Tag: Alpha

  • Alpha Live View in the studio – solved!

    One of the problems with the Alpha 350/300 is that the Live View is linked to the settings when you use Manual exposure. It provides a form of metering, a relatively accurate preview of under or over exposure. This makes it impossible to use Manual with studio flash (AC mains strobe) setups. Currently, there is no menu setting to turn off ‘exposure preview with manual’ and enable ‘auto LV gain with manual’. But there is a solution.
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  • Sony unveils ‘ACE’ dealers in UK

    What we thought would be the ‘Alpha Pro’ project – display centres for the entire system sited at key retail outlets through Britain – turned out to be the ‘ACE’ project. That is, Sony Alpha Centres of Excellence. London Camera Exchange Colchester, one of the selected dealers, supplied these shots of the new showcase.

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  • Win a Sigma 20mm f/1.8 and fly the Alpha flag

    If you use Sigma lenses on your Alpha, you can join the Sigma User Club UK and enter their prize competitions (anyone can join, worldwide, but you must be in the UK to enter the competitions as the prizes are given by the UK distribution company).

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  • Field Guide for Alpha 700

    Alan Hess is the author of a new field guide to using the Sony Alpha 700, published by Wileys, with 281 pages and the usual contents covering basic photographic techniques as well as the camera’s operation.

    The cost of the guide is 16 Euros by mail order from Research & Markets of Dublin website; the title is ‘Sony Alpha DSLR A700 Digital Field Guide‘.


  • Zeiss announce 18mm f3.5 – not for Alpha

    The parallel development of Carl Zeiss lenses for Sony (AF lenses in the Alpha mount) and independent manual focus lenses for other makes continues. The latest CZ design is a revision of the classic 18mm Distagon last seen in the Contax system, optimised for colour balance and reflection supression with digital SLRs.

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  • A flash ‘revolution’ – the Sony HVL-F58AM

    Sony has announced the September introduction of the most powerful flash yet for the Alpha system, the Sony HVL-F58AM which incorporates a brand new body design allowing optimum bounce flash illumination regardless of how you hold the camera.

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  • Sony Alpha 350 – a Creative Review

    The introduction of a £399 (street price, RRP £449) DSLR with 14.2 megapixels – with or without a useful type of Live View – should have been applauded by reviewers. It’s the single most important point about the camera. No other DSLR approaches this image size and resolution at such a low price. (more…)

  • Eyepiece magnifiers for the Alpha DSLRs

    The launch of the Alpha 350, with its small 0.74X viewfinder, makes a proper eyepiece magnifier attachment an essential addition to the Sony accessory range. Olympus, Nikon and Pentax all have such magnifiers, which permit a full view of the screen for most wearers and make all the difference to the manual focusing and general comfort in composing shots. We tested two devices, one of them the highly affordable Seagull 1x-2.5x right angle finder, and the other Olympus’s ME-1 1.2X ocular magnifier. (more…)

  • 360° panorama (QuickTime VR) from A700

    Daniel Oi – who provided our most popular external link in recent weeks with his Glasgow Merchant City surround-vision stitched VR panorama – has created a superb view of the Kibble Palace glasshouse at Glasgow’s Botanical Gardens: (more…)

  • Sony Alpha 200 – guided tour and overview

    The Sony DSLR A200 is now on sale, following the end of Alpha 100 production. Although it is without any doubt the Alpha 100 replacement mentioned by Sony executives in October 2007, when they first revealed that the 100 was no longer being made, it is not an exact equivalent and represents a mixture of upgraded performance and simplified specification. Because it has gone in two directions at the same time, the A200 poses a problem for A100 owners. (more…)