Calling all Sony Alpha users! (Part 5)

Has anyone here changed the focus screen on the A700 for a 45 degree split prism?I'm sure I have seen someone in here that posted about doing it but would take me forever to find it in all of these threads.:)
 
Hi, what would be the best way to go. Do a lot more portrait photos now with studio lights also a few events and was thinking of upgrading the a700. Would you go for the a900 or wait for the new a77?

Or i hate to say this move from the sony to nikon or cannon.

The thing is lenses i have a bit of cash locked in these.

Lens are:

Minolta 300mm f4
Tamron 70-200 f2.8
Tamron 200-500
Sigma 28-105 2.8-4
sigma macro 105 2.8
Kit lens 18-55 and 70-300

If i stick look at carl zeiss lens 24-70 2.8 and prime 50mm 1.4

As u no these will cost more money so want to get it right.

Sony has done me well and very happy with it just see most peolpe going down the canon / Nikon route

Thanks
 
^^ I hate posting a question after someone else has asked an unanswered question, sorry about that.

First post, so hey! As I can no longer lurk around the second hand market, I was just wondering if anybody could give me a quick run down on prices at the moment. My Minolta is currently on eBay at the moment (not through choice, it may be ancient but I loved it), so I'm looking towards summer time to buy a new DSLR. I would love an a33/a55 but I simply cannot afford one. I'm just wondering what you guys think I should look out for either first hand or on eBay for £350? I see the NEX 3 is dropping in price everyday, but I don't want to buy into a new mount, and the E to A mount adapter seems pointless to me as I still using the non motorized Minolta Dynax lenses (I believe I won't get autofocus?).

My main requirements for my new Sony camera would be ; To handle noise well (You should see the results of a 30 second exposure on my Minolta, even with NR on :LOL: ), liveview, tilt screen would be nice aswell. I'm not too bothered about fast FPS/fast buffering, HDR or HD video.

I must admit, I am starting to venture out to other companies but my Minolta film SLR and Minolta primes are locking me with Sony at the moment and considering how poorly my Minolta stuff is selling at the moment, I don't think I could afford to start fresh either.

Thanks for reading, take care :)
 
snapsnap said:
Hi, what would be the best way to go. Do a lot more portrait photos now with studio lights also a few events and was thinking of upgrading the a700. Would you go for the a900 or wait for the new a77?
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For portraits a FF camera will give you better DOF control. The A900 is an excellent camera and to do better you have to look at a D3X.

Sony has done me well and very happy with it just see most peolpe going down the canon / Nikon route
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Some have but many more have moved to Sony from Canon or Nikon.

Personally, the Canon ergonomics irritate me and Nikon doesn't have a high MP camera that costs less than my car.
 
Micehorns said:
My main requirements for my new Sony camera would be ; To handle noise well (You should see the results of a 30 second exposure on my Minolta, even with NR on :LOL: ), liveview, tilt screen would be nice aswell. I'm not too bothered about fast FPS/fast buffering, HDR or HD video.
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The cameras in your budget are the A290 & A390 but they have 14MP CCD sensors which are great at low ISO but suck in terms of high ISO noise. I think your best bet would be the A550 which is slightly higher than your budget at £399 (http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/prod1177.html) but would be worth the extra IMHO.
 
Beer_Stalker said:
The cameras in your budget are the A290 & A390 but they have 14MP CCD sensors which are great at low ISO but suck in terms of high ISO noise. I think your best bet would be the A550 which is slightly higher than your budget at £399 (http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/prod1177.html) but would be worth the extra IMHO.
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Thanks for the reply. I had a good read online about the a550 and it seems to perform well using high ISO (compared to the other Alphas that came out at the same time). Definitely ticks all the boxes, just seems odd that the body and kit lens costs less than body only. I'm guessing there would be no difference between the KM 18-55 that I have and the Sony one, other than SAM.

Thanks again for the reply :)
 
Micehorns said:
I'm guessing there would be no difference between the KM 18-55 that I have and the Sony one, other than SAM.
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I assume you mean the KM 18-70, otherwise get it on ebay now as it'll be a collectors item :LOL:

The 18-55 is much improved over the old 18-70.
 
TurnipFarmer said:
Could I ask for those who have a700 with version 4 firmware, is it best to turn off the noise reduction option within the settings and use my noiseware pro sofrware?
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In short, yes. The in camera noise reduction tends to smear things and make the image look almost like a water colour. One of the biggest complaints in the A700's early days was that it couldn't be switched off, only set to high or low. v4 solved that.
 
TurnipFarmer said:
Could I ask for those who have a700 with version 4 firmware, is it best to turn off the noise reduction option within the settings and use my noiseware pro sofrware?
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I would say yes, but that is based more on what I have read than experience - as my A700 was on V4 when I got it, and I turned NR off immediately...
 
Maybe getting my hands on an a900 for £750 but now i need to get rid off one of my other cams.

I got an a700 and and a550 which would you sell??

Also i guess it is worth getting the a900. This would be used for portraits in studio and maybe a few weddings.

Thanks in advance
 
snapsnap said:
Maybe getting my hands on an a900 for £750 but now i need to get rid off one of my other cams.

I got an a700 and and a550 which would you sell??

Also i guess it is worth getting the a900. This would be used for portraits in studio and maybe a few weddings.

Thanks in advance
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£750 Your gonna get done for theft :D:D
Keep them all for a while and see which one you use least and if it turns out to be the A900 I'll have it off you at the same price (y):D:D
 
cheers for the reply i guess that make sense. I have a read up and all seems good apart from high iso and noise. I am going to be doing a friends wedding in a few weeks, will this give me trouble?

I have got prime 1.4 and zoom 2.8 so hopefully be able to keep the iso low also i might be using bounced flash.

I guess i have to get camera in hand a have a play.
 
snapsnap said:
cheers for the reply i guess that make sense. I have a read up and all seems good apart from high iso and noise. I am going to be doing a friends wedding in a few weeks, will this give me trouble?

I have got prime 1.4 and zoom 2.8 so hopefully be able to keep the iso low also i might be using bounced flash.

I guess i have to get camera in hand a have a play.
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How jammy is that, mine was twice that and that was cheap, although new! Be prepared to wear dark glasses with the 1.4!
 
snapsnap said:
cheers for the reply i guess that make sense. I have a read up and all seems good apart from high iso and noise. I am going to be doing a friends wedding in a few weeks, will this give me trouble?
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The A900 doesn't suffer with high ISO noise problems, that was the A200/300/350 and the A700 with early firmware.

The recent versions of IDC do a very good job of converting high ISO RAW files to JPG, as does LR3.
 
Im still not 100% happy with the profiles for RAW on LR or PS tbh, its close but still not as good as what it looks like on IDC.

Anyone using tweaked profiles or ones downloaded? Im using the ones i think someone posted before, standard vivid, old faiful etc..


NR off btw on my A700.
 
Hi there... sorry haven't read theee whole thread... just re the last post:

? what is IDC (yep, dunno, I know, forgive me)

I open my RAW in the sony image data lightbox and have to put it into the convertor and then have to push the CS5 button to do the tweaking in the tiff file.

If i open RAW straight into CS5 it is appalling - had to show Cornwall Pete the other day as it's hard to describe just how BAD it looks if you open in raw and there is no comparison to the sony software and go into their camera raw window. Dunno why? Does anyone have a clue or am I on the wrong thread here? :thinking:

what a palava to do all that... especially with hundreds of shots

(actually 1000's but shhhhhhhh):bonk:
 
IDC = Image Data Converter (or something like that), the software Sony supply with the camera. You can download the most recent version from the Sony website ... somewhere.

I'm quite happy with the job LR3.3 does converting RAW from my camera and I find it easier to use than IDC (of course, that comes at a price - IDC is free, LR isn't).
 
onomatopoeia said:
IDC = Image Data Converter (or something like that), the software Sony supply with the camera. You can download the most recent version from the Sony website ... somewhere.

I'm quite happy with the job LR3.3 does converting RAW from my camera and I find it easier to use than IDC (of course, that comes at a price - IDC is free, LR isn't).
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ah right, yep, i'm using IDC then and then going into CS5 - just not sure why CS5 doesn't bring up the "same" raw image as IDC does - youda thought with CS5 you could go straight in and use their camera raw or go into bridge straight from the camera and into CS5 thru that - but, it's a no go - so just a little time consuming to get the end result.

thank you for your reply - cheers (y)
 
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Azure said:
If i open RAW straight into CS5 it is appalling - had to show Cornwall Pete the other day as it's hard to describe just how BAD it looks if you open in raw and there is no comparison to the sony software and go into their camera raw window. Dunno why? Does anyone have a clue or am I on the wrong thread here? :thinking:
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Adobe PS CS5 will initially show you the RAW as is. It'll look very flat and lifeless. It's up to you to do the post processing. IDC will take the RAW and attempt to recreate the in-camera JPG processing (creative style, etc.) before displaying the image.

The IDC approach is probably better for RAW novices and the Adobe way will appeal to those experienced at post processing.
 
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yay got my a900 this morning but first thing i noticed is the louder shutter. Is that right on the a900 i did a seach and it seems to be.

I few things i need to read up on as some new settings but looking forward to it.

Now i have a camera to sell which should it be a550 with grip or a700.

Thanks
 
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snapsnap said:
yay got my a900 this morning but first thing i noticed is the louder shutter. Is that right on the a900 i did a seach and it seems to be.
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Bear in mind the shutter is a lot bigger. Mine sounds like a car door, when I first fired a test shot I wasn't sure something making that much of a clunk would be able to do 5fps, but it does :)
 
PDub said:
What's people's thoughts on the DRO feature on the A700? Do you use it or not?
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Since I shoot RAW, No; DRO is turned off as it does not affect RAW, only Jpeg.
(In fact, the camera will still process the image using DRO to generate the preview image, so having it switched on actually slows down the camera as well!).
 
Faldrax said:
Since I shoot RAW, No; DRO is turned off as it does not affect RAW, only Jpeg.
(In fact, the camera will still process the image using DRO to generate the preview image, so having it switched on actually slows down the camera as well!).
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This is very interesting. I turned it off this weekend and shot without it, imported the pics into LR and hardly got any change in previewed image to loaded image.

So i guess what people have said that the inital render of the image is the jpeg preview, so with adjustments and DRO added which now makes sense how its very different.

I think ive set up LR finally now to how i want it.
 
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