I recently decided to take my photography a little more seriously and have invested in a lot more equipment, and that has been very expensive! I’ve been using my trusty Sony A200 as that was my first ever introduction into the world of SLR photography. Although I knew the basics of shutter speed and aperture, I never really appreciated the other important bits such as white balancing and metering. I finally got around to reading a great book called ‘Understanding Exposure‘ by Bryan Peterson that I was bought for Christmas ages ago.  I recommend this book highly to anyone who enjoys their photography and has access to an SLR.  It really opened my eyes to a new way to take my photos, I’m now a lot more careful and gone are the days of using my SLR like a glorified point and shoot camera, and hoping that the improved quality of the camera will do the rest.

I decided that I could do with a prime lens, and a 50mm SAL-50F18 seemed to fit the bill.  I was able to now take far more creative photographs using the wide aperture to blend away the background, and really make whatever I’m focusing on in a image stand out.  Because it has quite a large aperture it also makes the viewfinder usable in lower light (the A200 has quite a small viewfinder and can be a little awkward in certain situations) as well as being able to take photos in the same light.

It then dawned on me that the on-board flash on my Sony is actually quite naff.  For one, it’s really ‘in your face’ and tends to dazzle people and cause really harsh shadows.  It also doesn’t extend far enough away from the camera body (and I can only consider this a design flaw) as sometimes I can see a shadow of my lens.  Wouldn’t it be great to have an external flash that could be angled to bounce light off of ceilings, walls or any object and diffuse the light making shadows far less harsh, as well as being able to light the subject the way I wanted?  My answer was yes so off I headed to Jessop’s and bought myself a Sony HVL-F42AM flash.  It’s a beast, I can light up my entire garden at night with it as if it were daylight, but it’s also subtle enough to throw light on something without it being too noticeable that flash was used – something I’ve learned from reading On-Camera Flash Techniques for Wedding and Portrait Photography by Neil van Niekerk.  It can also be removed and mounted on its own stand and triggered remotely.  There is a downside however, Sony decided to use the on-board flash of their camera’s to trigger the flash, so you actually end up with horrible harsh flash of the SLR too.  I have to either keep my distance, or cover the flash slightly which is silly in my opinion.  Other manufactures use wireless to trigger their flash guns, Sony should have done the same!

Suddenly, my old Crumpler Muffin Top 4000 camera bag was no longer large enough to hold all this new equipment.  There was only one thing for it, I needed a full on backpack so I could really nerd out.  I got myself a Crumpler Messenger Boy Full Photo backpack which has loads of storage space, it’s an entire backpack dedicated to holding everything camera related with loads of compartments, and adjustable separators to tweak it around my gear.  There’s even a compartment which would perfectly hold an Asus Eee Pad Transformer Android tablet – if only I had one

You know what else would be great?  A new camera!  I’ve been very interested in getting a newer SLR, because although the A200 generally does a great job, it is after all an entry level SLR and there are a lot of good features I’ve been missing out on and I felt that I now had the knowledge to take advantage of it all.  It was a toss-up between a Sony A580 or a Sony A55.  They are very similar cameras in some ways, they share a lot of the same features, but there’s a couple of huge differences.  The A580 is conventional, it has a mirror that moves out the way whilst the shutter is open to let the light reach the sensor at the back.  The A55 is Sony’s new breed of SLR’s that have a semi-translucent, fixed mirror, that reflects 30% of the light to the viewfinder, and the remaining light to the sensor.  This allows it to take faster shots (10 FPS) and focus continuously whilst doing so.  Another big difference is that instead of a normal viewfinder that has all the light reflected from the mirror, the reduction in light would mean it would be too dark to see anything in most circumstances.  Sony’s answer was to use an electronic viewfinder instead.  I think a lot of SLR owners cringe at the thought, but there are benefits to it which I’ll touch or later.  Realistically, it’s what you expect to find on a Camcorder, and nobody complains about them.

This took a week or so of researching before I was ready to go one way or the other – for me this might as well have been a lifetime, it’s not they way I work…  I headed up to Jessop’s to get a feel of them both.  Initially I actually preferred the A580, even though I’d set my mind on the A55.  I eventually still decided to get myself the A55 and have been using it ever since (not quite the whole story, I did buy it online from CameraBox who went bust, and I had to get a refund via my credit card company).  The EFV has grown on me, yes it’s strange to see an electronic image, but it can overlay information on screen that a normal viewfinder cannot.  The battery life takes one hell of a beating however.  I know I could take around 1000 photo’s with my A200 but I doubt I’d get more than 300 with the A55 without charging it.  It makes it an awkward choice for a holiday camera because although it’s much smaller than my A200 and weighs less, has awesome features and has built-in GPS which makes it the obvious winner – the battery is a major concern.

Finally – and I really mean it has to be finally for the considerable future on pain of death from my girlfriend (she doesn’t say it, but I see it in her eyes) – I bought myself a Carl Zeiss 16-80mm pro lens.  It’s a beautiful thing!  OK, the build quality isn’t great.  It’s good don’t get me wrong, but for the price it is, it should have screamed quality.  Luckily it does in the optical department where it really counts.  Practically everything I’ve done recently has been with this new lens, even my 50mm prime hasn’t seen a look-in.

So that’s it, it’s been a wild month, my bank card still hasn’t got over the shock and trembles whenever I open my wallet, but I have a lovely selection of new equipment and I have the enthusiasm to use it (I even got up at 4:30 am on a Saturday to take photo’s of the sunrise over Caldecotte lake).  Now I just have to nail that perfect shot……..