August 2012

I have been so busy the last 2 months that I have not gotten around to posting on my site. On 2 July 2012 I received my Sony A77 and to date (31 August 2012) I have shot 6638 photos and I love every single click. I have been using the Sony A55 as my primary camera for almost a year and I was very happy, but after that first shot with my A77 I fell in love all over again.

I unboxed the camera and immediately slapped on the Sony 28-75 f/2.8 lens. I switched it on, hoping the battery had enough power to give me at least a few test shots before I charged it. there was 24% power and I was ecstatic. I went outside and looked for something to shoot. I spotted a blossom on a bush and got ready for my first shot. I expected the viewfinder to be very much like my A55, but boy was I in for a surprise! It is bright and very clear and if you did not know you were looking at an electronic view finder (EVF) you would swear it was and optical view finder. I adjusted shutter and aperture to my liking and snapped my first shot. I pressed the review button and was wowed again, the LCD screen is clear and bright.

The camera is big, but not bulky and easy to handle. It was not as heavy as I had expected and handled very well. I soon got used to the menu and controls which were very much like the A55. The joystick control is a breeze and it feels as if everything is just where it should be. If you are a Sony shooter you will soon find that Sony changed a few things in such a way as to make the camera easy to handle. I then started to charge the battery and once done I took a number of test shots and practiced using the camera for quite a while so I would be ready for my next shoot. I had a wedding coming up and could not wait to shoot with the A77. I had the A55 with me as backup the whole time just in case I got stuck with a setting on the A77, but during the wedding I discovered the A77 was really easy to use as it was just a big brother to the A55.

I was running firmware version 1.05 on the A77 and found it very responsive and quick with non of the problem some other A77 users running earlier versions of the firmware had reported. I was very happy with the low light performance and even shooting at ISO800 gave me great images. Since I am primarily a strobist and do not do much high ISO natural light shooting I rarely push ISO higher than 200, but seeing what the Sony A77 is capable of at ISO800 may convince me to do more natural light photography.

When time permits I would really like to do some stock photography with my A77 since most of my current stock shots were done with my A55.

I sell stock photos on ShutterStock and make serious money, you can too!