I knew I wouldn't see all the benefits during a daytime photoshoot where the A99 would probably be more than enough. The menu system on the A99ii is quite overwhelming, not that much better than the A99's but with more options, so more wondering around. The good news: You can utilize the custom buttons for the things you need. I programmed the one in front of the camera to eye-AF and the back lower one to "Live View Display", a vunery important option to me, to be able to switch between seeing what the camera sees or a brighter higher ISO display that makes it easier to focus manually in dark situations or see the objects when using flashes to light a scene. I did not end up changing that option until my second gig that day.
So the A99 was kind of a slow camera in a lot of situations. You could do a burst but it was both very loud and slow to clear to the card. Even though the files are larger, they seem to clear faster to the card. That is a double edged sword as you might end up with more photos than you would actually want, having to go through them, store them and more.
Other than that it didn't feel like a new camera. I did have to decide how to light the couple expecting the baby, and I tried a few things. In a few shots I let the sun light their faces.
As you can see the photo works as the sun is filtered a little bit by the tress, but the pregnant woman is squinting.
Other shots, the scene was back lit by the sun and ambient light lit their face.
I also used a reflector in some shots, especially when it was just the woman.
As you can see she also squints in that one, even though I did try the trick of having eyes closed, counting down and then opening the eyes.
For the final couple shot I put them in the shade and used my Yungnuo YN560IV flash hooked to the Godox external PB8205 battery to light their faces. The flash had a softener and Chinese lantern on it to make the light as soft as possible while still using full capacity.
You can see that even though the light was softened since flash is pretty close compared to the sun, there is some easily fixable shadows on his face and on her chest.. That said, her eyes in this photo are wide open or at least as much as is possible when standing in bright day light.
I guess instead of geeking out my new expensive camera, I geeked out on lighting, always the better choice. That said, in future events, the A99ii will let me use existing lighting to light a scene, perhaps with just a little help from LEDs or flashes.
The night job I had that day was working a photo booth at a prom. Not a very exciting job, but it's good to get into the high school market any way you can. For the first time I was supposed to use the HDMI to show the photos to the kids whose photos i was taking, on a large screen. Unfortunately, the A99ii as well as other Sony still camera use a totally different HDMI connector than other pro cameras . So I ended up not using the screen and showing the photos on my LCD screen the old way. Zooming through the photos is much easier and more responsive on the A99ii, so that's a real plus in these types of situations. Ordered a cheap converter on e-bay for future use.
The other photographer manning a similar photo booth with a Nikon pro camera was using OVF for taking all the photos reminding me how different the Sony brand is. I looked at the at my LCD and so had better more direct contact with my subjects.
Coming up, an evening party at a school, using probably low light photography with available light and an afternoon Independence day party, so tune in for more blog posts.
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