Shoot the Olympics with an a700?

I think this guy checks all your boxes

http://thepicturedesk.blogspot.com/

He posted this link before. he adits to needing practice with LV but he didn't have anything negative to say about focus tracking other than he couldn't use wide focus cause it keept focusing on the linesman (which were black and white stripes like a focus target)

--
http://www.fotosource.com/downloads/flyer/eye_cancer_en_CA.pdf

thanks Glenn. I saw Rob's write-up. Here's what I found missing from it:

Any statement about how it compares to say the A700.

My personal take on it is that the camera is different enough he would need more time with it to make such a judgment call. I also know Rob has used Canon / Nikon in the past but I haven't seen anything from him that he has used any of the current generation of cameras.

I think Rob is certainly a credible resource to follow. But there's nothing in his write-up that provides his opinion on whether the a55 is as good as the 700 or not (it would be great if he's used a 7d or d300 recently to compare to that but it's not something I would expect).

Does that make sense?

I do own an a700. I do not own an a55. Despite this, I would be really surprised if the a55 does not blow the a700 away when it comes to AF tracking of moving targets - it is NOT that difficult to surpass the a700 in this area

As for the Olympics: I would shoot the Olympics with whatever camera I felt like.

I hope this answers all questions.

actually if you go back in his blog he writes about switching to an A550 for hockey during the last NHL season. I'd i'll bet the EVF is the thing thats going to take getting used to. it'd like wearing a scuba mask for the first time. but if the 6 and 10 FPS is a motivator then it might be worth learning. I don;t know that Rob has ever even seen an A700 to be honest.

as a side note I was out shooting dragonflies (in AF) mith my A700 the other day. it works fine that way, and Yes I understand your hesitation completely. Our Club here is rife with Canon shooter and none of them rely on AF for the action shots they shoot. it's mostly horse farms here and a lot of them shoot equestrian event the whole slew of 5D"s prefocus on points ahead of time and they;ve taugh everyone thats what is the right thing to do. I just did an airshow and I was counciled to do the same thing I shot 100 or so pics and I can say the ones I threw out that were OOF were very few... lots of out of frame shots and just crap though. the dragonflies were pretty good because even 20' away with the 70-300G you can see the laceing in the wings clearly
--
http://www.fotosource.com/downloads/flyer/eye_cancer_en_CA.pdf

Maybe when you get somewhere near the experience/success of Brian Smith you might want to argue about his credentials and expertise.

What exactly are you smoking as you are posting?
--
tom power

John_A_G said:

Would that I could delete a lot of surrounding chafe and see more informed opinions. So, here's my follow-up just to clarify: you've shot sports with the a700 and a55? Are you fortunate enough to have shot sports with any of the competitor products - entry / mid range cameras?

It's always good to get an idea for where gear fits in. About a year into the A700 there started to be enough photographic evidence the camera was just as good as the canon & nikon competition. So it was easy to point people interested in sony to that camera.

So I'm very curious how your experience shooting sports with the a55 compares to shooting sports with the a700 and, as a benefit if you've by chance shot any of the competition's related gear.

Click to expand...

John,

First off, the action photos which you posted are all very nice.

Follow focus with the a55 is faster than the a700 and the a850 and a900 cameras as well. I add the latter two cameras to point out this is NOT a knock on the a700. It's simply a positive sign of progress and things to come.

Many Sony users have requested improved high ISO and AF and these new cameras deliver (this includes the a560 and a580.)

I've never used a 7D, but my opinion would be that the a55 has quicker AF and tracking than the 1Ds2 and 1Ds3 (though these are hardly entry or mid-level cameras.)

I hope that helps.

--
Brian Smith
Sony Artisan of Imagery
http://www.briansmith.com
http://www.briansmith.com/blog

zepzr said:

Ha ha nice one joker. Remember I know all your previous posting history. Your opnion on Sony & Pentax is worth less than a bag of poop.

Click to expand...

Ah yes, but remember we all know your prevous posting history, too - under all your aliases. Your opinion on anything is worth even less.

If you're interested in A55 because of its 10fps shooting feature, this is my .02cents:

1. If your subject(your kids?) is standing still, blowing bubbles or dandelion, the 10 fps shooting without live view between contiunous shots+ AF AE lock will work great.

2. If you can predict your moving-subject's movement(how about Usain Bolt? he's too fast? but not as fast as F1 i guess.), try pre-focus and wait. When your subject moves into your EVF/LCD, fire your 10fps camera. The first 5 frames in half a second may catch something depends on how fast he/she moves.

3. IMHO, It's more difficult to take great photos of the soccer players in action than the quarterbacks in football. The QB may stay still to look for his target(unless he's run N shoot). Taking shots on running backs will be more challenging(view may get blocked by his/opponent linemen linebackers...).

Like someone mentioned, it's difficult to shoot at 400mm focal length w/o seeing something live in your viewfinder during the continuous shots. The best you can do here is,

do not zoom in too much; increase DOF and shutter speed(ISO too); track your subject using single AF point(lag in EVF?); Fire your 10fps burst. Hopefully, the first few frames may catch something good. and the odds of good images from the latter frames may not look good.

After all, it's a $750 camera. Make the best of your 10fps capability even without seeing live ivew during the shots. If A580 is available here, it'll be my choice for now. otherwise, i'll settle with A55 or A560.
or jump ship

--
Jack
Sony A300
Panasonic FZ35

For Olympics professionel photo you need.
10fps,Fast track focus,2 camera (one short lens + telephoto) and 2.8 and down.
minimun flash card 32g.
I try Olymmpic game whit a700 , the focus is to slow ,5fps you miss shoot.
You have to go Canon or Nikon and spend ,minimun 15,000 $$$$
Good luck

Brian_Smith said:

Follow focus with the a55 is faster than the a700 and the a850 and a900 cameras as well. I add the latter two cameras to point out this is NOT a knock on the a700. It's simply a positive sign of progress and things to come.

Click to expand...

Of course it is. Even A550 was better than A700 according to Rob Skeoch (see his old posts on this forum). A55 with even newer AF is likely even better, unless for some unknown reason Sony would spend money on newer AF that is worse than the older A550.

salsamtl said:

For Olympics professionel photo you need.
10fps

Click to expand...

I guess every single photographer at previous Olympics were doing it wrong then.

http://www.clubsnap.com/forums/showthread.php?t=755032&page=9

--
Cheers,
gil - San Jose, CA
Cheap Lens, JPG and 100% Handholding Provocateur
Like happiness, photography is often better created than pursued.

Brian_Smith said:

Even at 10fps, liveview is not blocked - nor does it show a slideshow of the last photo taken. What is actually happening is a very slight momentary freeze of the last image - which only happens when shooting at 10fps - not 6 fps. This is really no more disconcerting than the viewfinder blacking out 10 times a second AND the important thing to note is that the phase detect AF never loses track of the subject. With a conventional moving mirror camera shooting 10 fps - the AF loses track of the subject 10 times each second.

At 10 fps, panning is much the same as with mirror blackout and at 6fps - much better than with mirror blackout. Focus is good through the burst - not foolproof - nothing is foolproof.

Click to expand...

Not quite. With Ch frame advance on an OVF, you see two things: the live image and black. It is very easy for the brain to discern one from the other. With the momentary freeze, you see the pause, as you say, and the EVF representation of the live image. Being that they are so close and so similar, the brain has a hard time telling one from the other.

Additionally, the supposition that a OVF camera "loses track of the subject" is a mischaracterisation of what is happening in the camera. To suggest that an OVF camera exposing at a high rate aquires the subject, focuses, exposes, reaquires the subject, refocuses, exposes, reaquires, etc, etc is missing a crucial part: the camera is predicting where the subject is going to be based on recent behavior.

Either way, it sounds like you have achieved much different results with your A55 than DPR did with theirs. Perhaps you have a different FW or some other trick that the DPR staff did not have?

chad

was held in 1981. Athletes the world over had clamored many years for the revival of the ancient games, but sadly, no autofocus camera was available to record the event. To the acclaim of all, Pentax introduced the ME-F that year, the first autofocus SLR . The only lens available that autofocuses is a 28-70mm f/2.8. Let the games begin!

What a silly thread. 29 years ago, the a700 would have been met with slack jawed awe compared to the ME-F. A good photographer can capture action with a slow manual focus lens. A modern camera makes his job easier, and undoubtedly results in a higher success ratio, but there were some amazing action shots captured well before 1981.

--
Regards,
Graham

'I photograph to find out what something will look like photographed.' -Garry Winogrand

chadmarek said:

Additionally, the supposition that a OVF camera "loses track of the subject" is a mischaracterisation of what is happening in the camera. To suggest that an OVF camera exposing at a high rate aquires the subject, focuses, exposes, reaquires the subject, refocuses, exposes, reaquires, etc, etc is missing a crucial part: the camera is predicting where the subject is going to be based on recent behavior.

Click to expand...

Predicting is not the same as seeing, is it?

chadmarek said:

Either way, it sounds like you have achieved much different results with your A55 than DPR did with theirs. Perhaps you have a different FW or some other trick that the DPR staff did not have?

Click to expand...

The same firmware is in all the pre-production bodies floating around. It's possible that I've shot more action than the DPR reviewers - though I wouldn't call that a "trick".
--
Brian Smith
Sony Artisan of Imagery
http://www.briansmith.com
http://www.briansmith.com/blog

Brian_Smith said:

The same firmware is in all the pre-production bodies floating around. It's possible that I've shot more action than the DPR reviewers - though I wouldn't call that a "trick".

Click to expand...

As a Sony Rep I'm sure you have far more access to the cameras than DPR. So plenty of time to work on your sales pitch.

Walt

WaltKnapp said:

Brian_Smith said:

The same firmware is in all the pre-production bodies floating around. It's possible that I've shot more action than the DPR reviewers - though I wouldn't call that a "trick".

Click to expand...

As a Sony Rep I'm sure you have far more access to the cameras than DPR. So plenty of time to work on your sales pitch.

Click to expand...

Ha ha! here comes personal attacks after people who used the camera refuted the silly assertion that his old A700 has better AF tracking. What about IR review? Were they paid by Sony too?

Brian_Smith said:

chadmarek said:

Additionally, the supposition that a OVF camera "loses track of the subject" is a mischaracterisation of what is happening in the camera. To suggest that an OVF camera exposing at a high rate aquires the subject, focuses, exposes, reaquires the subject, refocuses, exposes, reaquires, etc, etc is missing a crucial part: the camera is predicting where the subject is going to be based on recent behavior.

Click to expand...

Predicting is not the same as seeing, is it?

Click to expand...

Great point. Since the AF always sees the subject in translucent design, there is much lower need to predict. There is no mirror blackouts. By very nature this design is superior for AF-c than the traditional mirror design.

trying to belittle an accomplished professional photographer who has sponsorship by an equipment manufacturer by comparing him to a salesman that pushes camera to vendors? Thats like a high school basketball player telling Michael Jordan "well you're just a shoe salesman".

If you want to bring up the point that he may have inherent bias due to his association with Sony, thats fine (although the overall point of this thread was about whether one SONY camera has a certain strength over another SONY camera in autofocus). He doesn't hide his Sony affiliation it - its in his signature.

that was uncalled for Walt