My Olympus camera gear is off to Photo & Video in Christchurch to be appraised for a trade-in, and I'm now almost 100% sure that my next system will be Sony. Wow!
 |
| Spiney rock formation, Motukiekie Beach. Sony a99 with Minolta 17-35mm. f/16 @ 1/6th, ISO 50. + Polariser |
To mentally prepare myself for the transition, I decided to go out this weekend (as I write this) with the Sony a99 full-frame SLT camera and Minolta 17-35mm f/3.5 lens to take some landscape photos. We have had some gorgeous sunsets here on the West Coast recently, and I was hoping the same would be true of this evening.
Alas, it wasn't to be, with no clouds in the sky and no real colour to speak of. Just flat open skies all along the horizon. Oh well, never mind. At least sunset coincided with low tide (both happened at 8.30pm), so I was able to get right out among the rocks and take some interesting rockscapes.
 |
| Motukiekie Rockscape. Sony a99 with Minolta 17-35mm. f/11 @ 1/6th, ISO 50 + Polariser |
I've said it before, and I'll say it again... the a99 is a joy to use for landscape photography. Yes, it's bigger and heavier than my Olympus E-M1 was (even with grip attached), and the Minolta 17-35mm lens is no lightweight either. But it's also one of the lighter DSLR-style full-frame cameras you can get, and it really wasn't an issue carrying it - along with a couple other lenses, in my Crumpler messenger-style camera bag. I would, however, like to get a camera backpack to use instead of the Messenger bag, especially if I'm going on a longer walk with my camera gear.
But for this trip, the messenger bag worked fine (Crumpler's 6 Million Dollar Home), and I even took my lighter Manfrotto travel tripod instead of my heavier Slik that I usually take when using the full-frame camera. The Manfrotto actually worked fine, and I always felt the camera had a stable platform. It might have been different on a windy day, but fortunately this evening there wasn't a breath of wind to worry about.
 |
| Motukiekie Rockscape 2 Sony a99 with Minolta 17-35mm |
I try not to hang-around in the one spot for too long so that they don't all get the chance to converge. This can mean that I don't take my time composing an image as long as I should, because I just want to keep moving and get away from the little buggers! But fortunately the Sony a99 is very quick to set-up, and the vari-angle LCD screen makes it a breeze to see your image no matter how you have the camera positioned. It really is the best rotating LCD screen I've ever used. Unfortunately I don't think that the a57's back panel LCD screen is as flexible!? Shame.
Because the a99 has most of its important functions mapped to a button or dial on the body of the camera, changing settings is also very quick. The 'Function' button also acts as a 'quick' menu, allowing you to change settings on the fly. I usually shoot most of my images in Apeture priority, so I have the aperture value set to change with the front dial on the camera, while exposure compensation is mapped to the rear dial. I let the camera take care of the shutter speed, and the ISO was set to the smallest native ISO the a99 shoots - an impressive 50 ISO. It's amazing to be able to shoot at these lower ISO's on a digital camera, since I'm used to a native ISO 200 on my Olympus E-M1. ISO 50 on the Sony a99 is very clean, and impressively 'smooth'.
 |
| Motukiekie low tide. Sony a99 with 17-35mm. f/11 @ 1/2sec, ISO 50 + Polariser (35mm fov) |
The 24MP files that come off of this Sony full-frame sensor are just drop-dead gorgeous! Not to mention the dynamic range that the sensor can capture. DXO puts it on par with the likes of the Nikon D3x and the (much) newer Canon EOS R6. That's pretty impressive for a 10 year old camera!
In the image above, I have actually processed it to look more like a silhouette - darkening the highlights and shadows. I wanted a more dramatic look to the image, although in reality, the sensor has captured much more detail in the shadows. And at ISO 50 it's very clean, noise-free detail.
 |
| Motukiekie low tide silhouette. Sony a99 with 17-35mm. f/11 @ 5 secs, ISO 50 + polariser |
Again , more detail was captured in the shadows than is showing up here. In fact, I can see more detail in the image when it is opened in Photoshop. The internet compression isn't doing this image any favours. It does have the 'mood' I was going for though, and the colours are very faithfully reproduced. This is pretty much exactly what I saw with my own eyes when I was there.
Unfortunately, as mentioned above, the sunset never really kicked-off, and with no clouds to catch the colour that was there, the photo doesn't have the kind of impact I was after. Just imagine the same scene with big orange clouds reflected in that mirror-like reflection of the water. Would have been epic! Oh well, there's always next time I guess.
 |
| Motukiekie beach sunset. Sony a99 with 17-35mm. f/11 @ 8 secs, ISO 50 + polariser |
This was my last shot of the night, taken quickly as I trudged my way back to the car to head home. I was tired, had the images I thought I was going to get for the evening, and simply looked behind me as I was walking along the beach. I begrudgingly got all my gear back out in the semi-dark because I thought it was 'kinda nice', and took one shot. Turns out it's probably my favourite shot of the night. Lol
I am still struggling with motivation to go out and take landscape photos of my local area, even though I enjoyed myself once I was there (apart from those damn mosquitoes). I am still hoping that an injection of 'new' gear will help in this regard, and I am looking forward to getting the a57 and reviewing the camera and lenses that I have. If nothing else, reviewing gear actually gets me out photographing and making images. And if they turn out anything like the photos I took at Motukiekie Beach with the a99, then that's got to be a good thing...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your reply. I really appreciate you taking the time to comment on this post. I will get back to you as soon as I can.
Thanks again
Wayne