Takumar 135 f3.5

Just picked it up at a thrift store with a bag of other lenses for $25 . This lens is possibly the sharpest ive seen so far. Will be shooting with it soon in B&W

Neglect

Yes it has been a while since I’ve posted any content I know, but I have been doing a lot on my Instagram page. So stop over there and see what I’ve been up to. Thanks again for your interest in my photography and the photographic content that we have in common. Thanks again. Rick Eselgroth Photography http://www.instagram.com/rickeselgrothphotography

Like old times

So I was taking some advice that my dad once gave me, F-16 and focus at Infinity just snapshots all day. It was fun to shooting without even really thinking, Reminded me when I was a kid with my first camera, a hi Matic 7 Minolta

Sony a9

This maybe the next big hitter in the Mirrorless movement ? We will have to wait and see.

Been Sleeping

So over the last 6 months to a year Sony and the camera industry has come out with a few new cameras, but not enough to get me to upgrade from my current A77 and NEX-5r. Things are looking like there building again in the Mirror less and SLT (Sony ver of DSLR). So keep your eyes pealed for more high end camera making in the next 6 months. Hint Higher mpx

Hasselblad DSLR/SLT

NEX

Lately I’ve been using a camera in the Sony lineup called the NEX-5R and have really been enjoying it much more than I thought I would and have reached a point that alot of other photographers have. I reach for the camera that works the best for me. Needless to say its the one that I purchased as a backup to my big camera, the Sony a77 that weighs about 10 times as much. My new camera of choice the NEX-5R.

The great thing about the system is the adapter you can get for it. Any camera you are using now or in the past, even in the film days, you can find an adapter for it. Its Amazing, and with the focus peaking option even manual focus is easy.

The Alpha NEX-5R is Sony’s seventh NEX camera and the third in its ‘5’ series that aims to appeal to a more demanding customer than the point-and-shoot-upgrader-friendly ‘3’ cameras. The 5R is a subtle upgrade over the existing 5N but the changes wrought suggests Sony has a clearer idea of who each camera is ment for.

The NEX-5R isn’t a NEX-7 by any means, but it’s finally added a couple of features that make it more attractive to keen photographers – namely a dedicated function button and control dial. These may essentially be an extension of the level of control that the 5N already offered, but devoting more space to external controls shows that Sony expects the users to actually use these functions.

The biggest technology advance on the NEX-5R is the addition of a modified sensor with pixels devoted to performing phase-detection to provide a hybrid autofocus system. The phase-detection pixels are used to determine depth information about the focus target, which means the camera has to perform less hunting with the potential of faster focus, improved continuous focus performance and better autofocus in movie shooting.

The other big advance on the 5R is the addition of DNLA-compliant Wi-Fi and on-camera app, the NEX can only run Sony-made apps, but the couple included on the camera do increase its capabilities. The Wi-Fi and apps combine to mean that the 5R can push images to an iOS or Android smartphone, push images straight to Facebook or Sony’s own PlayMemories site across a Wi-Fi network, or allow the use of a smartphone as a remote viewfinder/trigger.

• 16.1MP CMOS sensor w/10fps
• ISO 100-25600
• Top-plate control dial
• Dedicated Fn button
• Wi-Fi for connection via Wi-Fi networks or to smartphones
• Proprietary in-camera apps
• Touch-screen display
• Electronic First Curtain shutter
• 1080p 60p HD movies in AVCHD (50p on PAL region models)

Sony a99

The Sony SLT-A99 is the Japanese camera maker’s flagship model, aimed squarely at DSLR enthusiasts who will settle for nothing less than a full frame sensor in a rugged body with a plethora of external and customizable controls. It arrives almost four years after its predecessor, the A900, the company’s first full frame DSLR. You’d certainly expect significant new features given such a long gap between products and Sony has lost no opportunity to equip the A99 with every bit of electronic expertise they’ve incorporated into their NEX and SLT models in the interim. Whereas the A900 was a defiantly conventional SLR that would have been immediately familiar to Konica Minolta film-camera users, the A99 is something of a technological tour-de-force.

Start with a dual chip AF system, live view focus peaking, tiltable rear LCD, built-in GPS and 1080p60 movie recording plus the ability to output uncompressed video, and the contrast to the stills-only A900 couldn’t be more stark aside from the A99’s identical 24MP resolution. And then of course, there’s the fact that with the A99 Sony has opted for an electronic, versus optical viewfinder. From a features standpoint, it’s clear that Sony was out to rethink its approach to the enthusiast market and attempt to lure would-be DSLR shooters with a surfeit of technology while broadening its appeal to videographers.

Like its predecessor, the SLT-A99 enters a full frame DSLR playing field still dominated by the ‘big two’, so the camera’s success will depend not just on its advances over the A900, but how well it competes against the Canon EOS 5D Mark III and Nikon D800. Sony may have chosen not to challenge the 36MP Nikon D800 for pixel count – somewhat of a surprise given that the D800 houses a Sony-made sensor – but has opted instead for a unique dual sensor AF system that promises more precise subject tracking along with a 6fps continuous AF burst rate.

Sony has gone to great lengths to stress the work that has gone into improving the camera’s image quality. The latest 24MP sensor has been designed so that more of each photosite is light-sensitive. The electronics in front of this light sensitive region have been slimmed-down to increase the angle from which each site can receive light. These changes, combined with a design that provides a short and high-capacity path between the sensor output and the image processor, and the addition of 14-bit Raw output, should mean improved still image quality.

The rapid adoption of DSLRs by video professionals has made HD recording with manual exposure control a stock feature in even mid-range models. With the A99 though, Sony leverages its considerable video expertise by combining 1080p60 video capture with SLT-enabled phase-detection AF along with the ability to output uncompressed video over HDMI (a feature we first saw in the Nikon D800). Another well-implemented nod to the needs of run-and-gun videographers can be found in the inclusion of a ‘silent controller’ that allows for adjustments to made while recording without the attendant button clicks

a77

Preview based on a pre-production SLT-A77 running firmware 0.65

After a four-year wait, Sony has returned to the enthusiast/semi-pro end of the DSLR market. Having made little impact in that market with the A700 that very closely resembled the conventional DSLRs made by Canon and Nikon, Sony has spent the intervening time developing something a bit different. The A77 builds on the company’s ‘translucent mirror’ technology, and uses an electronic rather than optical viewfinder. The final result is a product that may look traditional, but is able to promise the unconventional.

Spec-wise the A77 is impressive: it features a new 24MP APS-C CMOS sensor, 12fps full-resolution shooting and the highest resolution EVF we’ve ever encountered (a 2.4M dot OLED finder). It also uses a new 19-point AF sensor, 11 points of which  are cross-type (sensitive to detail in both the vertical and horizontal axis). Clever use of the main sensor’s live view allows the A77 to track objects as they move across the frame, enabling the camera to have a better understanding of which AF point it should be using at any given time.

Last year’s SLT-A55 gave some clues about how Sony hoped to bring its electronics know-how to bear in a high-end camera. Its fixed, semi-transparent mirror design meant Sony could do away with a conventional optical viewfinder and use an electronic display. It also meant that the phase-detection autofocus that gives DSLRs much of their immediacy could be used all the time. The result was a camera that could shoot at an impressive 10fps, could focus quickly in video mode and offered full-time live view with consistent DSLR-like behaviour in a way that no camera had really managed before.

Unsurprisingly the A77 takes all these capabilities a lot further than the consumer-level A55 – it combines the latest processor with an electronic first curtain shutter to offer the level of responsiveness the more demanding enthusiast/semi-pro users will expect. The A77’s massively improved viewfinder is also key to ensuring the A77 can hold its own against the very stiff competition it faces from the likes of Canon’s 7D. (You don’t have to read particularly far between the lines to conclude it was this feature Sony wanted to perfect before launching an SLT into this market.)

And, as with the A55 and a handful of other recent Sony cameras, the A77 offers in-camera GPS. It can be a really useful feature for organising and retreiving images, as allowing tagged images to be geo-located on sites such as Flickr. As with all GPS settings, it can take a while to locate enough satellites, or struggle to find them at all in built-up areas. Then, of course, there’s a battery penalty to be paid.

In addition to the technological advances, Sony has clearly been listening to its audience when developing the camera’s firmware – the A77 is not just the most customizable Sony we’ve ever encountered, but that customization includes a number of long asked-for features. In addition to the ability to fine-adjust the AF tuning, Sony has added the ability to define the upper and lower extremes that the Auto ISO system will use  – a step we suspect many users will welcome.

But despite all this technological wizardry, the A77 is actually a remarkably conventional-feeling camera. It may have a plastic top-plate, rather than the A700’s tank-like magnesium-alloy construction, and  use SD rather than CF cards, but in pretty much every other respect it looks and behaves like a logical progression of the series. Overall, despite the fact that it embraces a rather different set of technologies, it feels and behaves much like a conventional semi-pro DSLR.

I’m so excited to get my hands on this camera and give it a test drive, too bad we have to wait till Oct too see what it can really do in the hand of a seasoned photographer hehehe. I really think they should have given it two memory card slots but oh well with the size of memory you can buy now I’m sure one will be enough to keep you shooting most of the day. Can’t wait.