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Saturday 10 January 2009

the camera

Well, my new camera arrived yesterday. The cheapest way was to order it from Amazon so I've been waiting patiently (!?!) for it to arrive. As I've mentioned before I've been saving up for a DSLR using money from birthday and Christmas... After all my rambles about getting a Canon 450D, I haven't. I have a Sony Alpha A350 and it's luvverly.
I'd narrowed it down to three possibilities (the Alpha, the Canon and an Olympus model) but this one just ticked a few more boxes for me. It's heavier than the other two, but I am used to the substantial weight of our old Olympus SLR so this doesn't particularly bother me. Sometimes I find if it is too light, steady shooting is harder. Perhaps that's just me. It has image stabilisation built into the body of the camera and a tilting Live-View LCD screen which I've already found useful (you can tilt it out up to 90 degrees in either direction, so can hold the camera high up / low down and still be able to see without craning your neck).

Today we woke up to a very fine layer of snow, which gave me a good opportunity to take some close-up shots. I've been using the Auto setting as I'm still getting to grips with all that it can do, although I've done a bit of playing on the Manual. I'm impressed with how well it focuses on what I want it to, even if it is the smallest object in the frame. (Have not got around to installing software yet, so will show you some samples later - I'm aware of the height of the ironing pile!)

Since I rarely get around to scanning in pictures from my old SLR (and by the time I get the photos developed the event would be long gone), the pictures on this blog have been from the Canon Powershot that Andy bought some years back - 2.0 megapixels. The Alpha, in comparison, has 14.2 megapixels and so the detail of the images are in a completely different realm - allowing me to crop images and still have them sharp and high quality when enlarged.

I had to take a photo of it with the Powershot, of course. Shockingly, they haven't designed cameras that can take photos of themselves...

Today:4/10, medium
Yesterday: 3/10, high

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ooooooo - a new DSLR! Yay!!! And a BIG step up from the 2.0 megapixels you were working with before. Congratulations!

Mike and I have often wondered why the other manufacturers don't incorporate the tilting LCD viewer into their DSLRs (I believe Canon was the first to use it in their point-and-shoot cameras - we have a couple of those, and they're quite handy, as you've discovered). Sony was smart in that regard. And I'm definitely looking forward to seeing your photos when you're able to upload them.

Of course, you have only whet my appetite to save money for our own new DSLR. Thanks! Heh. :-)

Unknown said...

Congratulations!! Better not let my hubby see this post, he will be drooling over the 14+ megapixels!!

Jenette said...

ooooo... very nice! I've been wanting a new camera for a while too... I'm looking forward to seeing some of your pics from it!

"The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people."- Richard Foster