Happy with my new a99 and 70-400mm G2! For wildlife!

About two weeks ago I purchased the a99 and a 28-75mm f/2.8 Sony SAM lens. I also ordered the 70-400mm G2 lens which was backordered. This afternoon I walked into Mike's Camera in Lone Tree, CO and found they had a new G2. So I immediately laid down my plastic and purchased the G2, since the one that I had ordered from Sony was delayed from the original promise date (today). This evening my wife and I set out on a deer drive near Palmer Lake, CO. I found three nice 4x4 bucks as it was just starting to get dark. I hopped out of my pickup with my a99 and brand spanking new G2 figuring that it was way too dark to hand hold this combo and expect sharp pictures. In fact when I was taking the pictures I could see the image in my EVF moving around too much from my feeble attempt at hand holding this lens and body. I took about 15 photos anyway. Much to my very pleasant suprise, when I downloaded the images to my computer they looked very, very good (IMHO)! Again, much to my surprise, all images seemed adequately (and surprisingly) sharp! As I haven't had time to read the manual yet, I did nothing more than put the camera in auto mode and fired away! I am thrilled with the results! This is a cropped version of one of the photos. The ISO was 6400, the F stop 5.6, the shutter speed 1/100 sec, and the focal length was 400mm. These deer were probably 75-100 yards away. For all of my fellow Olympus photogs thinking of investing in a Sony system, my advice is do it! Best regards, Dean

Shooting in dim light at iso 6400--nice. Those are some very healthy Mule deer. I suspect that you will like this combination for a long time to come.

Thanks Steve! Coming from the Olympus E-5, I was amazed by what the a99 and G2 were able to do for me in low light. BTW, I enjoyed your weather photographs! Nice job! Regards, Dean

Very nicely done! Sure are great looking bucks. I absolutely love my a77 and 70-400 G2; a wonderful combination.

Busch, Thanks! I still also have my Olympus E-5 so I have a 2x crop factor with my Oly lenses. However, I may look at the a77 successor when it comes out. Regards, Dean

Quite nice especially considering the elements and settings. Congrats on the new system also.

Since you most likely are a nature/animal lover and live in Colorado with an a99 and g2- looking forward to future pics**brian

Thanks Brian!

Hi,

Not to point out the obvious but I would hope you would be happy with such a system....it costs 5000$

See the trick is when you can get this type of shot from a slower lens or a lesser sensor.

Anyways in my opinion it`s like posting that your new BMW can get to 60mph under 10 seconds.

Have fun with your new toys.

Did you shoot jpeg?

Yes, when I took this photo, I hadn't got to the point where I could enable jpg + raw yet. But I am there now. I prefer shooting in raw.

Mihai, I am confident that I could have gotten this shot with a slower lens and a lesser sensor just by using a tripod or some sort of support to stablize the camera and lens. If you consider the Olympus E-5 a lesser sensor and the Sigma 50-500mm a lesser lens, then I have been there and done that. I guess that I was just impressed with the sharpness of the photo given the dusk like conditions and the fact that I hand held it without any support. I was hoping to get lucky with one or two photos, but they all came out pretty sharp. The in camera stabilization must be pretty darn good. There is some color noise in the photo, but not bad considering ISO 6400. Regards, Dean

Great job.