The photography thread

[shav]

moana poles by Shav Bird, on Flickr

[SIMBAT]

Very nice. I just took the plunge late yesterday and bought a Zeiss Batis 25mm f2.0 myself. Will hopefully receive it in time for this weekend for some sharp happy-snap action!

Cool! i've heard great things about those batis lenses, how much are they worth? And what camera are you using them with?

i think you had an a6000 right? which means the lens would effectively be a 32mm. very smart!

[HyRax]

Cool! i've heard great things about those batis lenses, how much are they worth? And what camera are you using them with?

i think you had an a6000 right? which means the lens would effectively be a 32mm. very smart!

Cheapest place I could find in this country was George's Cameras in Sydney at $1980. The only ones cheaper than that were DigitalRev in HK but apparently they've been cancelling a lot of orders lately due to high demand and not enough stock. Even George's weren't able to get it to me this weekend, so I have to wait.

Yes, I'll be using it on my A6000 making it roughly a 40mm lens on APS-C, so it'll sit perfectly between my two current favourite 35mm and 50mm primes, but the effective aperture will be f1.25 which that plus the incredible sharpness that is almost on par with an Otus is what I'm really looking forward to. Plus this lens also starts to set me up when I eventually migrate to a full frame camera. I also plan to get the 85mm Batis later on (maybe next year when the wallet recovers).

[SIMBAT]

Yes, I'll be using it on my A6000 making it roughly a 40mm lens on APS-C, so it'll sit perfectly between my two current favourite 35mm and 50mm primes, but the effective aperture will be f1.25 which that plus the incredible sharpness that is almost on par with an Otus is what I'm really looking forward to. Plus this lens also starts to set me up when I eventually migrate to a full frame camera. I also plan to get the 85mm Batis later on (maybe next year when the wallet recovers).

a6000 is an awesome camera! it would be interesting which full frame you go for because the a6000 is such a jack of all trades, similar to my a77ii i use that for sports, flash, landscape and event photography. Its not too good with low light, astro and portraits. And the video af can be hit and miss, thats why i went with the a7s as all of its strong points fill the weak points of my a77. loving sony atm though.

[HyRax]

it would be interesting which full frame you go for because the a6000 is such a jack of all trades

Difficult to say what I would go with - I love sharpness and high resolution, but I also like clean shots at night too without having to resort to high ISO (hence why I'm putting money into a decent lens now). The A7RII has received rave reviews from almost everyone in almost every usage situation, but for now I'm happy with my A6000. If I was doing a lot of video all the time, then going with the A7S or (A7SII) would be a no-brainer.

As for what your camera is capable of taking, I really do feel it's more about the lens than the camera that produces the quality in a given image - you can still get crappy quality images from the A7S without a good lens. I started out with a cheap A3000 with the 16-55mm kit lens and I was already getting some pretty good shots which then motivated me to go get the Sony 35mm and 50mm primes for better night performance and bokeh which in turn motivated me to try bigger things like light-painting, stars, etc.

My main motivation for the A6000 was more about its significantly faster auto-focus, particularly useful at social events, the much easier and more accurate manual focus for night shots, the 11fps shooting for action and of course the higher resolution. Yes, it did have slightly better performance at night as well, but beyond that was more overall functionality to perform a greater variety of shots more easily with things like the flip-out screen, the ability to install applications on the camera, etc.

Some old pics from my A3000 (Click on each image for full size):

[shav]

robe obelisk by Shav Bird, on Flickr

[Hotwire]

Is that at Robe (South East) Shav?

[shav]

Is that at Robe (South East) Shav?

Yes it is mate.

[shav]

river road reflection-2 by Shav Bird, on Flickr

river road reflection by Shav Bird, on Flickr

[Hotwire]

Found your calling as a landscape photographer Shav

[shav]

Found your calling as a landscape photographer Shav

Funny you say that mate. Ive been getting a few requests for photo shoots in my area now.

[Jack_Keaka]

Ive been a bit bored the last couple of weeks whilst my DSLR has been in for a service and repair, but i was able to get one last expedition in to Cowra / Woodstock to photograph the Canola fields which I've been wanting to do for a few years. haven't edited all the photos but heres two that i have edited.

[shav]

Love it Jack. Nice job

[Jack_Keaka]

Love it Jack. Nice job

Cheers shave, pretty happy with the second one.

Camera is back now, cleaned, fixed and I'm happy!! back to being confident with the camera!

gonna try and give it a good run this weekend if the weather is desirable

[shav]

Love it Jack. Nice job

Cheers shave, pretty happy with the second one.

Camera is back now, cleaned, fixed and I'm happy!! back to being confident with the camera!

gonna try and give it a good run this weekend if the weather is desirable

I hear ya. I just bought a Sigma ART 18-35mm F1.8 constant lens the other day and OMG it's chalk and cheese compared to my kit lens. SO I am super keen to head out on the weekend to try more pics. I'll post up a few shots of what Ive taken so far.