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!

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My first few hours in Norway

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Signs you're in Portland