Testing the Sony A7II camera
Well, I bought a new camera. :-)
I don't like to think of myself as a "gear guy", at least not in some terms. But in other terms, I do recognize and respect the capability that some gear can provide to you.
After a lot of internal debate (and more than a little soul searching) I recently decided to give up my Olympus camera system and have in it's place purchased the Sony A7II camera. It's a fabulous system (as was the Olympus, to be fair) and I didn't give up Olympus because of any issue in particular. It was more of a sense of wanting to go back to full frame, but retain the benefits of mirrorless. So here I am with Sony, and I love it.
I enjoyed the Olympus quite a bit, but decided that I wanted to return to using a full frame camera, and this particular Sony model just felt right. I wanted the larger sensor for better low light performance and I had read so much about the amazing dynamic range of the Sony cameras. I guess I was just too curious to wait any longer. It really feels like Sony is doing something here, and I wanted to partake.
I will admit that I was getting a little bothered by the noise levels I was getting in some Olympus shots, especially as I raised the ISO when shooting handheld in low light (which I found myself doing a fair amount). It was correctable in post (and I did correct it), but it was getting to me a little bit. Having shot full frame in the past (I used to shoot with a Nikon D700 full frame), I knew the bigger sensor would just handle it better.
And for comparison purposes, the full frame sensor is nearly 4x larger than the micro 4/3 sensor of the Olympus. That's sayin' something.
So, I got out recently in Austin to take a few test shots with the Sony (which are the two pics you see here today), because I spent last week in Europe and wanted to make sure I had a handle on how to use the Sony properly for what I wanted to do.
Which reminds me - I had some fabulous adventures in Europe last week, and you will be hearing about that soon! I spent a few days in Stavanger, Norway (my first visit to Norway!) and was able to get out and hike and explore a nearby fjord - twice! From there I hopped over to Aberdeen, Scotland (my first visit to Aberdeen though I have been to other parts of Scotland many times). It was lovely and I shot a ruined castle on the coast - yeah, it was awesome. So that stuff is coming soon. And I captured all the glory of both spots with my Sony full frame camera - fun!
For now, I hope you enjoy these two pics from Austin, the first being a single long exposure and the bottom photo being a 3 frame HDR photo. Both taken with my new Sony camera. More soon!
