BlueBerry~: For fisheyes, Sony can use:

- Minolta/Sony 16mm F2.8 diagonal fisheye
- Sigma 15mm F2.8 diagonal fisheye
- Sigma 10mm F2.8 DC diagonal fisheye
- Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye in M42 mount *
- Zenitar 16mm F2.8 diagonal fisheye in M42 mount *

* M42 mount, meaning you need to get the M42 to Sony A-mount adapter

16mm on APS-C isn't very wide at all. A comparison is here:
http://www.glaringnotebook.com/Default.asp?id=877

That's why I got the Peleng, RM1400 with shipping.

The Sony A100 used to come with a MS to CF adapter, while the A700 and A900 have both a MS and CF card slot.

This post has been edited by albnok: Mar 15 2009, 01:56 AM

Seng_Kiat, you may want to try RawTherapee - that's faster than the older Sony Image Data Converters and has a batch process flow.

For example, you shoot a wedding where indoors is orange tungsten light, and outdoors is daylight. So you can edit ONE indoor picture, set the WB to maybe 2800 Kelvin (as you like lah) and then you Save Profile as Indoor Tungsten.

Then you select all the indoor pictures, and click Assign Profile and choose Indoor Tungsten.

Then you edit ONE outdoor picture, add some Shadow Fill (same like DRO+ but more kao) and set WB to Daylight WB, then you Save Profile as Outdoor DRO.

Then you select all the outdoor pictures, and click Assign Profile and choose Outdoor DRO.

Finally, you Select All, and send them to batch processing. Then you start the batch processing 'factory' and go to sleep (this may take a few hours!)

ryzan76: RAWTherapee is freeware.

http://www.rawtherapee.com/

AlphaBeta: Yes, different RAW programs produce wildly varying quality. It is well known that Adobe doesn't do the best job of Alpha files, giving us a noisier output or wrong colors (unless you know how to work it.)

RAWTherapee so far works well for Alphas.

You can see a shootout of various RAW programs trying to simulate DRO+:

http://www.mhohner.de/sony-minolta/dro_vs_acr.php

achew, I can't find the link, but it was on http://www.luminous-landscape.com/ and discussed on http://www.dyxum.com/. Fortunately you shot RAW so you have another chance at processing it! Though your pictures look fine as they are already don't worry.

Seng_Kiat, most of my pictures are already at that brightness and contrast! That's not what I use RAW for. Then again, I really don't shoot RAW unless I need to.

I use Vivid 0 +1 +3 currently.

You may want to use RAW if you encounter situations where the contrast is very high and you want to pull shadows (which is different from overexposing the image). Of course, the A700/A900 has DRO Level 5 to handle that...

Peleng 8mm F3.5 circular fisheye on the Sony A900:

dingenius, I shot at F5.6; that will give me a deep enough depth of field on the fisheye. Manually focused to 1 meter which I find gives the best overall focus.

Seng_Kiat, nice jumping RC #5!

SpookY: The black circle is always there, it being a circular fisheye, meaning it's 180 degrees from one end of the circle to the other, passing the center.

A 16mm F2.8 diagonal fisheye (for full-frame) fills the frame where it's 180 degrees from one corner to the opposite corner.

Seng_Kiat, DO NOT BLOW at the sensor with your mouth!!!

Wet dust is a lot harder to shake/blow off than dry dust. Before this it was only dry dust. Wet dust needs to be wiped off with a specialized cleaner.

At the very least you could DIY a plastic bag that blows into a straw.

chiggy, if you are fine with the focus of the 75-300mm New, the Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 should be faster to 'discover' focus (but not necessarily drive there fast) as it has a bigger eye namely the F2.8 aperture. The Sigma is terribly soft at close range at 200mm F2.8 but it is better at further ranges... how much better I don't know but the Sigma is great at 70mm F2.8 even at close focus.

Do you hear AF sounds on other people's lenses, silent or not, when shooting an event? I don't.

The AF/MF clutch of the Tamron is clunky though.

millenia3000, some IR filters are made as solid glass, some as gelatin sheets (gels). They are not the same as flash gels though, which help to change the color and temperature of light.

achew:

'classic' portrait lengths:
1) 58mm on APS-C (also equal to) 85mm on FF
2) 85mm on APS-C (close to #3)
3) 90mm on APS-C (also equal to) 135mm on FF

Yes you can use your Tamron 90mm F2.8 Macro as a 'classic' portrait length lens.

Then again a lot of great portraits use wider lenses and include the background and setting. For example, a portrait of a bookstore owner... how does your portrait tell people what he/she does?

Or this guy; if you took just a headshot of him, what does he do? He could work at a construction site if you didn't see the whole picture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/davidhobby/3298614908/

Portraits don't have to have a creamy background.

dingenius3: I have a Hoya R72 (52mm) IR and a China-made 77mm IR filter. The China-made one is better as it doesn't let any red in at all. The R72 is suited for cameras more sensitive to IR than near-IR red like my Canon Powershot A520.

dingenius, I have a whole bunch of step up rings so we can get to 77mm no problem!

chiggy, yes Sigma HSM (should) mean no more gear stripping issues! Since Sigma built the HSM motor themselves they would know how to calibrate it so it's not too powerful for the geartrain of that particular lens.

The Sony screw drive motor is not used when a SSM or HSM lens is used. The rear of the mount looks like a screw - it 'catches' the screw driver of the Alpha body.

I did experience that the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 HSM would not slow down when my Tamron 2x teleconverter was used, so it would overshoot quickly and run back and run forth repeatedly.

chiggy: The Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 HSM is said to be faster than the built-in micro motor of the Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 (on Nikon and Canon mounts only.)

However, the Sony and Pentax versions of the Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 focus by using the body screw drive. Nobody has done a side-by-side comparison yet with the Tamron on an A700 or A900 (which has a much faster and powerful screw drive). We do not know if the Tamron has a fast gear ratio. Therefore it cannot be said whether a Tamron 70-200mm F2.8 will be slower than a Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 on an Alpha.

Also, the Tamron may be more receptive to teleconverters, unlike the Sigma which just zips back and forth and never catches focus.

Do let us know if you know where we can try the Tamron - I can hook one of the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 A-mount owners to do a comparison. I'd like to know, too!

Wonka yes the Sony 50mm F1.4 is sharp where it is in focus but at F1.4 the point of focus is very small.

achew set your shutter speed to at least 1/200s and you should be able to disable the pop-up flash from appearing in the picture while killing ambient light. Put your flash relatively far from the subject. The sensor should face a wall that the pop-up flash will bounce on.

Nope, the camera points at the subject. The pop-up flash is wide enough to spread around represented by blue lines. Eventually it hits something which then goes to the flash.

The red part corresponds to the sensor of your F58. It faces the wall.

The green line what the pop-up flash contributes to the picture - if you use HSS, it automatically doesn't appear in pictures.

You may want to set the flash zoom head to 105mm to make a harsher, concentrated light.

This post has been edited by albnok: Mar 18 2009, 01:43 AM

nickilala, good work in doing tripod nightscapes! Rajin. Though your angles are a bit too skewed... try to get the buildings at a more conventional angle.

achew: A 105mm zoomed head is the same power as a 24mm zoomed head if you're using TTL. However if you use Manual Power then the 105mm will be much brighter.

Love your nightscape example!

The Wonder, great shot on #2 (argh, background kacau a bit).

achew, how did you get the rain?

Looks pretty good to me. You CAN incorporate the pop-up flash in the picture by using a shutter speed slower than your sync speed (1/125s) and control the pop-up power by adjusting aperture or ISO.

invisibl3boyz, your seafood shot has good potential.

cjlai, whoa them 28-135mm lenses! Too bad I need all the MFD I get so it's not for me.

chiggy there are TWO stages to phase-detect AF:

Stage A: Discovering focus

- faster with shorter focal lengths
- faster with bright lenses
- faster with AF Assist light
- faster if lens is F2.8 or faster on an A700/A900 with F2.8 sensor
- faster with contrasty, sharp lenses (or rather, a fungused lens (or lens through teleconverter) will be unable to discover focus)
- faster with bright contrasty light

The moment it has 'discovered focus' it immediately knows exactly where to focus. It does not keep adjusting the lens until the image is in focus - that's contrast-detect AF.

Stage B: Setting the lens to the focus distance

- faster with shorter focus range (1.5 meters to infinity, or focus limiters)
- faster with lightweight focus groups (moves less heavy glass, more torque from the motor)
- faster with short gear ratios (Minolta HS suffix, but some other lenses have this zippyness, e.g. Vivitar Series 1 28-105mm F2.8-3.8, Minolta 35-105mm F3.5-4.5 RS, Minolta 28-135mm F4-4.5)
- faster with HSM/SSM
- faster with a lens with less zoom range (a prime versus a zoom where the gear ratio needs to accomodate tele and wide)

Some lenses have micro-adjustments after getting roughly in focus - the Sony 18-70mm F3.5-5.6 DT is such an example, you can see it jerk a bit to fine-tune focus.

HOWEVER! SSM is not always faster than a fast-geared lens as is accounts of the Minolta 80-200mm F2.8G HS APO versus the Minolta/Sony 70-200mm F2.8G SSM. The Minolta 200mm F2.8G HS APO is definitely faster than the SSM. There are also accounts of the Minolta 400mm F4.5G HS APO being faster to focus than the Sony 70-400mm F4-5.6G SSM (but the 400mm has in its favor a weaker MFD of 3 meters versus the 70-400mm's 1.5 meters, F4.5 versus F5.6, simpler gearing, among other things.)

Yes, the beercan is faster on the A700 compared to the A200. Same goes for the Carl Zeiss 135mm F1.8 (also helped by the F2.8 sensor.)

Low light affects Stage A only. Once it has discovered focus, getting there is not a problem however the light conditions. Therefore, the Sigma should be just as unable to discover focus as the Tamron in the same light... unless the Tamron is less contrasty or has a weaker transmission factor (its aperture is F2.8, but does it really let in as much light as a F2.8 should?)

chiggy, no - the exposure meter is above in the pentaprism area while the AF unit is below at the base of the camera.

neo_lam, if you turn off Long Exposure NR you might get some hot pixels in the picture which look like white dots. The second blank exposure is just to create a mask, to subtract from the original white-dotted picture.

chiggy, the Sharpness setting affects the NR grain size, so yes +3 is good.

I think the cable that connects to the remote only applies to the Sony A100 3rd-party grips; the VG-B30AM clone should communicate via the battery pins itself.

readone_sapi, don't forget to raise the pop-up flash and enable Wireless Flash.

signither, you'll want to shield the bonnet from getting flashed, by using your hand to block. Also use a flash gel to blend the color.

Ksano, great concept! I like how the ghost is blue.