I asked my local product manager today, and he says that the pop-up flash of the A230/A330/A380 can indeed trigger off-camera flashes.

David Kilpatrick has also edited his article.

Haaa see!

Ladies' bags ARE HUGE! Bigger than the Sony 300mm F2.8G SSM sial.

Soap opera stars, at the long end of the 135mm F1.8:



Sometimes you gotta push ISO3200.

Apparently, the SAM 50mm F1.8 DT is pushing some pretty good MTF scores!

http://www.dyxum.com/dforum/50-18-mtf-from...topic46766.html

I think an interesting lighting effect to do with wireless flashes, is to simulate the V-shape shadow from the Star Trek poster with Chris Pine in it.

finger_waverz: Depends on which M42 lens; with practice you will get it. You'd want a viewfinder loupe like the Pentax O-ME53 or the new Sony one (not released yet).

hanafinoor, welcome back!

Kul | Mo0, honestly, a lot of people with cameras think too much about how to take a picture.

If it's too bright or too dark, just change the EV! Same principles apply to digicams! Happy rainbow catching!

dancinth, nice almost high-key look!

sidewinderz, a ND filter will not help shoot a rainbow. A graduated ND, maybe (but not necessary.)



I used 2 layers and a simple layer mask in Photoshop to bring out the greens.

Seng_Kiat, the color is dull and the WB is off. It is too pink (clouds should be white). Also, the second shot is boring and the Malaysian flag respectfully should not be cropped like that. 3rd shot also the framing tak jadi.

If it doesn't inspire you to take awesome pictures, find a camera that does. For all you know, it could be a Lomo, or a little Ixus. I know I feel very different with such cameras!

Braynumb, the Minolta 70-210mm F3.5-4.5 is supposedly just as good as the beercan, and it becomes shorter at 70mm. The beercan has a fixed length when zooming.

The Sony Alpha 700 goes for RM32xx or so. Lots of dials and buttons for quick access, Quick Navi is great for accessing options, and a very nice 3" 920k pixel 640x480 screen so you can check focus quickly without even zooming in on the shot.

shootkk, nice!

nabelon, I like the Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 HSM for its size, range and weight (under 800 grams) on an APS-C camera. It also comes with HSM for Sony Alphas.

And yes, you can use Vivid on the Alphas to get that vividness. You can also set your WB in Kelvin, add a bit of Magenta, and you might find it looks a bit more like Nikon color. (Though, I do not like the reddishness that Nikon adds to skintones.)

SoulPower, what mount is the SIGMA AF 70-210mm 1:4-5.6 MC Macro Lens? If it is Minolta MC (Meter-Coupled) then it will not fit on the Sony Alphas.

You should look for those that say "Minolta AF" or "Alpha mount".

AlphaBeta, if you're using an LCD you might find the gamma very different. Also, the camera screen may look different when viewed straight on, and when viewed from an angle. Try it!

vandechrome, but the A700 and D90 both have a 3" 920K 640x480 LCD screen!

I find my A700 and A900 screen matches my calibrated CRT monitor and photo printer in both saturation, WB and gamma*.

* gamma = midtone brightness, drag the middle slider in Levels in Photoshop to see the effect

Remember, desktop or laptop LCDs are usually colder. thisiskj just ran his laptop through a Spyder Colorvision and his screen is now a lot warmer than before (it used to be about 2500K, now about 4500K.)

Also, LCDs can never display true black, only a dim light that tries to be black. (Unless the LCD is off, hehe.) So that's why your midtones and shadows are boosted and you see a lot more noise on a LCD... but when you print it's so much darker and less noisy.

I find the A700 and A900 screens to have very good saturation and blackness unlike so many LCD screens I have used at work.

This post has been edited by albnok: May 20 2009, 02:24 AM

Aiyaaa the Sigma 30mm F1.4 is not meant to be specifically a portrait lens.

It is a normal lens which gives you a angle that can be used for wide (if you turn to landscape orientation) or tele (if you turn to portrait orientation).

It is a bonus that the Sigma also lets you use F1.4 for low light. The shallow depth of field can also be used for portraits.

As for big-head portraits, do you mean close and wide, or far and cropped in? The latter is called a headshot.



50mm F1.4 on A900 (same angle as the 30mm F1.4 on APS-C.)

I am sitting opposite her at a small table. The angle is very comfortable to use when sitting down... normal typical portrait lenses like the 85mm-135mm range, require you to get up from your seat and stand further behind. The wall was right behind me!

Yeah man millenia3000 is handsome! LOL I just realized how miang dingenius3's avatar looks.

I don't like the feeling of Canon battery grips, it's a brick with a screw on it only, doesn't feel anything like the camera grip.

soulfly, the exciting portrait lens that should be blistering wide open would be the Tamron 60mm F2.0 DiII Macro for APS-C cameras.

braindead_fr3ak, most people will upgrade from third-party flashes; the F42 can be triggered off camera (the pop-up flash must be raised to send the signal) for creative lighting effect.

Random crops from the A900 + Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8, all at ISO1600 F1.8 to freeze rain:


#1 - Splash!


#2 - (Yes, focus is not intended on the people, but the rain in front of them.)


#3


#4 (extreme crop)


#5 (not a crop)


#6

dingenius3, no flash was used.

Kul | Mo0, it would help to have a sharp, bright telephoto (Zeiss 135mm F1.8) and a high ISO to get a very fast shutter speed. Closest you have is the Sigma 50mm F2.8 I guess.

Regarding freezing raindrops, the difference between F1.8 and F3.5 is that your shutter speed will be 4 times as long on F3.5.

So while the raindrops will still appear to be frozen, it will have a 'streak' 4 times longer.

Braynumb, the Tamron 90mm F2.8 Macro can be used as a macro lens, and it also has a focal length which can be used as a classic portrait lens on both FF and APS-C.

chiggy, haven't heard of the Sigma 10-20mm getting gear stripping.

signither, I was at Studio Zaloon justnow and I saw two boxes of the Sony 70-200mm F2.8G SSM, already reserved! Also reserved was a Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8.

Seng_Kiat, the HDR on #1 is overdone. It should look more like #3. Also, there is still a tint! Kinda bluish on #1 and #2.

signither, I've always wanted to make a flash splitter! COOL!

Something I just got, the Octopus DM-6, from Studio Zaloon, lets me do this pointless exercise in removing TTL:



Or, the off-camera wired flash for the A900:



I am just waiting for the HVL-F20AM.

This post has been edited by albnok: May 21 2009, 03:01 AM

Congratulations signither!

And now, resuming the flash geeking (now seems to be the season eh?)



Now, for a way to make this into a proper bracket... (I've always been able to use this setup before the Octopus DM-6.)



The Octopus DM-6 in action, attached to my Sony HVL-F58AM.


Top left: Octopus DM-6 bottom, ISO hotshoe
Top right: Seagull SC-5 top, ISO hotshoe
Bottom left: Octopus DM-6 top, iISO hotshoe
Bottom right: Seagull SC-5 bottom, iISO hotshoe

Note that both the Octopus DM-6 and Seagull SC-5 have PC Sync ports; as such, you can use the Seagull SC-5 on an Alpha, to trigger other flashes via PC Sync, and you can use the Octopus DM-6 on an Alpha flash, to be triggered via PC Sync.



A rare find, only at Studio Zaloon, Pudu Plaza; who'd have seen this in person? The Sony FA-HS1AM hotshoe adapter. Same thing as the Seagull SC-5, but with a battery, and an internal voltage protection circuit, for old flashes that were over 6 volts and tended to fry unsuspecting camera hotshoes!

This gadget makes it safe.



Also found there, an iISO flash extender! AMAZING! The right side also comes with a tripod mount and ISO hotshoe foot so you can put it on your classic Type A umbrella clamps.


I found this trio of Stofen imitation caps at DigitalsMania, Pudu Plaza. The white one is slightly warming; the orange one does 3600K; the green one is 4500K M9 (a bit more green, and not terribly consistent.)

I'd say the orange one is more commonly used in ballrooms, though I prefer the look of 2500-3200K myself. 3600K I'd guess is a half CTO (Color Temperature Orange).

nles, depends on the orange-ness; my flash gels are anywhere between 2500K to 3200K depending on ambient light. I found the orange diffuser to be 3600K.

If you shoot in RAW, the Creative Settings will not affect the image. However if you tweak sharpness it affects the size of the grain so for the A700 and A900 at least, it is recommended to use Sharpness +3 to get tighter-packed grain, and Zone -2 Brightness -1 (for JPGs, to get brighter shadows).

mowkey, to connect the PC Sync cable to the flash the Octopus DM-6 was used. On the camera side, if you don't have a PC Sync socket, you'd need a Seagull SC-5.

However this was all bought just before I found the much more convenient iISO flash extender cable! This is of course invaluable for macro using a flashgun.

cplow1, congratulations!

Braynumb, I forgot to ask the price LOL. Yes it should work with the A200 but you can already trigger Alpha flashes wirelessly using the pop-up flash!

Kul | Mo0, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and Singapore seem to get the entry level models a bit earlier than the rest of the world.

Hong Kong, China and Europe seem to get the G/Zeiss lenses a bit earlier than the rest of the world. This is probably due to the advanced market there.

Braynumb, love your Sitting At The Sidelines!

lanusb, is your flash zoom set correctly? Leave it to Auto. Also make sure that flash EV is set to 0.

Take a picture and show us! And come to the TT.

Finally, at that distance in the picture from you to the subject, I would bounce it all the way up (90 degrees). You only turn forwards if the subject is much further away.

Kul | Mo0, I got my Kingston 32GB for about RM2xx.

Dude why don't your pictures load for me?

Can you use the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT kit lens to freeze rain? Perhaps. I don't have a kit lens, but the 50mm F1.4 will do for this experiment. I manually focused to 5 meters.

The following are about 39% crops off an A900 at 24 megapixels. That means I cropped an image 1540 pixels wide (making a 100% crop) and shrunk it to 600 pixels wide (thus becoming 39%).


At F3.5, Aperture Priority selects a shutter speed of 1/250s. Flash was not used.

Yes, this was at 50mm, where the kit lens would already say F5.6. However let's presume you were shooting at 18mm wiiide.

So what if we used a brighter aperture of say F1.7? (not available on the kit lens.)


At F1.7, Aperture Priority selects a shutter speed of 1/1000s. Flash was not used.

As you can see, there is a big difference in the length of the raindrops, due to the shutter speeds used.

So what if we used flash?


At F4.5, 1/200s (well within the flash sync of the A900) and using pre-flash TTL. You can see two elements to a raindrop - the slow shutter (1/200s) giving the long raindrop, and the flash giving the short, brightly lit part of a raindrop.

I should've used rear sync flash for this.

Now what if we used a darker aperture?


At F9.0 and using pre-flash TTL. The raindrop streaks from the flashes are longer! Why?

At F9.0, which is 2 stops from F4.5, the flash power needs to increase by 2 stops. However, when you change from say 1/1 to 1/4 power, the flash is not changing the amount of power that comes out... it changes the duration of the flash. Let me say it again:

A flash always fires at full power, it's just the duration of that full power blast that changes. Confusing? Yeah. That's why I still call it flash power even though I know it's not technically true.

So for a 1/1 blast, your flash is actually on for a longer time than if you use a 1/4 blast.

So, at a brighter aperture, your flash will use a smaller power say 1/32 and its duration will be shorter also. This will ultimately make it easier to freeze motion.

So can the kit lens freeze rain? Well, you'd have to hope for a lot more sunlight than this afternoon rain situation, if you want any ambient light at all (or else you'd get the long rain streaks in addition to the short flash streaks.)

This post has been edited by albnok: May 22 2009, 01:30 AM

Amazing stuff, ISO3200 on the A200 isn't so bad when correctly exposed!

Seng_Kiat, there are usually THREE situations. Turn off your flash and set the exposure in manual mode so the meter says 0. This is the same as Slow Sync Flash mode really.

A) subject and background are equally lit

You don't need to use flash for this, but you can, to add a bit of fill light to bring out the catchlights in the eyes. You can use TTL for this.

B) subject is darker, background is brighter (sunsets, subjects in shade)

Use a flash on camera in TTL.

C) subject is brighter, background is darker (spotlights, gigs)

Use wireless flash, point the flash at the background and set it to TTL. Use a fast enough shutter speed to make sure the subject is not overexposed.

hanafinoor, should be RM8500 or so. Not sure if it still comes with the VG-C90AM and 4 GB CF card or not. Do let us know, I haven't asked around recently!

Kul | Mo0, add these people to the attendee list of today's TT:

albnok
jl65
millenia3000

chiggy, there is no Sigma 10-24mm; it's a 10-20mm F4-5.6 non-HSM for A-mount, and 10-20mm F3.5 with HSM for A-mount.

All newly announced Sigma lenses have HSM for A-mount and K-mount, e.g. the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 EX II DG HSM, Sigma 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC HSM, Sigma 50mm F1.4 EX DG HSM. Everything before that should be without HSM.

The Tamron 10-24mm F3.5-4.5 should be a standard screw drive but Tamron does not have a history of gear stripping.