New Camera - Sony A550

My new Sony A550 arrived today. Pulling it out of the box, I was disappointed that at how flimsy it felt and I wonder how sturdy it will be. It also lacked a cover for the flash hotshoe like the one my A100 has.

The controls are in completely different places on the A550 and A100 and the control wheel for the aperture is right next to the on off switch and I've already accidentally turned the camera off when I meant to adjust the aperture.

The switch to turn the steady shot function on or off has disappeared. With the A550, I have to go into the menu to turn it off. This is a significant inconvenience.

I like that the A550's shutter is much quieter than that of my A100. The A100's shutter could actually shake the tripod sometimes. This camera has a CMOS sensor rather than a CCD and it is supposed to be much more sensitive.

I didn't take it out to take a test shot until after 7:30 p.m. It was already dusk but a large grasshopper perched on a leaf near my front door served as the new camera's first subject. The aperture is f/5 with the ISO 200 and an exposure of 1.6 seconds. The steady shot function is on, which on a tripod actually reduces sharpness, but I hadn't had a chance to learn how to turn it off yet.