Sony, Stop Teasing Me

On Thursday I started my morning as usual by pouring a big glass full of caffienated soda and checking out The Online Photographer.
Scrolling down to a previous post about Sony's newest camera with the latest and greatest possible features: a flat compact body with 24 or 36 megapickles for full-frame lenses? WTF?
I started to recall the good old days when my very first digital camera WAS the state-of-the-art, and made by Sony.
Only 5 pickles but a sweet Zeiss lens, and I learned how to make crap and an occasional decent photo with it.
(Back-story is that nobody respected Sony at ALL back then, and for some reason they still don't...)

So, I'm reminded that I ought to check the battery level on cam #1 and see if it's still okay as spare power for another one in my stable despite the fact that the camera itself stopped working over 5 years ago.

Flicked the 'On' lever and got a good power-up, then spent two minutes setting the date/time. Got a reading in the high-90% range for the battery. Can someone tell me why I took the lens cap off at this point?

When a camera decides to suddenly work again after 5+ years, you hit the shutter button as fast as you can!

As I made my way through layers of home security to our backyard, I noted how quickly my fingers remembered all the buttons and settings to get a decent macro photo, since that is where the F717 truly excelled for me.
On auto-pilot I shoved that delightful lens up against one of my hanging plants and hit the shutter once more, and got a lucky 2nd picture before the camera gave up and stopped playing nice again:

That's the look and quality I remember!
My eyes rolled back 72 degrees for a few seconds, then I started gathering tools and organizational stuff to try and fix my old jacked camera.

Got about 30% of the way in and cleaned/reinserted the ribbon cables.
Also poked at stuff with my finger.
Didn't fix it, but also didn't make it any worse--all functions still work and no parts left over after reassembly.
A good practice run for going deeper in a few days.

The Stolen Chair Project

This is inspired by those silly Brits who had a fad a few years back where they would borrow someone's garden gnome, take it on vacation, then return it with a packet of prints showing his amazing adventures.
(The reason Travelocity uses a garden gnome as it's spokesman, by the way.)

There's one club we play in SA that is cramped for space, so I have no room for light tripods--I have to hang them all from the rafters. Thankfully, the seating in this club is these really sturdy and tall wooden chairs that make excellent improvised ladders.
I have yet to fall from one and break a rib, unlike real ladders (twice) and swiveling stools (once).

Last Saturday, one of the chairs in question ended up in the back of our truck somehow, and has been getting all kinds of late night action.
The plan is to leave it on their doorstep right before opening, with prints of all these pics. Not really sure how we can witness the reaction/payoff without getting busted, though.

On With The Show!
(in chronological order)






















What I did was shoot 2-4 pics every night this week.
And since it's also an exercise designed to get me back into taking pictures regularly I decided to handicap myself by working very quickly and also keep PhotoChopping to the bare minimum.
And to only use the 50mm lens, which isn't a problem since my other two have been gathering dust since I bought it.

It was very hard to come up with so many locations indoors, and I fell back on my usual props thus far, but I still have plenty of future photo-ops when I start taking the chair around town next week.
Any suggestions gratefully considered!

Work, Spend, Smile

My recent work schedule has been punishing my body, but good food and beer have fortified me and the money is a nice change.
Today I was making my shopping list to get prepared for a brutal weekend ahead, and suddenly remembered the lens I've been wanting ever since it came out almost a year ago.
Then I remembered a recent Sunday newspaper advert that showed a discount for the first time--didn't matter who's ad it was, since Sony only allows price reductions across the board.
This means that if it's on sale at BestBuy, that exact same price will be found at B&H in NYC, and even the Sony Style stores.
Sure enough, a quick peek at B&H's website showed a $25 savings but I didn't want to wait a week when I can just drive 8 miles to La Cantera and throw cash around.
So that's what I did, and it felt good.
The salesman was a little unsettled that someone can walk into his store knowing what he wants and not need any chit-chat before dropping pictures of dead presidents on the counter.
Sylvia was fascinated by their counterfeit bill checking device, which slowed me down but added a little fun for everyone.

This is my brand spanking new Sony 50mm F1.8 lens.

I like how fat and chunky it looks on my Alpha300 body.
Not as puny as I feared.
The F1.8 part of the designation means that it lets in more light than any other lens I've ever used.
When shooting my bands, this translates to over two stops of extra light, meaning that I can use shutter speeds that are 4 times as fast--and this is huge!.
With my other lenses, far too many photos were rejected because of motion-blur.

The 50mm tag means that on my camera it's magnification (focal length) is equal to a 75mm lens on a 35mm film (or full-frame digital) body.
This focal length and field-of-view is just about perfect for shooting bands in clubs, and is close enough to portrait perfection to suit me just fine.
(Good thing, because this is a "prime" lens which means there is no zooming).

It took a few months for enough people to buy these and start putting their opinions on the interwebs, and what I've seen has been very positive.
Glowing in fact.

The camera review websites that do hardcore testing suggest that the image quality is noticeably higher than similar lenses from Canon and Nikon, so that's nice.
Not too surprised, since theirs aren't nearly as new, design-wise.

The recessed front element makes it very resistant to flare from bright light sources, and my own limited testing confirms this. In fact, no lens hood is supplied and there isn't even a mount for one.
I can't wait to try this baby at night!
The zoom lenses I have are very disappointing in this regard and have definitely had an impact on my desire to take new photos under difficult conditions.

Here's a photo I just took using the new lens:

Another nice feature is that the minimum focus distance is around a foot, versus 2-4 feet for my other two lenses.
At comparable magnification it seems to even beat my F828 in this important spec, which makes my life much easier when doing product photography.

I'll be trying the new lens at ReTox Friday night
No doubts at all that it'll do a great job.



BTW--The SPURS Mr. Potato Head was priced around $20 at the ATT Center, but Sylvia got 2 for much less than that from WOOT!.
They arrived on our porch today, and I sure was surprised!
Hers is going to work, but I'll be leaving mine sealed in the package just like all of my HotWheels//Johnny Lightning//Muscle Machines die-cast cars.
Now that some of my collection is over ten years old, it doesn't seem so silly to have bought several hundred toy cars anymore.