CalvinBall wrote:would the Alpha a6000 be the comparable sony model?

The alpha's are nice cameras. The one thing to take into consideration is the lens market. Olympus micro-4/3's glass it some of the best quality available. I'm not too familiar with what Sony e-mount lenses are available but I've gotten to use the Sony a7 at a concert and absolutely loved it.

ok great. thanks for the help pals. olympus seems pretty affordable. the woman on the cnet review video seems to favor dslr and says the olympus is a nice updgrade for people who are used to point and shoots. that seems pretty negative to me. but you all take sick ass pictures so ill trust ya.

CalvinBall wrote:ok great. thanks for the help pals. olympus seems pretty affordable. the woman on the cnet review video seems to favor dslr and says the olympus is a nice updgrade for people who are used to point and shoots. that seems pretty negative to me. but you all take sick ass pictures so ill trust ya.

She sounds like someone who refuses to embrace progress. The Sony A7 full frame mirrorless is on par with Canon and Nikon full frames ... Without the added baggage of a dSLR.

Mirrorless cameras had one major disadvantage vs. dSLRs when they first came out about 7 years ago - focus speed. Even though Panasonic made huge strides vs. point-and-shoots of the time, constrast-detection autofocus is inherently slower than the phase-detection autofocus employed by dSLRs. Nowadays this is somewhat moot as many mirrorless cameras have phase detection built right into their sensors. And the difference is not noticeable for many types of photography anyway; it's most important in shooting fast action.

Also the first mirrorless cameras (and many current ones, including all of Olympus and Panasonic's offerings) used a Four Thirds sensor, which is smaller than most consumer-level dSLRs, meaning less light captured and hence weaker low-light performance (though the smaller sensor also means that the body and lenses can be smaller as well). As a result mirrorless cameras developed something of a reputation in some circles as not for serious photography. This is also no longer the case, as there are mirrorless cameras such as the A7 which has a full-frame sensor, equivalent to the top-end dSLRs out there.

There really isn't any reason not to select mirrorless at this point.

Here's an article to check out Calvin: http://www.dpreview.com/articles/490181 ... up-2014/11

I'm friends with two big concert photographers. They both have been using the the A7 during a majority of their concert shooting since last summer. One of them let me use the A7 while he was shooting Phish at the Mann last summer for a few minutes. The thing is awesome. My next purchase will be a mirrorless but probably not until next summer.

probably gonna buy this today. lens seems like the basic starter thing. weird it doesnt come with a cap.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00HPQ ... _qh_dp_hza

thanks for the help.

Make sure you pick up a 37mm UV Filter/Protector for that lens as well. You don't want the glass to get scratched. It doesn't come with a "Body Cap Lens" which is another type of lens. The body cap lens is a fixed focal length f/8 lens. Usually costs around $50 and its essentially a novelty body cap. Your camera will come with a regular body cap and two caps for your lens, one for each end. Congrats and enjoy!

Deed is done. Got Amazon to ship it to me by Friday for free. Prime for some reason was delivery next week. Went with the all black one. Wanted silver but they were out and ultimately probably easier to match lenses with the all black one.

Can't wait. Larger purchases always give me anxiety.

What's the point of the body cap lens? The kit lens can shoot at 15mm f/8...

EDIT: I guess it's so you can have an ultra-compact walkaround camera? Would probably be great for street photography.

phatj wrote:What's the point of the body cap lens?

Read that as booty cap lens. Which would totally have a point

some friends and i played around with long exposure and sparklers/steel wool last night. it was a lot of fun. some cool shots. now that i know how it works hoping to do more of it this summer.

do yall normally use auto or shoot in manual mostly? i want to try and take some cool outdoor portraits with some friends but dont know quite how to do it best other than light (lower preferably, right? morning/night) behind the subject.

i liked these two pictures from my trip recently:

https://instagram.com/p/3VcBXPMI7-/

https://instagram.com/p/3VK9nMMIyQ/

CalvinBall wrote:do yall normally use auto or shoot in manual mostly? i want to try and take some cool outdoor portraits with some friends but dont know quite how to do it best other than light (lower preferably, right? morning/night) behind the subject.

I mostly shoot auto, except sometimes I'll use aperture priority for a particular depth of field effect.

Shooting outside portraits with back lighting is actually challenging. You'll often wind up with blown out background or hopelessly underexposed subject unless you can use fill flash. Front light is very easy but you have to contend with squinting issues.

my camera has a built in flash, guessing that may not be enough.

It might be. The problem with your camera's built-in flash is that it can't sync with fast shutter speeds (looks like only up to 1/200 sec for your camera), which can be a problem when shooting with a lot of ambient light (which is a frequent problem with outdoor daytime backlit shots). Make sure your ISO is set as low as possible and you can decrease the aperture as well, but the latter will increase the depth of field which might not be desirable.

Ok great. I'll study up a bit and see if I can find something that works.

I shoot just about everything on aperture priority. I'm generally pretty picky about my depth of field.

Cal, how are you liking the camera so far? I've been mostly out of the photography game for a couple years now, taking some snapshots with my phone here and there but that's about it. But I've been getting the itch to go out there and take some photos. My real camera is the Panasonic G1, the original Micro Four Thirds camera, so the Olympus E-M10 would be a natural upgrade for me as I could use my existing lenses.

I like it a lot. I still don't know everything about it and sometimes the touch screen can be difficult. I think mostly I just need to sit down and really read through the manual. The wifi and ease of putting the pictures on your phone is really awesome. Eventually I'll need more lenses but this one is fine for now.

I want to take a photo class too.

Chris Burkard has a pretty awesome contest going on through his insta page. Upload your most inspiring picture. Tag a few things he lists and you can win a trip to Switzerland to learn photography from him.