{"id":8425,"date":"2013-08-28T11:01:16","date_gmt":"2013-08-28T19:01:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/?p=8425"},"modified":"2024-01-20T11:21:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-20T19:21:43","slug":"camera-testing-with-the-sony-a77-4-of-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/camera-testing-with-the-sony-a77-4-of-4\/","title":{"rendered":"CAMERA TESTING WITH THE SONY A77 (4 OF 4)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Part four of my four part write-up on testing the Sony a77 DSLR in various sports setting that I typically shoot \u00a0with my job. Please check out the previous post for details on the first test and a bit of an intro to this multi-part project:\u00a0here<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Surfing photography and the US Open.<\/h3>\n

My last test of the gear was at the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach. This would also be a bigger test of the longest lens I had with me to use, the 70-400 zoom. Combined with the 1.5 sensor I would have an effective 600mm of reach at the longest end.
\nOverall the lens and camera seemed to perform pretty well. I still wasn\u2019t exactly in the best position to shoot the competition, but that\u2019s my fault and the beach was ridiculously crowded for the main event.
\nFocus and tracking seemed to work pretty well. I was using a monopod for stabilization. And while I\u2019m sure using a 600mm monster lens from another company would have resulted in pictures that were a bit better, I certainly can\u2019t complain about the quality of the shots from this lens and camera combo.
\nI’m leaving out a lot of small details that are similar to what I wrote last week in Part 3, from the Lucas Oil Off Road Race. You can click back to that one if you’re curious.<\/p>\n

So, what were my overall thoughts on using the a77 as a sports camera:<\/h3>\n

Focusing<\/strong> \u2013 I think there are several things I would change if this were to be a dedicated sports camera (which it’s not designed to be, please keep that in mind). I personally didn\u2019t like the cross shape of the focus points. I\u2019m accustomed to a diamond shape that allows for some point selection in the corners. But this is just related to how I like to shoot. Biggest annoyance was the seemingly slow adjustment of point selection. Also, the selected point \u201cglows\u201d grey. I want it to glow red. It was very difficult to see the grey selected point when looking through the viewfinder or at the LCD, especially on a bright day.<\/p>\n

Continuous focus<\/strong> seemed to work really well as long as your subject was in the center of the frame. And when shooting slower moving sports the tracking focus worked well enough to be used, too. For motorsports though the subjects moved too fast or were too erratic. Again, the tracking\/registered point option is likely best for people in groups (like the bride at a wedding) or with slower moving sports subjects that are high contrast against the background.<\/p>\n

The lenses<\/strong> \u2013 I thoroughly enjoyed the lenses themselves. They were sharp, quiet enough to where I didn\u2019t notice much of a difference compared to my gear and seemed to focus fast. While they turn and lock clockwise like Canon glass, they zoom opposite, like Nikon glass. This only threw me off a few times after years of muscle memory. haha!
\nPrice-wise they\u2019re not far off from the other major brands like Canon\/Nikon for their respective focal lengths, as well.
\nThe rear lens caps need to be redesigned somehow.<\/em> There is only one<\/em> way to screw them on when swapping lenses. So I feel time was wasted at several points when I was trying to do a quick change and fumbled while trying to line up the cap on the lens just-so. Picture it this way\u2026 if the face of the lens cap is a clock and there is notch at 3\u2019oclock, you HAVE to line up the cap\/lens exactly at 3\u2019oclock or you can\u2019t put the cap back on. Compared to a Canon cap which would lock at, say, 3 AND 9\u2026 you are more likely to re-cap quickly. Does that make sense?<\/p>\n

The Digital Viewfinder<\/strong> \u2013 this was a big adjustment for me, Sony was right. I liked the internal leveler, and things like the option to show you in-the-viewfinder what the exposure will look like. But on overcast days like two of the race days I shot, when it was \u201cbright out without being bright out\u201d the digital viewfinder was hard to see and seemed dim looking at it compared to outside. Think of when you\u2019ve taken a photo with your phone on a cloudy day\u2026 you know how it looks muted\/dim on the screen but through your eyes it\u2019s bright out? It\u2019s exactly like that. (Yes, I know what 14% grey is, I\u2019m not going super technical in explaining it here though). Do note that the viewfinder was also at the brightest setting, too.
\nThe flip out LCD was handy \u2013 which I didn\u2019t think I would like. But it was a nice feature to have when standing there, camera on monopod, reviewing shots.<\/p>\n

Body Design<\/strong> \u2013 The design of the body was what I had the hardest time with. This has everything to do with muscle memory and personal preference<\/em>. So take what I\u2019m about to say with a very big grain of salt<\/span>.
\nI had a hard time getting used to using the camera body. I\u2019m not a fan of the \u201cpower button by the shutter\u201d design. Nikon does this too\u2026 I\u2019ve always thought it seemed silly. I always leave my cameras powered on and in sleep mode. This way they can be started quick and I never have try to shoot and think \u201coh, I didn\u2019t turn it on\u201d. But with the LCD\u2019s of the Sony I felt the need to turn off the camera more often than I normally do. Startup seemed a tad slow for my taste, especially when I was turning off\/on to conserve battery.
\nI didn\u2019t like the sensor placement for auto-switching the LCD to the viewfinder, but I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s really a design change that is even possible.
\nI\u2019ve already mentioned to Sony that there should also be an option for \u201cno quick preview on screen\u201d after capturing the photo. Also, I think there needs to be an option to set \u201cpreview for 2 seconds on LCD \u2018ONLY\u2019\u201d. This way you get your quick preview looking at the back of the screen and then can go back to shooting. Currently if you use the \u201cPreview for xx Seconds\u201d feature it will show up in the viewfinder, too, blocking what you\u2019re trying to shoot until it times out or until you tap the shutter button to return to shooting mode.
\nI\u2019m not a fan of front adjustment wheels. This is also person preference. I find them too easy to hit\/roll between shots and mess up your settings. But I understand this is something other shooters would say \u201cwell just don\u2019t do that!\u201d
\nAnother design issue I had an unexpected problem with was the Video button. There is a large Video button on the back that if you hit at any time it will start recording. Great for videographers, bad for photographers. I knocked this many times and unknowingly started recording and didn\u2019t realize it til I lifted the camera to my eye to shoot. I also did this a lot when I went to flip out the screen since the button is right above the corner of the screen most right-handed people would pull on to release the screen. Note<\/strong>: This CAN be turned off in the menu, I simply didn\u2019t look long enough trying to figure out how to disable the button, however Sony clarified that it is an option.<\/p>\n

Battery life<\/strong> \u2013 overall it seemed pretty great. I was just doing long days and only had one battery. However it also charged very quick.
\nSize of weight of the camera is nice and light, certainly a comfortable camera for all around shooting day to day.<\/p>\n

So what was my overall impression of the camera?<\/strong> I enjoyed my time with it, but it\u2019s not perfect for heavy sports shooters.
\nThis is pretty much what I went in expecting, and from my understanding this is also what Sony was looking to learn more about by loaning me the gear to try out. There is no way that a sub-$2,000 camera will do what a $7,000 sports body will\u2026 This includes Canon and Nikon cameras in the $1-2,000 range.
\nWho would I recommend this for?<\/strong>\u00a0Wedding Photographers, Portrait guys, Hobbyists, Weekend Warriors, and Amateurs alike. If you shoot \u201ca lot of everything\u201d and occasionally might do some sports work, it\u2019d be a great system. There are some awesome lens options (let\u2019s be honest, plenty of Nikon and Canon shooters pay top dollar for Zeiss glass for their cameras, too). The camera is light, feature rich with things you didn\u2019t even know you\u2019d need (like facial programming for your kids school performance, or that wedding you\u2019re shooting).
\nI don\u2019t think that it\u2019s ready for the big sporting events \u2013 not for action photography just yet. But what\u2019s cool to see is that Sony is working on it and doing the research they can to create a better system for everyone.<\/p>\n

Click the break for photos from the US Open of Surfing<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"DSC02402\"<\/p>\n

Tracking worked pretty well for Surf<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"DSC02547\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02548\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02640\"<\/p>\n

I was using a monopod for these shots<\/p>\n

\"DSC02727\"<\/p>\n

All these have been cropped in as the shooting locations for everyone was pretty far away from the subjects. The beach was so packed that it wasn’t worth trying to move positions once things really got started.<\/p>\n

\"DSC02756\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02757\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02801\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02802\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02953\"<\/p>\n

\"DSC02954\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part four of my four part write-up on testing the Sony a77 DSLR in various sports setting that I typically shoot \u00a0with my job. Please check out the previous post for details on the first test and a bit of an intro to this multi-part project:\u00a0here Surfing photography and the US Open. My last test of the gear was at the US Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach. This would also be a bigger test of the longest lens I had with me to use, the 70-400 zoom. Combined with the 1.5 sensor I would have an effective 600mm of reach at the longest end. Overall the lens and camera seemed to perform pretty well. I still wasn\u2019t exactly in the best position to shoot the competition, but that\u2019s my fault and the beach was ridiculously crowded for the main event. Focus and tracking seemed to work pretty well. I was using a monopod for stabilization. And while I\u2019m sure using a 600mm monster lens… <\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,18],"tags":[1225,1343,613,1224,1341,1223,1235],"class_list":["post-8425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","category-surfing","tag-a77","tag-beach","tag-huntington-beach","tag-sony","tag-surfing","tag-testing","tag-us-open","is-cat-link-border-bottom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8425"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21164,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8425\/revisions\/21164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnremus.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}