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.

Youth Football Photography

The photo club I shoot with took a stab at shooting sports with a trip to a youth football field. Games start at 9 a.m. and last until almost 3:30 in the afternoon. We couldn't get right up to the field and my 200mm lens lacked the reach to get close-ups so most of these shots required a lot of cropping to look presentable.

My camera struggled to focus quickly enough to catch the action and maybe as many as half the shots I took came back blurry. I spare you those.

I do have a new camera (Sony A550) on order that should improve my action sports shooting, as well as to give me a larger image to work from when I have to crop. (14.2 megapixel vs. my current A100's 10.2 MP)

If I shoot something like this again, I will devote more attention to things off the field. Players on the sideline, coaches yelling, more of the cheerleaders and maybe even fans. But today I wanted to practice following action.

Eureka Springs Park Photos

This is a park near Vandenburg Airport in Tampa that has reopened after renovations. It's not a large place and there is no play area so it's not a great place to bring kids, unlike Lettuce Lake Park not far from there, which has an abundance of both space and playground equipment for children.

It's tucked away an a road less traveled so it's not a place people will stumble across. For now, that means it's mostly empty and a good place to shoot photos in relative peace, either for a hobbyist shooting plants or someone shooting outdoor portraits.

Parrots and Flamingos Photos

It helps when you can get out of your own way. I remembered to turn OFF the super steady shot function on my camera, which you are supposed to do when shooting from atop a tripod because in looking for vibrations to counteract, the steadying function actually creates vibration.

You can really see the difference in sharpness when you look at the photos at original size. They look like the images you'd expect to come from a $2,000 lens.

The venue is a tourist attraction called Sarasota Jungle Gardens. There are, as the name suggests, gardens, though in August not many are flowering. The upside is that this is also the off-season so there aren't many people to contend with and I could park my tripod in front of the exotic bird exhibit and snap away.

I didn't shoot many full body shots of the birds because it makes the artificial background too obvious. Parrots spend a lot of their time grooming themselves, and each other! As you'll notice, they also sleep standing up.



Flamingos populate the park, roaming free among the patrons, who can buy food to feed them. That makes them willing to let you get close to them. These tall birds better lend themselves to portrait oriented shots.