Well, today was a perfect sunny day (OK, it was a little hot), so I took advantage of that to finally pair the A550 with the Tamron 200-500 lens and hit my favorite wetlands areas here in South Florida.
Wow. ; Happy happy! ; The camera handles beautifully, focus speed and accuracy is excellent, tracking focus no problem and birds-in-flight are almost easy with this thing, color is beautiful, sharp and detailed...just a flat-out pleasure to shoot with. ; I was out there about 5 hours, with the Tamron attached to the A550, and the Tamron's collar attached to tripod which I used as a monopod. ; For BIF's (birds in flight), I snapped off the quick release and went handheld.
I used some of the same basic settings I was comfortable with on the A300 - mainly dialing in -.7 EV as it is super bright here in FL, spot focus mode, center-weighted metering (useful for the birds which are often contrasted with their backgrounds), ISO200 sufficed in the bright Florida sun, apertures were usable between F8-15, and shutter speeds mostly in the hundredth fractions, continuous focus mode, and 5fps drive mode. ; I shot with OVF only. ; I flicked between no DRO (dynamic range optimization) and DRO auto, depending on what I felt the lighting situation required (wide open shots, no problem, but deep shadow, under leaves, reflecting water, streaking sun, called for DRO).
The full gallery is here:
http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/a550greencay
And just to throw a few samples in here for those who don't like going to galleries, here are some that I thought turned out pretty good:
Comments, questions, critique always welcome.
Wow. ; Happy happy! ; The camera handles beautifully, focus speed and accuracy is excellent, tracking focus no problem and birds-in-flight are almost easy with this thing, color is beautiful, sharp and detailed...just a flat-out pleasure to shoot with. ; I was out there about 5 hours, with the Tamron attached to the A550, and the Tamron's collar attached to tripod which I used as a monopod. ; For BIF's (birds in flight), I snapped off the quick release and went handheld.
I used some of the same basic settings I was comfortable with on the A300 - mainly dialing in -.7 EV as it is super bright here in FL, spot focus mode, center-weighted metering (useful for the birds which are often contrasted with their backgrounds), ISO200 sufficed in the bright Florida sun, apertures were usable between F8-15, and shutter speeds mostly in the hundredth fractions, continuous focus mode, and 5fps drive mode. ; I shot with OVF only. ; I flicked between no DRO (dynamic range optimization) and DRO auto, depending on what I felt the lighting situation required (wide open shots, no problem, but deep shadow, under leaves, reflecting water, streaking sun, called for DRO).
The full gallery is here:
http://www.pbase.com/zackiedawg/a550greencay
And just to throw a few samples in here for those who don't like going to galleries, here are some that I thought turned out pretty good:
Comments, questions, critique always welcome.
