dunkirk carnival, march 2014

I travelled to dunkirk because I wanted to see the site of operation dynamo, and photograph the beaches. I wanted big, empty, abandoned beaches. I got the dunkirk festival. after walking 6km from the train station to the beach (and knowing that I would have to walk them back), with a 10kg photo-bag in my back, I had no courage to go to the other side of the city, so I settled for taking some pictures of the carnival.

images shot with the sony a7 and the carl zeiss 35mm/f2.8.

morcheeba, 14/12/2013

morcheeba live at gagarin 205, athens, greece, 14/12/2013opening act: cayetano soundsystem feat. dj booker

all images shot with a pre-production sony a7 camera lenses used were: carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8 (native fe-mount) carl zeiss 16-35mm (a-mount with la-ea4 adapter) minolta 85mm/f1.4 (a-mount with la-ea4 adapter) lens used in each image is noted under it. all images shot at ISO 6400, post-processed with adobe camera raw 8.3rc

regarding my experience with the focusing system of the sony a7: the carl zeiss fe 35mm/2.8 performed admirably, I was amazed to see how fast and accurate it was nailing the focus on the musicians. I think that this is the top mirrorless focusing system I've used up to today (on par with the olympus om-d em-1's system I was testing a few weeks ago). the la-ea4 adapter provided full phase-detection autofocus with my a-mount lenses, thus tranforming the sony a7 to the sony a99, with instantaneous and accurate autofocus. the combination of an excellent hybrid contrast-detection system with PDAF pixels on sensor, along with the option to attach the la-ea4 a-mount adapter and convert this camera to a full phase-detection SLT camera, makes the sony a7 the best deal for all situations.

cayetano soundsystem feat. dj booker

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

morcheeba

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[minolta 85mm/f1.4 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss 16-35mm/f2.8 & la-ea4 adapter]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

[carl zeiss fe 35mm/f2.8]

fiona meets the sony a7

A pre-production model of the new full frame mirrorless NEX-style camera, Sony A7, came into my hands a couple of days ago, courtesy of the wonderful people at Sony Greece. I also got the new Carl Zeiss 55mm/f1.8, as well as the kit 28-70/f3.5-5.6 Sony G kit lens. I will be keeping the set for a couple of weeks, testing it in various environments. What I immediately liked in this camera is, well, its size and weight... I mean, compared to my Sony A99 (which is maybe the smallest & lightest full frame dSLR camera), the Sony A7 is a feather. It's not so light that it feels cheap, but not heavy enough to become a nuisance. It is also ergonomic, fast and responsive. What remains to be seen is the quality of its autofocus system, which I will test on a later date, on a real AF-taxing situation (a rock concert, what else?).

I asked Fiona for some fast night portraits, and she happily agreed. We went out last night in Athens, and shot the following photos.

All of the photos were shot at ISO 12.800, with the CZ 55mm/f1.8 and the Minolta MD 50mm/f1.4 (manual focus, of course). I then opened the RAW files with Sony's Image Data Converter, which really is a quite counter-intuitive and slow RAW editing software, but I finally got the images out of it. The White Balance tool sucks, and the Noise Reduction tool leaves a lot to be desired. I am sure I could get a lot more out of these photos if I could edit them with Adobe Camera RAW.
Disclaimers:

• Both the camera and the lenses are pre-production models.
• all images are ISO 12.800 - a couple of them have been pushed by 0.25-0.75 stops during RAW conversion.
• Autofocus was used in the first three images. The rest of them were focused manually.
• The white balance is not what is should be, because I grew frustrated with the Sony Image Data Converter software and just went for colour continuity.
• I am not at all familiar with Sony Image Data Converter and I hope a ACR update comes out soon.

[carl zeiss 55mm/f1.8 | f2.2, 1/40, ISO 12.800]

[carl zeiss 55mm/f1.8 | f1.8, 1/30, ISO 12.800]

[carl zeiss 55mm/f1.8 | f2.2, 1/20, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/80, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/200, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f2.0, 1/125, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f2.8, 1/80, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/400, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/500, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f2, 1/60, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/125, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f1.4, 1/60, ISO 12.800]

[minolta md 50mm/f1.4 | f4, 1/320, ISO 12.800]

...and yes, I did shoot some large format - I only had ISO 100 film with me (fuji instant film as well a couple of slide film sheets I will cross-process) and an available maximum aperture of f2.5 (thank god for the Aero Ektar 178mm/f2.5) - the light was so low I needed a 10 second exposure to get a proper exposure...