SLT-A65, Bigger than a NEX.

[BigJeff]

I recently had the chance to upgrade my not very old Sony A55 to a more recent A65 so I thought I'd post some pictures.

While being more of a pain to travel with than the NEX series, it does have the advantage of having a wide range of lenses currently available, and for me the ability to use the ones I already have.

So far it's been used on a liveaboard in Thailand and on a land based dive trip to both Gangga Island and Kasawari Lembeh near to Manado in Indonesia, so most of the pictures are taken with either a 70mm or 105mm lens. I have used wider in Thailand but it was getting close to the end of season and the visibility was not as good as February (using the A55).

The camera works well, even some of the more unusual features such as stitch panorama produce good results with the limitation that they record JPEGS and not RAW.
HD Video recording is also good, but let down by my serious lack of video skills and inability to produce a short video that's less than 23MB in size. I'm sure with some practice then these skills will improve.

There were some changes from the A55 that pleasantly surprised me, the bigger battery means it's no problem leaving the camera in the housing all day long even with 3 photo crazy dives per day in Indonesia.
TTL is also available (in combination with Ike) when shooting with the camera in manual, and there you can apply exposure compensation to the rear LCD so when in camera manual it's still possible to see the image on the screen even at 1/160 F22 when the strobes are switched on. (I don't use the viewfinder).

There are many things still to explore with the camera, but if you are thinking of going with the "bigger" route then it’s a great option.
Here are the pictures…

 

[DrMark]

Jeff,

Which macro lenses did you use? I presume you are using the Ikelite housing from your comment about TTL flash. Ikelite says that the Sigma 70mm Macro can't auto-focus with their port, and I can't imagine why. I know that there was a firmware issue with the lens at one point, and am wondering if they tested before the firmware patch came out.

--Mark

 

[BigJeff]

I'm using either a Sigma 70mm or Sigma 105mm for macro, there's also a sub-see 10x on the front that can be swung into place for pictures like the Ghost Pipe Fish Eggs.

I only use auto-focus, and it's no problem with either lens. The Ike comment is strange, but the port they sell (and I own) for the Sigma 70mm does have capability for manual focus so maybe it refers to manual only for an older camera.
I now only use the port for the 105mm, it's the same length as the 70mm port so fits both.

Sigma lenses originally had a problem with the A55 & I think A35, this was an aperture control problem related to the lens mount. Sigma replaced the mounts on all 4 of my lenses for free to correct the problem.

There is a "new" problem with Sigma and the A65/77, it's a firmware problem with the HSM lenses. None of mine are HSM so all mine are OK. No doubt Sigma will again fix for free.