don’t particularly fancy the focal lengths that the kit lens covers, I realize that I do need it, and that it is amazingly good for its price. It’s not a softie like the horrid Canon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 USM (and maybe its updated IS counterpart).

How do I know the Sony kit lens is sharp?

Even after I put it through teleconverters, it does not become soft! That is usually the ultimate test for lenses. Chromatic aberration is very rare, and so is flare.

One of the most astounding shots I ever shot with the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT kit lens on the Sony A100. I’m amazed how, with the proper lighting, it can look astoundingly sharp. I always felt its resolution wasn’t so great even stopped down for focusing on far-away landscapes, but for closeups, this is amazing.

100% crop of the same picture.

Of course, selling off the Sony kit lens meant that I had no more APS-C cropped factor lenses, no more Sony lenses, no more ADI (Automatic Distance Integration) D-lenses, no more plastic mount lenses, and no more lenses with apertures from F3.5-5.6.

And so, I needed to get a replacement, and what better than the Sigma 17-35mm F2.8-4 EX full-frame ultrawide lens?

Of course, on the A700, it becomes a standard wide, cropped down to a meager 26.5-52.5mm equivalent. However, it’s oodles brighter than the kit lens, which is already F5.6 at 35mm! Also, 17mm F2.8 on a full-frame is brighter than a Sony 11-18mm F4.5-5.6 DT at 11mm F4.5 on an A100/A700 (both giving about the same field of view.)

This is the older EX version, not the EX DG version, which I would’ve preferred because it has a 77mm filter thread. This oldie is not optimized for digital SLRs and thus has noticeable light falloff. Fortunately, I can stack a 82mm UV, 82-77mm step down ring, 77mm infrared filter, on the A100/A700 and have no vignetting due to the crop factor!

It is, however, a D lens and supports ADI, so it can tell the camera what is the focused distance so that the flash can work more accurately.

I also like how its rings turn the same way as my Minolta and Sony lenses; anti-clockwise from back to infinity; anti-clockwise from back to wide. This makes sense because turning a screw clockwise would make a screw enter deeper; thus, the front element would enter deeper and focus on infinity; likewise for zoom lenses, which extend when you turn it anti-clockwise from the front. Thus they work exactly like screws do; anti-clockwise to loosen/extend, clockwise to tighten/shorten.

(This picture is not meant to demonstrate Sigma yellow, a condition associated with Sigma lenses; I shot it with this white balance, intended.)

I got this for a great bargain secondhand; a 17-35mm full-frame constant F2.8 would cost in the prohibitive 4 digits; a Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 DT wouldn’t work on full-frame; a 16mm F2.8 or anything wider would balloon in price substantially.

Thus, a 17-35mm F2.8-4 is the cheapest rectilinear ultrawide you can get for full-frame. Minolta made one in conjunction with Tamron, but I couldn’t find that one.

I don’t know why, but it felt wider than the Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 DT, with more obvious perspective distortion on the sides. Or I could just be imagining things. I didn’t feel the 17-50mm gave enough distortion.

I also considered the cheap Tamron 19-35mm F3.5-4.5 full-frame lens, but I figured my A700 would love me more for putting a F2.8 lens on it. After all, the A700 has an extra F2.8 sensor for better AF with F2.8 lenses.

Shots from the Sigma on my full-frame Dynax 7 will come when I’m done with a roll. 🙂

The Sigma introduces a lot of light falloff when shot at F2.8, which can add dramatic effect.

17mm F2.8 0.8s ISO6400 with infrared filter. Handheld baby! Note the light falloff.

The A700 is very capable of infrared, what with its ISO6400 capabilities! 50mm F2.2 2 seconds ISO6400 propped on a balcony in Masjid Jamek STAR LRT. The blurry thing on the bottom-left of the frame is the balcony, out of focus. 😀

I used a 950-nanometer-cutoff pure infrared filter, because my Hoya R72 would let in too much red and it would not have the true infrared look anymore.

50mm F1.4 1/6s ISO6400 handheld in black-and-white mode with infrared filter. Amazingly, the A700 can autofocus with it!

50mm F1.4 1/8000s ISO100 in black-and-white mode, without infrared filter. That’s how scorching the sun was.

The histograms of both pictures are very different; thus, I cannot accurately measure how many stops you’d have to add to shoot infrared. Already it’s hard to match histograms while shooting infrared because different things reflect infrared differently.

I then did a comparison with the A100, to see which was more sensitive. The A100 was 2 stops more sensitive!

To shoot the same scene with the A100, I’d use 50mm F1.4 1/6s ISO1600. They would be just as noisy anyway in black-and-white, which is fine because infrared film was grainy. Therefore, I get the same shutter speeds if I go to ISO6400 on the A700 and ISO1600 on the A100, both about equally as noisy in black-and-white.

However, I would say the A700 is more suited for infrared photography because it can autofocus better in infrared.

What else can infrared do? Well, our eyes do not reflect infrared, and the only way to get one’s eyes lit up in infrared is if you stare at the sun. DO NOT STARE AT THE SUN!

The Sony A100 and A700 do black-and-white exceptionally well; turn down the contrast and you get a silver halide print; turn it up and you get this.

I’m not familiar with black-and-white film though, so I can’t tell you what film that looks like. I do know that I like it, though. 🙂

Heck, I shot the same scene in color and tried to convert it to black-and-white, but it lost a lot of range and contrast which Photoshopping could not fix.

Up next: Feeling lucky, punk?