kysham : Well at least the new models have ONE redeeming quality - dual, switchable memory slots. For me the grip is a real turn off! The shutter release and dial is all in the wrong place IMHO. But that's just me getting very used to my A100!!!!!

This post has been edited by shootkk: May 18 2009, 05:40 PM

Not really as the new 50mm f1.8 is a DT lens while the KM 50mm F1.7 is a Full Frame lens!

Since I got no time to go out of the house lately I decided to do some indoors shooting. Testing some product shots.

C&C welcome.

1.


2.


3.


4. My old beat up mobile phone...


5. This lens is NOT for sale!


6.



And this is my DIY light-tent where the shots were made:



Note my F58 mounted on a light stand from above the box and my F42 to the left on table. The power of wireless flash!!!

All pics straight from cam. No PP done whatsoever.1010

Why would the Minolta 50mm F1.7 be impossible to sell? It's still a good bargain and it's a Full Frame compatible lens. Those of you that had never seen a 50mm on a FF should look at a 30mm on the APS-C.

It gives a very nice angle of view. The new Sony 50mm F1.8 is a DT lens so it's not FF compatible. I'll rather stick with my Minolta.

On a side note: Any one of you seen the latest Canon 500D ad featuring Simon Yam? He repeats his infamous 'kung-fu' hand stance and totally ignores the vertical grip when holding the camera in portrait orientation. Just go to the photo gallery and see for yourself! LOL!

I did not really look at the bigger versions but here's my 2 cents:

1. The bug is too small in the frame. Either you need to get closer or you need to get a macro lens to take macro pics properly.

2. The flower - well, normal shot. Nothing special. Try using the rules of third for composition and put your subject off-center sometimes.

3. The building - vague subject. What are you trying to show with the pic anyway?

Most likely done with flash bounced to ceiling. How to know? Here's a tip - if you wanna know from where the main light is coming, watch the shadows of the subject's nose. The direction of the shadow will tell you the direction of the flash.

From your pic. it's clear that the light is coming from above (nose shadow fall right under nose) and the shadow is soft thus indicating soft light - due to bounce from ceiling above lor...

To bounce - if subject is close to you point the flash straight up 90 degrees. If subject is further away - try 75 degrees. If subject is further still then try 45 degrees. Like playing snooker ler... the cue ball will bounce off the side according to the angle that it hits thus try to get the light to hit your subject that way lor...

Also when bouncing, try not to zoom the flash head too much. Your aim is to create as big an area of bounce light as possible so that the light hitting your subject is diffused and soft.

Wow! After all this time I thought that you would at least know the answer to your question.

Wokeh... here goes:

When you fire a flash, your camera meters your exposure of the subject based on the flash. Thus this will result in a properly exposed subject while disregarding the ambient exposure. Normally this ends up with the subject exposed properly but the background is dark - typical PnS flash usage scenario ler...

If you meter for the ambient and expose for that, the flash will then overexpose your subject.

So, when using flash you need to remember to balance for the ambient light. That's what sifu albnok always tells people. Don't just crank up your flash's power.

To solve the background dark issue, trying using a higher ISO and/or slower shutter speed to capture more of the ambient light. Your flash will expose the subject properly but let the slower shutter speed take in more light for the ambient and you will get a more balanced exposure overall.

When shooting under sunlight, adjust the flash power so that if will fill in the shadows but not overexpose the subject.

Like I always say - Get back to the basics and learn about lighting and aperture and shutter speed and what not and you will be able to figure all these things out by yourself. Fancy gears will do nuts to teach you things like these. No matter how many L or CZ or G lenses you have you will not be able to solve issues like this if you don't know your basics.

Not much different. Thing is you are actually doing a slow sync flash but you need to control your shutter speed yourself. I normally shoot in M mode and adjust accordingly. For example in a banquet hall, I would find the proper shutter speed and flash power setting and then shoot using that setting.

Most I need to do is adjust the flash power either a little up or down to fit some situations. Outdoors under the sunlight, I would usually adjust the flash power depending on the situation.

Trial and error. You need to know how slow your shutter can go before you get things like blurry pics due to either subject movement or hand shake. If you can no longer adjust the shutter speed lower then try upping your ISO setting so for the same period of exposure time, you can get a brighter pic. Of course when you crank up your ISO, you must remember to adjust your flash power down a little if you are using manual flash setting. Else leave the flash to TTL and you should be fine.

Meaning when you use your flash, you must have an idea of how your picture should look like before you even take the pic.

Questions like:

1. Do you care about the background exposure level? If you don't just fire away and you will get your shots.

2. How do you want to light your subject? Meaning what do you want the flash to achieve? Fill in the shadows? Light up the whole subject? Create an artsy moody feel? All these will require different settings from your cam and flash.

When you fire your flash at a subject, you are adding another light source to your picture. There is already the ambient light or the light already existing in the current situation. So when you add your flash, you must be aware of what the flash will do. Some scenarios are as follows:

a) The flash will overpower all the ambient lights thus resulting in either an overblown or properly lit subject with the background dark except for the parts where the flash hits.

b) The flash is weak and cannot overpower the ambient. Result in a picture that is not much different than one taken without flash.

c) The flash hits only certain parts of the subject leaving those parts brighter while other parts are darker.


As a photog you must be aware of your situation and how the ambient lights are affecting what you want to achieve in your shots. The flash is there to help you get what you want. Adjust your settings accordingly and make your shots.

For example:

1. Product shoot


I placed a flash on both the right and left side of the bottle to create the two white strips of light you see on the left and right side of the bottle. Here the subject is lighted purely with flash. To heck with ambient.

2. Model shoot


The above shot, I wanted the directional light to show the contours of the model's face. The shadows play as much a part in the shot as the lighted areas. You can see the background is a bit dark but I didn't care, I wanted the to show the face only and furthermore most of the frame is filled up by the model's face.



This second shot - same model, same day taken about an hour apart. It's still daytime and as you can see, I used the flash to fill in the shadows only. The background is relatively brighter than the first shot.



This shot is done with fill flash and set to balance the ambient light with a large aperture and slower shutter speed.

dolphindiver007 : Went through your photos and this is my advise is 'watch your horizon'. Make sure that your horizon is horizontal. Found some pics that the horizon is a bit 'senget'.

Another tip is to watch the light. Sometimes you do not need to go looking for a subject to shoot. As the sun rises and there's a play of light and shadows on the land - watch the light. See if the light and shadows itself will give you something to shoot. Maybe the light is such a way will create some peculiar shadows or shape or maybe make the landscape a bit interesting.

When shooting landscape, turn around sometimes and see what's behind you. Maybe you could catch something interesting.

Just my 2 cents!

I think that the photo was blur because you were using F11 and a shutter speed of 0.8 sec! This can contribute to either hand shake or subject movement causing OOF pics!

Why were you using F11? You could use F5.6 and the person will still be in sharp focus. When you are indoors, trying using the biggest aperture that you can to get a faster shutter speed. F5.6 can even get a whole group of people in focus provided that they do not exceed 2 persons deep when lining up.


dolphindiver007 : I have been using my A100 for too long! Wanted to upgrade but I want a FF. The A900 is still too pricey at the moment. Hoping that Sony will release a budget FF.

This post has been edited by shootkk: May 24 2009, 10:43 PM

ISO 800 is fine! Just try overexposing your pic a little and you can hardly see the noise. Don't pixel peep lar! 4R and even 8R printouts at ISO 800 will also not show noise so don't be afraid to use ISO 800. I use ISO 800 even on my A100!!

No it's not wise. You must at least replace them with the SAL18250!!!

Of course assuming that you have no budget issues lar... but on the other hand, last I heard the Tamron 18-250 is only retailing for a little less so it's a better bet to get the Sony.

Pros for SAL18250:

1. A bit faster focussing over the Tamron
2. Looks much more better than the Tamron when mounted on the Alpha.
3. It's a Sony!

Technologically the A200 is equipped with better advances such as better high ISO noise control and a pseudo-quick navi interface but in terms of having semi-pro features the A200 lacks in these areas:

1. Absence of the Depth Of Field preview button.
2. Absence of true Mirror Lock Up ability.
3. Absence of a Direct Manual Focus ability - if I am not mistaken ler...
4. A more powerful DRO function.

Of course most of those features are rarely used by the regular entry level DSLR users ler but there are there nonetheless.

Another thing that I feel the A200 is lacking is the size of the internal memory buffer. You will know if you have ever tried scrolling through shots in your CF card with the A200. The A100 scrolls much faster! You keep the button depressed and the images streaks past. On the A200 they merely scroll past.

The debate for the SAL18250 goes on....

Well, here's the truth in all those hype and I guess I am one who can really comment because I am shooting with lens for close to a year now.

The 18-250 is NOT perfect. It's a superzoom from 18mm to 250mm. Given that, it performs marvellously throughout its whole range.

Saying the 18250 has distortion on the 18mm end, the 1870 kitlens also has distortion on the 18mm end and it goes up to 70mm only.

The 18250 is sharper than the kitlens and it is definitely sharper than the 75-300. Check out my flickr for some of my early test shots done at the tele end.

And yes it suffers from CA at the tele end but you can control that can't you. Just try not to shoot into brightly lit backgrounds that much lor. It's not that bad if you're not pixel peeping.

The F6.3 tele end aperture is a bit slow when shooting indoors or low light but you can use flash to help you whenever you can. If no flash are permitted then what the heck are you doing shooting with anything other than a prime that has bigger aperture than F2 anyway?

Here's where the 18250 becomes really useful :

1. You do NOT need to change lenses. While travelling one most commonly uses the wide end to shoot as it's mostly landscapes but when the need arises, you can easily zoom to the tele and get your shot. If you have to change lenses chances are the moment would have been long gone after you managed to get your lens changed!

2. You can shoot portraits without changing lenses while travelling. Portraits are mostly shot using the 70 to 150mm range that gives you distortion free pics of your subject. Outdoors in sunlight, the 18250 performs excellently.

3. You can 'skodeng' without changing lenses. By 'skodeng' I mean you can capture candid moments discreetly.

4. The 18250 is compact. It's just a little bigger and a little heavier than the kitlens and covers the range from 18 to 250mm. Definitely beats the combo of 1870 plus the 75300 or 55200.

5. It produces very decent bokeh at the tele end.

If you want excellent corner sharpness and no CA and razor sharp images then you should not be looking at superzooms or even zooms for that matter. Might as well go for primes like the 135mm Zeiss, the 85mm Zeiss, the 35mm G or the 50mm primes.

If you want fast focussing lenses then you should be looking at the F2.8 zooms e.g the 16-35mm Zeiss, the 24-70mm Zeiss and the 70-200mm G

For the price and its performance I don't think that the 18250 is a bad deal at all. Just that it may not be the lens of choice for some people. I have no complaints using it so to each his own, I guess.

What do you mean? Care to give some details? Sample pic maybe?

This post has been edited by shootkk: May 26 2009, 10:32 AM

I dunno... ask the mod ler....

And to fulfil the alpha related content quota ...

The A330 has not been released yet so there is no certain way to compare what the differences are. All we know is that some buttons are missing and the interface is different.

If you're planning to get the A300 then just do so. I would think that the differences are not all that significant and we don't even know the prices yet.

millenia3000 : The A200 grip shares the same design with the A100 and A700 grip. The A300 and A350 has a slightly different grip - they do not have the notch about a third of the way down for your middle finger to rest on. It's a comfortable grip.

That's why I hate the new A230/A330/A380 grip design.

Wah! Suddenly forced to become judge ar... ??!! Anyway, all in the name of fun here goes:



Kul | Mo0 - Quite a nice macro shot - Did you shoot it in colour? Coz if you did then you deserve an extra mention for making it look like grayscale! One thing though that kinda didn't work for me was the DOF that was too thin. The Zeiss word was OOF thus making the whole shot lose it's main subject a little. [ 6 Marks]

AlphaBeta - Since you named it 'Call from hell' I thought the execution was in sync with the title. The blurred out phone image in the background and the light streaks gave it some creepy feel. The lighting was also appropriate for the title. It all jived for me. [ 8 Marks]

achew - Nice picture. Fancy PP stuff! But then it kinda seem like it does not have a central theme. Lighting was good. Background bokeh & colours was a nice touch but what's with the blue streak? It kinda obscures the phone and thus makes it distracting. Seemed a little overdone in the end but the idea was good. [7 Marks]

ryzan76 - Now this macro had ample DOF to clearly show the 'My own' words. In the end the pic looks too simple and is missing the whole point I would say. If I didn't know that you guys were shooting phones, I would have mistook the shot for a notebook keyboard. And the white line effectively split the whole scene into 2 halves and is quite distracting. Sorry ryzan, it didn't work for me. [6 Marks]

SinnerBuyer - The hand got cropped. That's what sprung into my mind at first glance. I would have liked it better if the streak was not there and you showed motion through the actual blurring of the phone itself, not the streak. As is, it just seemed unnatural for me. [6 Marks]


That said, I applaud all of you guys for the ideas! Great stuff all... keep shooting!

This post has been edited by shootkk: May 27 2009, 12:03 AM

First I thought you like expert only... then you say kidding only! Haiseh! Fooled me there for a second!


The correct way to photograph a blue sky is to wait for a blue sky! Serious! A CPL can enhance a blue sky but cannot create a blue sky if the sky is not blue.

Oh, BTW you may want to underexpose the shot a little to bring out more detail in the sky but I guess the multi-segment metering does a good enough job to get you blue skies.