I made it to the first page woohoo!

You don't have to upgrade if you don't need to. Don't need a Mercedes just to drive to the market.

porkchop, to hide the built-in flash from appearing in pictures, you can refer to page 1, under the Common Kelvin White Balance Settings spoiler (er, amadeo why is it in there?)

Ahmike, take a picture of that LOL!

SpOOkY, the number of AF points on the D60 (three!) lead to one switching to manual focus more often.

chiggy, errr I didn't say big diffusers were not professional. The toilet bowl is fine just that it's quite big and with a F58 it becomes redundant. I would suggest bigger diffusers for wider-angle shots where the subjects can be within 1-3 meters from you. Runways and long range don't need diffusers as the light is already spread across large distances.

5564321, yes you can send it for warranty. It sounds like gear stripping!

Kul | Mo0, congratulations!

achew, focus calibration and dust cleaning is covered under warranty. However you really should get your own blower.

I've recorded a video which shows how to clean your Sony Alpha dSLR sensor!



This post has been edited by albnok: May 4 2009, 12:05 AM

Edited, the YOUTUBE embedding code requires just the Youtube ID I guess.

Crap, just discovered that my Canon Powershot A520 can change EV in video! Oh well, next round. Had to record a few times as there were unwanted background noises (dogs barking, etc.)

AlphaBeta, the sensor is behind the shutter. Go push your mirror up right now and see that your sensor is not exposed at all!

(The mirror will stay up, so turn it off and on again.)

The charged sensor only comes into concern if you try to access the sensor by shooting a long exposure and removing the lens.

I have managed to blow dust out without the body facing down so it's not a big deal.

If you:

Turn on cleaning mode then remove the lens - okay
Remove the lens then turn on cleaning mode - still okay

The sensor only gets dust when an exposure is happening. When the mirror and shutter is down, dust would not be able to settle on the sensor. Think about it, how long does it take for dust to settle on a surface?

Oh and happy (belated) birthday signither!

This post has been edited by albnok: May 4 2009, 12:47 AM

AlphaBeta, because the shutter curtain still blocks it.

In the film days, the shutter curtain was necessary to block light from exposing the film.

For digital sensors, the shutter curtain is still necessary to avoid 'rolling shutter'. I have a digital camera without a mechanical shutter and it gives a rolling shutter effect much like what you see on the D90 video mode:



The shutter speed was very fast on these images mind you! About 1/1000s if I remember correctly.

amadeo, thanks!

vandechrome, I have not found my batteries to recharge any faster if I have higher capacity batteries.

I have 4 Energizer 2500 mAh AA batteries and 4 Sanyo Eneloop 2000 mAh AA batteries. Both take 4 seconds to recharge from a full 1/1 power blast (press Test, then wait for the light to come on again in 4 seconds.)

Do you mean that when you fire one 1/1 blast, then fire another 1/1 blast in 2 seconds, that second blast has much power as the first one? I always presumed that I will only get full 1/1 power again when the Test light comes on again after 4 seconds. I usually don't fire one shot then wait 2 seconds; I most certainly always fire 2-3 shots in burst mode of 5 FPS (so it's 0.2 seconds between 2 flashes). This is to lower the chances of blinking eyes (and have a chance to merge pictures where different people blink.) If I was to shoot again in 2 seconds I'd certainly have a hard time realigning the flashed images.

The Eneloops however are low-drain batteries so they still have power after a week whereas I don't know if the Energizers will. So I always prefer to put the Energizers in the flash to use first, then switch to Eneloops when the Energizers are finished. I always carry alkaline AAs as backup for paid events.

hafeez71, yes the Imedion makes a good backup set.

If your flash is eating batteries:

- don't be a pixel peeper, use a higher ISO! ISO400 at least. People ask you to shoot events to catch the moment, not to pixel-peep at how sharp an uncle's moustache can be at ISO100 F8
- remove diffusers if shooting over large distances, it makes no difference.
- point your flash forwards instead of bounce for much, much faster recharge times.

vandechrome, forgot to note that I use TTL all the time so I don't have a good idea whether I'm at 1/1. Though I'm usually on ISO400 onwards so chances of that are lower. Also back on my old F56, I could hear the full recharge sound, but I know that I rarely heard it so I know I don't hit 1/1 in TTL much.

This post has been edited by albnok: May 4 2009, 11:17 AM

alpha_company, good that you're using a slower shutter speed to get the ambient colors and light in, but you need to use the white card on your flash to give some forward light to the faces. The shadows on the face are not flattering!

First off, SpOOkY, you must have an objective when you want to jump ship.

What do you want to shoot that your current camera cannot shoot? Which camera are you sure will satisfy your objective? Are you sure you are not doing a sideways jump?

e.g. if you want better focusing points, you should not jump to a Nikon D40. If you want wireless flash, don't jump to a Canon.

If at this stage you can still ask if Canon or Nikon better, then I fear you would be jumping aimlessly. At least, identify which feature you want in another brand and jump for that.

SpOOkY, not knowing what your requirements/wants are other than the stronger AF points off-center, I would say the Nikon D300. CLS, 45 AF points, a lot more cross-type sensors and a far more advanced AF system than Canon's or Sony's. You might like the 3D AF tracking mode also. There are people complaining that the 5D MkII's AF is like the ol 5D MkI, good only in the center.

noprob, the A700 is a lot better at ISO1600. And yes, DRO+5 is that good (in daylight).

Radeon, ah yes 51, thanks for pointing it out. It was the Canon 1DsMkIII that has 45 AF points. And yes that is the plan to make the A900 look worn.

This post has been edited by albnok: May 4 2009, 09:58 PM

Interesting read about AF systems between the Nikon D300, Sony A700/A900 and Canon 5DMkII:

http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/nikon-af-vs-so...5978_page1.html

I'm not sure how many will understand it given one might not have seen a split-prism rangefinder before...

Vincent Pang, on the contrary, they are still used in all modern digital SLRs - phase-detect AF points are all split prism rangefinders. Cross-type AF points are just 2 sets of split prism rangefinders overlaid on each other. So if you understand how a split prism rangefinder works, you will understand what they are talking about in more depth.

Also, you can focus using the darkened ground glass on the outside of the split-prism rangefinder of a manual-focus screen. It will show correct depth of field for lenses brighter than F2.8 (as opposed to shooting at F2.0, and finding your DOF to be less than what you see in the viewfinder.)

Contrast-detect AF, like that on the Panasonic G1 and Live View systems of Canon/Nikon/Olympus, do not use split prism rangefinders. But they certainly are not faster than the phase-detect AF system that uses split prism rangefinders!

I do wonder how people with proper rangefinders (Leica M8, etc) focus off-center. There's no ground glass on that one...

This post has been edited by albnok: May 4 2009, 11:53 PM

Vincent Pang, read it again, they say the A900 has faster AF, but the D300 tracks better and focuses off-center than both Sony and Canon. The D300 had more trouble in low light due to it not having a F2.8-optimized sensor and it may not be as accurate.

Phase-detect AF = (electronic) split prism rangefinder

Nikon is using split prism rangefinders in their 51 AF point phase-detect system. They just use a lot more of those, that's all.


This is a disassembled phase-detect AF unit from a Minolta 9xi. It had 4 AF sensors but you see 8 holes there right? Do you understand?

chiggy, the center sensor on the A100/A200/A300/A350 is a cross-type sensor, meaning that it is made of 2 line sensors at 90 degrees from each other. The outer sensors are line sensors so they may not detect detail and 'recognize' focus as easily.

The A700/A900 however has two pairs of cross-type sensors as well as a F2.8 sensor which gets unlocked when a F2.8 lens is used, so it has in total 5 sensors working on the center point. This is why the A700/A900 is faster to focus using the center AF point compared to the Canons and Nikons (The Nikons have more cross-type sensors but no F2.8 sensor so you'll only ever get 2 line sensors maximum working on any AF point, while Canons have a center F2.8 sensor but no dual cross so it's maximum 3 line sensors working on the center AF point.)

If you enable Focus Priority, the camera must be very sure that it is in focus before it shoots. Release Priority takes more chances but you get the full FPS of your camera.

chiggy, I didn't find the Sigma to be too confident in Focus Priority when I did those tests in relative poor light (compared to a catwalk.)

That said, you will be surprised what is along the same plane of focus as a face. Using a side AF point, focus on the face, shoot, and see if it's in good focus - then, observe what else in the picture is along the plane of focus. You might find it easier to focus on that area instead.

In my experience shooting guitarists, I find if you can focus on the guitar strap the face will most definitely be in focus.

I mean, for a guitarist where the composition is similar to yours, head down to waist, where the chest or guitar is the center of the frame, not the head, if I focus on the guitar strap using the center AF point, the face is in focus as well with the 135mm F1.8 at F1.8 on full-frame. I am not recomposing for this. You should get deeper DOF due to being further, being on APS-C, and using F3.5 (I am usually about... 2-3 meters away from the guitarist.)

But then again, guitarists aren't always walking forwards heh. Though they do rock back and forth at times!

This post has been edited by albnok: May 5 2009, 03:21 PM