New camera goes a-huntin'...It's a bird-eating machine!

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.

 

Justin, these didn't come out good, they came out GRRREEEEAAAATTTTTT! ; Sorry I had to harness my inner Tony the Tiger for that one.

 

Thank you very much Polynesian...I was very happy with my old cam too, but this one just does everything as good or better, and a few things the other couldn't at all...certainly birds-in-flight are much easier - and with the high ISO capabilities too, the new cam is just wonderfully flexible.