once upon a norza

Aisyah has always been my favourite subject and since I don't have any weddings to shoot, I'm constantly 'shoving' my lenses at her...haha. I spent most of my time at home now with her....reading, painting or just 'stoning' ourselves in front of the tv. *bad, bad Ibu!* No more shopping trips with her nowadays because I feel oh-so-sluggish now.

On most days, I just feel like lying down....of course, minus the golek2 part cos the baby prefers me to sleep on my right side. Her adek will kick me at the ribs most of the time if I try to sleep on my left.

I still can't believe that Aisyah will be somebody's sister in 2 months time. This also reminds me that I have tons of things to prepare for the arrival of the baby. We have prepared most babystuffs but I'll have to do another checklist next month in case we forget something. It's a major headache for me as we'll also be temporarily 'housed' at my mum's place during and after my confinement when Aisyah starts her nursery class next year.

And yes, we finally decided to send her to Hanis Learning Centre. It's at Tampines so the best alternative is to stay at my mum's place in Pasir Ris. Out of the many preschools we checked, we are most pleased with Hanis' curriculum and I've only read positive feedbacks from other parents (especially from the diva :P)

And I have also mentioned, Hanis' other branches are quite a distance away from Bishan and I'm not ready to let Aisyah take the school transport yet. I'm a clingy Ibu, I know. hehe.

So that's about it. I'm still here...trying to catch my breath.

And so the A900 is out (the last part of video reminds me so much of Heroes intro) but I'm not one who would be booking for it after reading test reviews. However for its price (estimated price of sgd3500) and image comparison with Canon 1Ds MKIII, it's really a great buy. But with each file to be about 18mb, I think I will need lots and lots of harddisk space. As of now, 2days of wedding photography already takes up at least 5gb of my space.

If you want the most pixels in a small package, the Sony A900 is where you'll find it. It's bulky, but less so than the more expensive 1Ds Mark III, and that makes it easier to bring along. I enjoyed shooting with the 24-70mm f/2.8 Carl Zeiss so much that I recommend it if you can afford it. I recently attached the 18-70mm kit lens that comes with the A200, and the A900 felt quite a bit more bearable, though I can only imagine that high-res sensor would reveal all the flaws in that less-expensive lens.

I'm assuming that the older Minolta lenses won't be able to fully utilise the A900 sensor. I would rather buy a less expensive body with a couple of good lenses. I wouldn't want to sell the gems I have in my drybox.

from Photography Bay

It's true - a real ad. It is reveals 'Intelligent Preview'. I do not have all the details, but this is what Sony will offer in place of Live View - it is a sort of Polaroid pre-test on screen, with some more information or accuracy, compared to just shooting a pic and reviewing it on any DSLR. Also, I believe that it is viewed from the buffer and not stored on to the memory card. I have not seen any explanation on how or what this function does though, beyond knowing that it is intended to show accurate depth of field, check focus, and check exposure more accurately than reviewing a quick shot - and to do it fast without needing to take a saved test shot.

Note the information about the sensors - I have got a diagram, but can't publish it. The nine sensors are tightly packed into the APS-C zone, they do not cover the full frame area. The APS-C zone is marked out with a rectangle not just corner marks, as the camera clearly functions with DT lenses in APS-C crop mode. So the AF sensor is really an APS-C model. It is differently laid out to the A700, and has 'AF assist metering' cells located next to the AF sensors. These obviously map the light levels for the AF sensors and maybe instruct a boost in sensitivity to local sensors (or at least fine tune the response to match brightness levels).

The 5 fps was - obviously - revealed in the Sony story about the new MS PRO-HG Duo high speed cards which mentioned Sony's latest DSLR having 5fps (it is the top story since this morning on the main website pages here). I think we can now add that the A900 will have 5fps and a dual memory slot.

I can also say now, in view of this leaked ad, that I was told about a month ago the name would be Alpha 900.

David K from Photoclub Alpha