Sony a57 has arrived!

The title says it all really 😄

Yesterday (as I write), my 'new' Sony a57 was delivered by the nice folks who brought it back from Christchurch for me (thanks Macey's dad). It arrived packaged up in a Tenba Solstice 7L sling bag (not a 10L, but never-mind, it fits heaps of gear) which included the body, Sony 18-250mm f/3.5-6.3, Sony 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6, Sony camera strap and Sony charger. The battery in the camera was flat 😞 so I popped it on the charger and gave it a few hours to fully charge.

For a start, overall condition is excellent. Both lenses look practically new - although the SAL18250 didn't come with a lens hood (drats!). The glass on both is clean, clear and pristine. Really don't think they have had much use at all.

As for the camera body itself... it does show a few signs of wear on the body, and the rear thumb leatherette section (which I actually think is some type of rubber) is peeling away slightly. So I have used some double-sided tape to keep it stuck in place. If that doesn't do the trick, then I will glue it down as a long-term solution. It's just a minor thing.

The main 'wear' was evident on the rear LCD screen itself. This could even be seen on the photos they had online. But I was guessing that it was a removable screen protector that had been scratched, and would come off and be replaced easily. Sony actually has their own screen protection film placed on their screens out of the factory, and often it's just a simple case of peeling this off carefully to reveal the clean screen underneath.

Long story short, there was actually another screen protector placed over top of this one by a previous owner, and it just popped off with a little help. So I've just left it as-is now for the time being. The Sony standard plastic film cover is pristine, so that's good enough for me.

So overall condition on the whole kit itself - I'd rate it a solid 8.5 out of 10. Which I'm very happy with. I've also checked the shutter count for the a57. Only 12,224 shutter actuation's, so it's hardly been used at all. I would assume that the a57, being a mid-range series camera, has a shutter life of around 100,000 clicks? So that means the camera has used about 12% of its life-span. Good news.

Settings-wise it's pretty straight forward. Most of the time I will shoot RAW, single-shot, single auto-focus, wide area AF (or spot), multi-metering, at the lowest ISO I can feasibly get away with (not Auto ISO). I usually choose sRGB colour space (since mostly I'm posting on the web), anti-shake set to 'on', eye-focus set to on, and all noise reduction turned off (as is the annoying camera beep). I have left the ISO button to control ISO, but have re-configured the AEL button to switch to manual magnification focus assist. And that's about it.

I haven't delved into the movie settings, since I don't plan on using it for video - at all. And pretty much all the other options don't really matter, since I'm shooting RAW only and not Jpeg (or RAW + Jpeg).

And there you have it. Pretty simple really. Which I think is great. 

I have taken it out with the 75-300mm attached to do some bird photography at my local lagoon, and will post about that next. Unless I cut-in with what I'm planning on for tonight's outing - landscapes with the 18-250mm. Should be fun.