New camera inbound, Sony A77

[DaveW]

I am afraid that many catalogues, web sites etc are often fictitious in that the items listed are not routinely stocked, or even by high street shops in any significant numbers but obtained from the wholesalers to order. Most firms could not afford to carry the inventory they list on the off chance of selling them, but usually they can get these within a day or so from their wholesaler. But if the wholesaler is also having to wait for stock it takes longer since of course most cameras these days are imported.

Many of the sales assistants often don't know whether they still have stock, they are just there to sell the product, it's when your order goes through to despatch they tell you they are out of stock.

Anyway hope you get it soon, if not you can always stick it on "Program" for your holidays, many cameras these days never come off it!

[SnowFella]

True, though it would of been nice of them to tell me

And to be proactive I've gone to the steps of downloading the camera manual aswell as buy one of those "Sony A77 for dummies" books. So when the camera finally turns up I'll already have a fair clue what the different settings do and ought to be able to set it up decently quick.

[DaveW]

You may find these video's handy then.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nA3w1na48As" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... 0A77&sm=12" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Snowcat]

Oooh sorry I've lost this theme... I gave Johan some tips about this camera via PM (I am using it for 2 years already).

If anyone more interested, I can copy my message here to be available to everyone...

[SnowFella]

Well, can't say much about the camera yet as it's still not here. Most definately the first and last time I deal with this perticular camera store
It's just been one failure to give service after another from their side, first their buggered ordering system, then the week it took them to inform me it was out of stock, then missing emails and lastly the promise last friday that I would have it by mid week this week. Now midday Friday and nothing has turned up

[bluetexasbonnie]

Your camera saga reminds me why I never read the ads at the back of photography magazines. For me, the money saved is not worth the hassle and frustration. So sorry this is not working out.

Are they saying it actually shipped? Can you get a tracking number? If not, consider contacting credit card company and canceling the whole thing. With their current batting average, the future doesn't look good.

[SnowFella]

I've emailed them again to check on the delivery status. Last I heared was a week ago and they stated that Sony had shipped the camera that day, so a full week has past since then (fair enough with a public holiday in that week).
Giving them another week or so and then I'll take it up with the bank, but as I paid using Bpay and not CC there's a chance I'm flat out of luck.

Once resolved, camera or no camera, there is bound to be some not to stellar reviews turning up on selected local sites

[DaveW]

I would not think it would be shortage problems from the manufacturer as camera sales are now down therefore production can exceed demand. Possibly wholesalers and retailers are reluctant to hold stock in your country, therefore because of this need to obtain stocks in arrears from Japan, or where they are made?

http://visualsciencelab.blogspot.co.uk/ ... amera.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/10/2 ... CD20131024" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.businessinsider.com/mirrorle ... nt-2013-12" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I predicted on a photo site a year or two ago that once the image became good enough most people would stop upgrading and was told that was rubbish by somebody who worked as a store manager for Jessops, an old established specialist UK photographic stores. Anyway a year later that firm went bankrupt because of lack of upgrades and competition from camera phones they did not stock and he was out of work!

The upgrade novelty has now worn off and cameras are now simply consumer goods, plus most people are happy with mobile phone images so the market for dedicated cameras is shrinking. People who bought a film camera often used the same one for decades and the same is now happening to DSLR's since with even an 8 megapixel DSLR the image quality is far more than the average computer or TV screen can show and fewer bother to make prints that can show increased resolution these days.

Anyway hope you get your camera soon. I suppose how long it takes depends if Sony ships it by sea or air?

[SnowFella]

Well, latest news is that they are due their Sony shippment on Monday so hopefully I'll have it by the end of next week.

And the only reason I can see that there might be a shortage is the fact that it's an "older" model that if all the rumours are true is due to be replaced sometime this year. With that in mind the likelyhood that they still are producing it at full volumeor even stocking locally is kinda low.
I do know that most camera places down here hardly stock any Sony DSLR's what so ever, walking in to a any local store that sell cameras and it's Nikon and Canon all around with maybe the odd Sony hiding in a corner. Once asked one of the bigger chains regarding a 30mm Macro lens and got told they stock no Sony gear at all and would have to order one in for me, looking closely when the girl behind the counter looked up prices I noticed she was getting them from another Australian web based store and not Sony Australia

Probably a good thing too as Sony Australia seem to run an insane markup on their goods, the camera I'm waiting on now is a mere $600 more expensive if I order it through Sony Fair enough with that purchase they also toss in some extras in the form of vertical grip, flash adapter and an HVLF43M flash so that's likely where the extra cost comes from.
And thinking about it that's likely how the store in question can sell the camera at the prize they are, order one A77 kit from Sony and break it up, the flash in the kit they sell for $400 grip is another $300 and the adapter another $40....presto, one cheap A77 body at less then what they would have to pay Sony at retailers cost.

[DaveW]

Yes it was the same in the building trade here in the 1980's. Before then we had specialist merchants run by tradesmen where you could go in and get some obscure fitting they had in stock from the year dot taking up their shelf and warehouse space all those years. Then came the day of the accountants taking over running firms and after that nothing was stocked that was not fast moving and anything not qualifying was to special order, with a few weeks wait for delivery.

Even camera firms adopted these methods. The exotic "look what we can do" lenses created by their optical engineers for the bragging rights Canon and Nikon made in the past were dropped from their catalogues since they sold in too small a numbers and the accountants made sure they were only produced to order in future, if at all. Nikon now keeps some of these only as unground elements and body castings in a draw from what I read and they are only machined and assembled on receipt of a firm order and when those bits are gone, that's it!

The days of merchants that stock everything, rather than simply obtaining from the manufacture any goods that are not fast moving are now gone.

All these are gone now due to the accountants, if it does not now pay they will not make it just for bragging rights as happened in the past when the firm was run by optical engineers:-

http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/co ... 1700mm.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/find/newsLe ... 1200mm.jsp" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[SnowFella]

Turns out that once they got their hands on the camera delivery was lightning fast! Got word at around 2pm yesterday that it had been shipped from the west coast and came home 24 hours later to find a missed delivery notice in the mailbox. Quick trip later down to the post office and it's in my possesion...including the freebie vertical grip
Going to be somewhat of a learning experience to get my head around all the new features aswell as fingers around new button placement, good thing I have a few days off coming up and then that holiday to boot.

Going to set up a little family shot tomorrow with the new toy together with legacy 20+ year old lenses for funsies.

[DaveW]

Really these days due to microchips cameras have so many functions (usually accessed through menu's) you will never need or use except for those who like to at least play with such things once, you only therefore really need to learn the ones that you will normally use. The others on the rare occasion you might use them you can look up the manual.

The difference from the old manual cameras is really you only need to sort out Aperture Priority (AV = aperture value) and Shutter Priority (TV = time value).

http://blog.corporatefineart.com/2009/0 ... av-tv.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Coming from an old fully manual camera when photographing plants or insects I now mostly use TV when I do not want the shutter speed to drop below hand holding speeds and let the camera set the aperture, and AV when I want to set the best aperture for depth of field when the camera is on a tripod. I must confess I have never used Program or Manual Mode on my DSLR since I bought it. Though probably I would need Manual Mode for some conventional photography.

It's best to get off Program Mode as soon as possible once you learn what the other modes do, since the others give you more control over the image because Program Mode does not always know what type of settings your photography needs.

[SnowFella]

Aperature and shutter priority isn't really a worry as I've been using them from day one of my DSLR days.
Challenges now is getting my head around among others having access to a direct AF/MF button, with one press of the thumb I can switch from AF to MF and use Sony's focus peaking feature to have the EVF highlight areas of contrast that are in focus. Combined with focus magnification it ought to come in very handy to nail focus when I'm doing macro work.
Plus this thing have a few more AF tricks up it's sleve than what I'm really used to, spot/wide/local I'm familiar with but zone and object tracking are new. Same goes for instant swap from wide/zone/local to spot focus by the press of a button. Hold down the joystick button and I'm locked into spot focus.

Going to try and set up some camera preset's tomorrow as this thing can remember 3 separate shooting styles selectable from the top dial. Likely be setting one up as a general cactus capture one using tripod, ie aperature priority, ISO 100, steadyshot OFF, spot focus and spot metering aswell as 2sec self timer.

[bluetexasbonnie]

I am so happy for you. I love happy endings. Was very concerned that this would not be one.

Look forward to seeing some of you learning shots.

[SnowFella]

Thanks.
Was abit of a relief when it finally turned up, though in a way I shouldn't of worried all to much as the camera store in question have been around for a long time and is a franchise of one of the larger camera chains down here. You just don't stay in business for that long if you rip customers off.

Been playing with it some today and have to say my new pet love is a combination of a feature on some of my old lenses and the AF/MF with focus peaking. Now these old lenses generally have a horrid minimum focusing distance but some of them come with a macro switch allowing about 1:4 magnification. For some reason they turn to manual focus in the macro setting and to focus I've always had to flick the old camera over to MF myself to disengage the focus motor. On this new beast though it automaticly shifts to MF and the motor is disengaged plus the peaking feature is turned on. Makes it a breeze to hit focus and sooo convenient.

For those not familiar with peaking here's a quick video showing how it works.
http://youtu.be/p5OegCTbYGQ

Edit: Here she is in her full glory alongside some mid 80's Minolta AF lenses, just missing one to complete the set of original Minolta glass.