Beauty is in the photograph, not the gear

"Beauty is in the photograph, not the gear. Lenses matter, but even today’s kit lenses are capable of creating beautiful photographs. ... And if the best thing people say about my work is, “Wow, it sure is sharp,” then I’ve failed and the lens is irrelevant."

Highly quotable statement from David DuChemin in his blog.

Sony A77: great but not the best when light is low

On camerageek website DPReview they always do very serious tests, and the Web community reacts very seriously. Verdict on studio pictures made with the Sony A77: the experts do not all agree (otherwise they would not be experts), but there seems to be a majority opinion that the Sony A77 has great performance for a camera of its size and price. In fact, it can hold out with the best cameras at any price, give or take a pixel here or there. Except when it gets dark: then the loss of light through the new semi-translucent mirror results in more noise, less sharpness.

Sadly, the (excellent!) comparison tool on the DPReview site does not include samples made with my current camera, because that is of course the real question: I am not considering buying a whole new system from any camera brand, I am just considering if it is worthwhile to upgrade from my current Sony A700. And then even without direct comparisons there is little doubt: this is going to be a huge improvement! When can I get it....?

More on Sony A77 (in Dutch): Eerste indrukken Sony Alpha 77, Alpha 65 en Nex 7 - Photofacts

Eerste indrukken Sony Alpha 77, Alpha 65 en Nex 7 - Photofacts

Preview of Sony A77

Why did they announce this while I was on vacation? The review in the link below is on a pre-production camera, but a few days later it was announced officially: the Sony A77 SLT.

This Sony A77 promises to be veeerrry attractive to the likes of me who still think of Sony as 'the new Minolta', yet want state-of-the-art technology. The idea of replacing the good old mechanical mirror flipflopping up and down with a fixed, semitransparent construction has great potential, I think. And I'm glad that after the A55 mid-range camera with which this "SLT" technology was introduced, they are now moving up. There was already an A65 and now the A77.

Another strong point is said to be its electronic viewfinder. I was of the conservative opinion that an optical viewfinder has better resolution and less electronic colour distortion/interpretation, but this one promises to be real good, with 2.3 M pixels (there were times when 2M pixels made a decent camera!).

One of the package options, moreover, is the camera body with a "kit lens" of truly interesting specs: 2.8/16-50mm. That is not a kit lens, but could be a really good one! I have grown very fond of my 2.8 telezoom, and am already looking forward to a standard zoom with the same large opening.

Only two questions remain. First, can I afford it? Sub-question: any reader making an offer on my Sony A700 (used but good-looking!)?
And second, should I go for it, or wait for the full-frame A99?

Sony SLT-A77 Preview: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

New spring, new lens

Treated myself to a new telezoom, a 2.8/70-200, especially because I wanted the large aperture. And boy, does it make a difference in the viewfinder! With such a clear view, you can use manual focus much better. However, this is also my first lens with HSM focusing and that is impressive too: smooth, silent and fast; so you don't really need manual focus.

But the main reason for wanting the 2.8 opening is that it reduces the depth-of-field so you can have very selective focus. Hope to make use of that in the coming days--and coming years!

The disadvantage of a big opening is that it is a big and heavy lens. Yet even here I was pleasantly surprised: the 1.3 kg have a very good handling, nice balance with the camera and you can use it very well 'shooting from the hand', without a monopod/tripod.

For the moment then, just a little example of what may be done with such a lens: a random insect on a random flower in a random place (the backyard of my house). The lens has a good bokeh, I think. I am pleased with this new toy!

More on show: projector problem

Data projectors ('beamers' in our corner of the Continent) are tricky enough even when not miniaturised into photo cameras (see previous post): during our Club evening, yesterday, I counted on using the room's built-in projector with the special settings we had laboriously made for it. In fact, Louis and me had spent the best part of two hours fiddling with all settings and had stored our best (i.e. reasonable, not perfect!) settings. Friday night I loaded "our" settings, but when we watched and discussed forty or so photos over the evening, the bad rendering of colour and contrast on the screen made serious photographic discussions quite difficult. And then to think that this ASK Proxima was judged to be one of the best of the € 1,000 projectors, a year ago by Focus. What is the solution? Should our camera club buy its own projector, of € 3,000? Unlikely--but if not, what then to do?

Hardware again: what you see is...what you criticize

In this blog I wanted to focus on photos and their content. Still, every now and again I threw in some remarks on hardware (my camera's and lenses' limitations) and software (my use of LR2, for instance). So this time I cannot refrain from remarking on the use of a good monitor. I had the pleasure this week of trying out an Eizo monitor--not a super-professional one, but a 'mid-range' CE-series wide screen of 21" (Eizo CE210W). Something a serious amateur might still afford. And was it an eye opener! It promises to show sRGB, not the biggest colour space, but at least they say what the monitor can do--you don't find that on the "normal" brand monitors.

And the combination of good colour representation and a fairly good size (21" as I said, 1600x1000 pixels (rounded down)) gives you a very crisp and detailed view of your photos. They never looked as bad as this--gee, does one get critical of sharpness, colours, and all other technicalities! So again, I am not writing about photo content, but a good monitor shows how many conditions have to be fulfilled before you can start thinking about a good photo. It gets ever more difficult--but I'll keep going! Stay tuned, once we'll get there. I hope...

Now this focus on sharpness, colour space and what not may be a typical photo-club amateur view: do you have to be technically perfect to make a photo that is saying something to your viewers? Does technical perfection not stand in the way of creativity, intuition, use of the 'decisive moment'? Is it not a problem of photo-club pictures that they are always striving for technical perfection only, forgetting about the artistic communication?

I suppose that there is a bit of a tension there, and that many amateurs (including me) should try to focus more on the content than on the form/technicalities. There is another side to it, of course: creativity is not a license to ignore technical high standards (I don't want to say 'perfection'). And that can be trained; technical correctness must become like second nature, something you do without taking your thoughts from trying tomake a meaningful photo. In turn, that means photography has to be trained like any craft or skill: do it often. Repeat, repeat and repeat till you know what your camera and other equipment without do even looking at it. 'A thousand repetitions and suddenly perfection emerges from one's true self' How comes I end with a zen-saying again?

Hard words on hardware

Let's admit it: sometimes my choices are not as successful as I'd wish. I told you why I compromised on quality of the standard zoom lens. Yesterday I had my first real 'expedition' with the Sony 3.5-5.6/16-105 and I was not happy with the amount of barrel distortion in the 16mm setting. I mean, this was not distortion that was measurable in the lab, but it was really visible in my normal pictures.

And while I am in a confessionary mood: the Sony Alpha 700 has some drawbacks too: I find that 800 ISO and above sensitivy settings simply give too much nois eto be useful.