pierces

The camera used for this image arrived late Friday and I feel bad that all I have for this week is a meaningless test shot. Saturday was my birthday party, which was celebrated as John Wick Day with the whole family over to watch the first three movies before going to see the fourth. It was a very nice family day, but it was early Sunday before I was able to sit down and explore the shiny new tool. While sitting in the dark, setting options and poking through the menus, I shot this week’s photo. Even at -5 EV, the autofocus nailed the whimsical ducks (per Sheldon via The Big Bang Theory, the ducks are whimsical because they have umbrellas despite having neither the need for, nor the ability to use them). Now I need to get out and take some real pictures. Whimsical Ducks Dave

Oops on the date for this week. Pictures taken between Monday, March 20 and Sunday, March 26. Dave

Pictures taken between Monday, March 26 and Sunday, April 2. Two weeks until Easter! I'm sure everyone has their Easter tree set up and decorated and their houses adorned with Easter lights by now. Take some photos and share them with us! Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!

Since the A6600 takes the same batteries, I currently have a total of four with the two spares riding in a little Tenba battery purse in the bag. Until I get a handle on consumption, I'll just carry the extras with me instead of leaving them in the bag. I'm resurrecting an LCD trick from my old A77. The LCD turns off when turned inward and since I rarely use it to frame a shot, I'll keep it that way most of the time. It doesn't use power and isn't impolite in a darkened venue. The non-articulating screen was one of my main irritations with the E-mount bodies but the circle has now closed on that problem. Set to large/extra fine, the 64GB SDXC I'm testing with shows a capacity of about 1,300 images. I ordered a couple of 80GB CFE-A cards with the camera and will use those after the reader gets here. Those show a capacity of around 1,600. Honestly, my personal practices make shooting more than 3,000 images in a week unlikely. That said, I will heed your advice and take the SDXC cards along. Two is one and one is none, right? Thanks for chiming in. Always good to hear experiences from a user of the same model. Dave

What a difference five years makes. A few discoveries. The negatives so far: After shooting several test images with a CF Express card in slot #2 and a SDXC card in the primary slot #1 (since my CF Express reader doesn't come until Monday), I was dismayed that Lightroom couldn't read any of the images from the SDXC card. My first thought was that I hadn't updated Camera RAW to read files from the relatively new model, but immediately realized that that didn't matter for JPEG. I became suspicious and pressed the review button on the camera and the test images were still there. A not-so-quick trip through the new menu system confirmed my suspicions that the top slot is now the primary slot #1 instead of the bottom slot. Why the switch? No idea. Horrible noise even at ISO 100! I took a test snap of stuff on the desk and was horrified at the noise in the 100% crop...until I noticed the tether cord behind the card I had focused on was razor shop and the "horrible noise" was actually the 240PPI printing pattern on the card. The battery drained a lot faster than I am used to on the A7III, but it has also been five years since I spent half a morning setting preferences and exploring menus. Jury's out on this but the much higher resolution viewfinder and rear screen may be part of the problem. I will play with viewfinder refresh and resolution settings and see if I can tell a big difference in use and/or battery life. If it turns out I have to change batteries every day instead of every other day for a better viewfinder, no tears will flow. Those are the negatives so far. Two out of three turned out to be the equivalent of a PEBKAC issue on a computer (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair), so I'm not quite ready to send it back. The positives so far: Resolution. Holy crap! I'm not even going to list the 30MB-40MB JPEGs as a negative. I knew what I was getting into. I realize that any images from the camera that I post on the web will only be a reduced, processed representation of what comes out of the camera, but looking at the meaningless test snaps so far has me eager to see the images from next hockey game, ice skating performance and especially our upcoming Alaska trip later this year. The new menu is definitely better. I became used to the A7III menu and after setting preferences, was always curious about the complaints about it. After working my way through the new menu, I have some insight about why Sony's extensive menus were always listed as a negative. It's what you are used to. Up until a few years ago, most of the reviewers were Canikon shooters that had to learn a new menu layout while testing the Sony cameras. I found the new menu initially frustrating after ten years with the old layout on various models, but after an hour or two I became familiar enough to appreciate the improvements. In a few weeks it will be what I'm used to. The shutter is significantly quieter. Even Wonderful Wife commented about it while I was taking some of those meaningless test shots. Not silent, but very quiet. CF Express cards are FAST. My initial faux pas with the slot numbering had me regretting spending the money on the new cards since the SDXC cards seemed to clear the buffer almost immediately. I retested after the slot numbering epiphany and found that while the fast SDXC card (300mb/s read - 299mb/s write) wasn't clearing the buffer at a snail's pace, The CF Express card was visibly and significantly faster. The buffer. I am not a spray and pray shooter, but I occasionally fire off a long burst while following the skating granddaughter in a lead-up to a jump or grandson racing to block a run on the goal. I never had to worry with the A6600 or A7III but shooting 10 fps at 60MP had me thinking. No worries. The buffer will never fill up with an SDXC card and will double extra super never fill up with the CF Express card. The cards may. Back to resolution. Big files. the MTIs (meaningless test images) ran from a low of 32.9MP to a high of 47.6MP. Compare this to the 10MP to 15MP files from the A7III and it looks like the one card per trip days are over. A 64GB card will hold about 1,600 images instead of the endless storage bin it was on the A7III. A couple of the 80GB CFE cards should do the trick for an Alaska trip, but I will be taking a few old SDXC cards as a backup. The A6600 has a new purpose. I used to use it and it's 1.5x APS-C crop effect to good use as a teleconverter when at the zoo and on wildlife tours. I tried it for hockey and ice skating but unless the venue has great lights, the A7III's better high-ISO performance trumped the extra reach. The A7rV's APS-C crop mode setting produces a 26MP image from the center of the sensor, mimicking the teleconverter function of using the A6600. The A7III had this feature, but only resulted in a 10.6M image. On the new camera, I have programmed one of the custom buttons to switch between full and crop modes for when I want the reach on an image I would just crop anyway. We'll see. Anyway, the A6600 is going to live on as the wide-angle walkabout option when I want to carry a smaller camera around the ship or on shore when not on a tour. So much for first impressions. A new camera every five years or so isn't too far from normal, but I'm still a little in awe of how much the tech has changed and also a little surprised how much it hasn't. Noe to take the new tool out for a spin... Dave

The adventure begins... ... Thanks for the rapid response Amazon And CF Express Type A cards? Yikes! Dave.

Turned out it was. So I did. Dave

Trying out the new lens. Paper thin depth of field at full zoom! Oh, yeah...pretty flowers too! Dave

Doing some organizing and culling and ran into this shot from 2005. Taken with my Maxxum 7D and an old 400mm f/5.6 Sigma (600mm equivalent) from the film days. Atumnal Equinox, 9/21/2005 Dave

DPReview has been the go-to site for researching camera tech since digital emerged as a solid alternative to film in the late '90s. I was put off for a while when Sony took over Minolta's imaging division due to the oddly placed bias they showed towards a "TV and Stereo company" trying to get into the photography market. Having taken the Sony path after the transition, I took being reminded that I hadn't opted for switching to a "real" camera company a little bit personally but stuck with Sony anyway. (I'm sure I could say something about vindication, but that would be petty.) Time went on and the bias faded as all the cameras became more and more magical in their abilities. I have enjoyed the addition of the DPReview TV with Chris Nichols and Jordan Drake who came over from The Camera Store in Calgary a few years ago. I have found their entertaining assessments of new tech fair and informative. Several sites have faded over the years, and some have just disappeared, but I thought DPR had a solid future when Amazon acquired them. I guess I was wrong. I hope some site steps up to fill the gap and I hope someone picks the DPReview TV show. Oh, well. Dave

I just took a quick look at the Lightroom metadata for our New England cruises, and both showed a 2:1 count between the wide-normal zoom and the short to medium telephoto zoom. I never felt the need for anything longer than 300mm. Here are links to both galleries if you want to take a look at what made up those counts: 2018 New England & Canada (pptphoto.com) 2015 Fall Colors (pptphoto.com) Dave

Pictures taken between Monday, March 13 and Sunday, March 19. This is it! The Vernal Equinox has arrived! Depending on your hemisphere, Spring is springing or Fall is falling! Take. Photos. Now. Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!

We have had more rain in the last three weeks that in the last year. Our snow pack is at record e levels and the reservoirs that have been empty for years are so full that they are opening the spillways, so they don’t overflow. Despite that, we will probably be in a drought condition by the end of the year because misguided conservation efforts have forbidden the building of additional reservoirs for the last forty or so years for one junk-science reason or another, despite the 66% increase in population pressure. Enough whining about California Crazy. The latest episode of rain (which may be the last for a while) inspired me to get out and record the record. It may be a while before we are inundated like this again, hence the somewhat splashy photo-op. Splish-Splash Dave

As you can see from the numbers, that's about what I found. Don't pass up a wider view via panorama. I tend to take quite a few sets, just in case. 24-105 at 63mm At 24mm And yes, the long view was occasionally useful. 450mm Close-up of some 14th century surveillance equipment at Blarney Castle: 450mm again The best camera to take on a trip is sometimes two plus a phone! 🙂 BTW, I may have you beat on first SLR. I started with an SRT-102 when I was in high school back in '73-'74. It may as well have been chipped out of flint compared to today's digital wonders. Dave

Ireland - Iceland back in 2019 - Wildlife opportunities were virtually nonexistent: Plus about 100-odd with 12mm manual Rokinon on the A6300. 2019 Ireland & Iceland (pptphoto.com) Dave

I ran into this image years ago and promised myself I would never be "that guy"... I have kept true to that promise by exercising remarkable self-control (with a strong assist from a lack of $30k worth of disposable income to blow on bodies and lenses). Dave

Pictures taken between Monday, March 13 and Sunday, March 19. This week's challenge is to get out and take some interesting pictures to share. How is this different than the last 500+ weeks in the Picture-A-Week challenge? It isn't. Just get out there and get your money's worth out of all that lovely photographic equipment you blew your discretionary income on! Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!

Week 43 of last year featured Granddaughter Jackie in her first performance as a music box ballerina. This week, her home ice venue held a competition that was primarily to give the locals a chance to perform their routines to prep for the big event in Pasadena at the end of April. Her routine has evolved since last year with more complicated moves and a smoother performance. Jackie takes her skating seriously. The scripted practies provided by her coach with this many jumps and that many spins are carried out to the letter without any prodding or complaints. A serious competitor. Her only failing, if you can call it that, is she’s a bit too serious. Flashing her bright, sunny smile during performances would put the icing on an already pretty cake. The Tiny Dancer Returns Dave

"Brach" or "Snow" scenes are usually configured to overexpose by about 1 stop. Metering averages the entire scene to come up with the "proper" exposure and with bright snow or sand (or a grandson's hockey game), the images tend to come out sort of darker and muddy looking if you don't overexpose a bit. For Alaska, I would think that landscape would do best in most situations, including eagles in trees or other land environment. If you end up in a situation where you are in snow, such as a glacier walk or eagles flying against a bright sky, the "Snow" or "beach" mode would do well. If you encounter flying eagles suddenly, don't lose the shot fumbling with settings. One stop of brightness correction isn't that big a deal with almost any photo editor, so just take the shot. Dave

Yup. It took me a little bit to learn the ins and outs of hockey strategy to predict where the puck might next be going at high speed. Fortunately, I had a season or two to learn the ropes with the kids starting slow and gaining speed and accuracy. Here's a photo from one of the first few games. The puck is in there somewhere... Dave

I have found that in almost every non-wildlife situation, the resident normal zoom on my camera has been workable for 98% of situations encountered. My current walkabout lens is a Sony 24-105 f/4 zoom and it rarely comes off the camera while travelling. If we are going to a potential wildlife spot, I will take a longer zoom. If interiors are in the mix, I'll mount a 12mm ultra-wide on my A6600 in a belt pack and leave the 24-105 on the A7 III. Lately, I have been using my Pixel 6 Pro for walkabout wide angle stuff (it's about 16mm equivalent). Its ability to take very acceptable images even in bad light is quite remarkable. When cruising, I usually pack a pretty comprehensive kit but only take what I expect to nee for the day when ashore. I like the fact that the hotel goes with you on a multi-country trip and you only have to lug the bag at either end 😉 Dave

We aren't as vigilant as y'all down there...the evil little machines taken a foothold up here and are carrying out their nefarious plots. Didn't anybody pay attention to the Transformer movies? 😉 Dave

Pictures taken between Monday, March 6 and Sunday, March 12. Two weeks until the Vernal Equinox and a look at the weather report hints that Punxsutawney Phil may have nailed it this year. In related news: It may be a good week for weather-related photos. Get out and shoot! Rules: See above That's it. This isn't a contest. All photos taken this week are welcome (not just cruising). Prizes will not be awarded. Discovering the joy of photography is the prize. The idea is to get folks out using their cameras for more than vacations and toddler birthdays. Post one. Post many. Up to you. Have fun with your camera and share your fun with others!

When Grandson Matthew started playing hockey, we would go to the games and mostly watch. I took a few photos but in the starting divisions, it was less like hockey and more like ducks mobbing a handful of bread tossed into a lake. I took more shots the next year as the players progressed with skill and strategy replacing pinball physics. This year, they are playing real hockey and shooting is more challenging. This week’s photo was taken in a string of six frames, and I am still in awe of the autofocus being able track a speeding subject at 10 fps in the rink’s moderately bad light. As someone who started in a time when ISO 400 film was “fast”, being able to shoot at 1/500s at ISO 6400 or even12,800 in so-so light is a gift that just keeps on giving. Split Second Dave

I don't do video. It never really appealed to me for some reason. That doesn't mean I don't appreciate it when someone does video and does a good job of it. Nicely done. Dave