Ski lift summer mountain view

[Ian]

This has, again, changed in tone after uploading - the sky is not so clean. If you are interested enough, copy it to your computer and view in your photo edit app.

Comments welcome!

Ian

[lumix]

Re: Ski lift summer mountain view

I see you had good lighting for this shot. F8 at 1/2000 ISO 200. I would title this "The End of the Line". So what do you think of the A100 then?

[Ian]

Re: Ski lift summer mountain view

I see you had good lighting for this shot. F8 at 1/2000 ISO 200. I would title this "The End of the Line". So what do you think of the A100 then?

Hi Ron, this was taken using my Sony Alpha A100 - which is last year's model But using the new Carl Zeiss 12-60 (24-120) zoom. The A100 is a very competent camera, but the standard kit lens is not very good. The CZ lens makes a big difference.

I'll confess that the picture was considerably undner-exposed. I had set the meter to under-expose by 0.7EV on purpose in order to preserve the deep blue sky and to counter any blown highlights. But the camera had also decided to take similar measures! In RAW I increased the exposure value by almost two stops. This would explain why the shutter speed was so fast at f/8, even though it was very bright there.

The image has withstood the processing quite well, don't you think?

Ian

[lumix]

Re: Ski lift summer mountain view

Hi Ron, this was taken using my Sony Alpha A100 - which is last year's model But using the new Carl Zeiss 12-60 (24-120) zoom. The A100 is a very competent camera, but the standard kit lens is not very good. The CZ lens makes a big difference.

I'll confess that the picture was considerably undner-exposed. I had set the meter to under-expose by 0.7EV on purpose in order to preserve the deep blue sky and to counter any blown highlights. But the camera had also decided to take similar measures! In RAW I increased the exposure value by almost two stops. This would explain why the shutter speed was so fast at f/8, even though it was very bright there.

The image has withstood the processing quite well, don't you think?

Ian

Without a doubt the image is very good and has stood up well to the over exposure. I also like the way you have framed the subject. Re the A100, I was interested to know how you rated it now that so called bigger and better have become available. I sometimes wounder if reviewers would still give year old models the same rating as they did the first time they assessed a camera, and just how much better are these newer models in comparison.

[Ian]

Re: Ski lift summer mountain view

Without a doubt the image is very good and has stood up well to the over exposure. I also like the way you have framed the subject. Re the A100, I was interested to know how you rated it now that so called bigger and better have become available. I sometimes wounder if reviewers would still give year old models the same rating as they did the first time they assessed a camera, and just how much better are these newer models in comparison.

The Sony Alpha A100 is still quite up to date as it has anti-shake (moving sensor) and a 10MP CCD sensor. It's a lower-mid range spec camera; it has all of the PASM settings you would expect, quite a sophisticated metering system, 9AF points, but only one adjustment wheel. It's competing with the Pentax K10D/Samsing GX10 and Olympus E-510, both of which have moving sensor stabilisation. It's also comparable to the more expensive Nikon K10D and the out-going Canon EOS-30D.

The main drawbacks of the Alpha A100 are its unpleasant shutter/mirror action clang, limited buffer when shooting continuously in RAW (just three frames with RAW+JPEG) and poor quality kit zoom. Most compatible lenses use the old fashioned shaft-driven AF with the AF motor being in the camera body and the AF operation is rather noisy and unrefined, especially compared to Canon's USM system.

JPEG images look a bit soft compared to RAW images that have been processed by hand. But overall, the A100 is a camera capable of taking good pictures.

Ian