^ RM3.2k...with free 4gb memory which i think they accidentally included in the package.

Body alone 3.2k? or with kit?

i tink must be with kit lense... maybee CZ lense? heehehehe joke oni...

so what lense they include?

urmm. actually it's just body only.

This post has been edited by SHOfrE3zE: Apr 7 2009, 01:15 AM

ya lehh?? so what lense did u use?

yup2. i think that's the standard price. btw, i'm still using my 55200 coz i wanna fund for a better lens to tackle the wide to standard areas.

kinda good price body + 4GB CF..last time marushin bought rm3120 for body only..

my dream a700.. huhuhu now only got money to upgrade from a100 to a200... so if anybody want the sony F36 flash.. just pm me.. hehee

yup. i was looking for around that price but ALL the shops at Sg. Wang is out of stock for it. there's 1 shop who wanted to sell it for rm3250 (after nego) but luckily i went for a last scouting at Lowyat and got a better price.

hi all ..

morning!!! .. damn sleepy today .. I just had a sleep of 3 hours .. damn it .. ..

Good Morning guys ... felt sleepy already , just finished my night shift


Whoa nice .. lucky u
So many fella upgrading now .. poison poison

so when is your turn?

u running shift also??hahah..this week i also night shift... =p

Hi guys,

anybody wanna race? .. hehe .. ...

#1


#2


#3


#4


#5


More than 100 pictures available in my flickr.

nice shots there... =D

but this time round i think the cars look more attractive that the chicks...lol

This post has been edited by achew: Apr 7 2009, 10:29 AM

I've always wondered why the Minolta/Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 Smooth Transition Focus (STF) lens was manual focus only. So, I decided to test this theory by mounting it on my Minolta X300!

First I had to keep the aperture blades open, so I stuck some tape to hold the lever in place. As you can see, inside the lens, the edges are gradually darker due to the apodization filter inside.


Then, I positioned the lens and body together, with an eraser and CF card holder to keep the lens from rolling.


I looked through it, and it confirmed my theory - the upper half and lower half of the split prism would never match due to the gradual darkening coming from opposite ends!

This is due to the apodization filter which darkens the periphery of the lens (giving the beautiful bokeh that the STF possesses.) Obviously, the top half is looking through the right side of the lens while the bottom half is looking through the left side of the lens.

Phase-detect auto-focus works in a very similiar way to a split-prism on a manual-focus viewfinder - it looks at the subject from two opposite ends of the lens and drives the lens to focus so that the two images are aligned.

If you've tried a darker lens on a split-prism viewfinder, you might find that one of the two halves will be darker than the other - this just means that your eye is not centered in the viewfinder, so you need to move slightly to your left or right until the brightness matches. However, you would never see a gradient darkening with a non-STF lens!


This is what an out-of-focus picture looks like through a split-prism viewfinder. You need to focus the lens by turning it until the top and bottom halves of the split-prism align.

This will be easiest to focus on vertical lines and almost impossible with horizontal lines!


I then tried to see if the gradient darkening happened with a normal lens by moving the camera left and right of the viewfinder - it didn't. Instead, one half got uniformly darker than the other.

Of course, on an phase-detect auto-focus system, the 'eye' never actually moves left and right, and it's always aligned on the center.

So how does a regular phase-detect auto-focus system work?

Each AF sensor has two lines of sensors - one line of CCDs that sees the upper half, one line of CCDs that sees the lower half. It can see how 'far' each line is from each other, and know immediately where to focus the lens.

So, the lens is driven to the focus point, and then the camera looks at the two halves again and makes micro adjustments.

Cross-type sensors

Cross-type sensors are just a pair of line sensors at 90 degrees from each other, so it is sensitive to both horizontal and vertical detail.

So why doesn't the STF work with auto-focus?

As you saw earlier, the top and bottom halves have a gradual darkening coming from opposite ends. So, even if the object was in focus, the CCDs will never say it's a match!

A way that might've worked is that the camera knows that the STF is being used, and compensates for the gradual darkening when comparing what the two CCDs see.

My guess is that the gradual darkening differs with focus range and aperture setting, so it might've been too complicated for Minolta to program into the bodies when they first released the STF.

So what's the big deal about the STF anyway?


Sony 135mm F2.8/T4.5 STF at T4.5. Note how the out-of-focus highlights are circles with gradually darker edges.


Minolta 50mm F1.4 at F1.4 (cropped to give the same angle of view.) Note how the out-of-focus highlights have ugly, distracting borders (especially at the bottom of the picture.) These borders are called bright-line bokeh.


Here is another example also from the 50mm F1.4. The lights on top really should be out of focus and thus not distracting, but they pop out of the background!

Of course, the 50mm F1.4 and Minolta 50mm F1.7 are very poor examples - a lot of old Minolta zooms and primes have much better rendition of out-of-focus highlights.

wow!!!! indeed the bokeh is so awweeesssooommmeee~~~!!!! omg..i just love it!

Hey alpha users. I tried googling and search here. I can't seem to get to an answer.

So, hope you guys can help me out.

I am looking for a diffuser that can work with Sony Alpha 300 pop up flash.

Is there anything in the market for it? It's hard since sony hot shoe is different.

hi guys,

what is the current street price for beercan ?