A2 questions prior to purchase

[Steve West]

I guess it depends upon your past hardware. The A2 is blindingly fast compared to my Nikon 4500! I was out shooting ducks taking off with the A2. I put it in flex focus mode, and I felt like I could put the focus cross on the moving duck, and then hitting the shutter button felt like the picture was taken almost instantaneously! All the pics were in excellent focus too.

In the next few weeks, there will be an air show, and for the last five years, I've shot the air show with various Nikon coolpixes (900, 990, and 4500). Shooting fast moving planes with the x3 teleconveter was all but impossible. With the A2, I'm pretty confident I'm going to get great action pictures at the upcoming show.

Probably, the DSLRs are faster than the A2, but I've also got no video mode with them.

Steve

[GDwight]

I've had my A2 for several weeks now. Have not tried the action shots but have been able to focus quickly 97% of the time. Sometimes, for no reason I can tell, it just refuses to focus. By today's standards, the focus is probably slow. But I've been shooting a Maxxum 7000 since 1984, so I'm not spoiled. I use the flex focus setting so the focus stays in the middle where I want it.

Question for Terry. I have the 3600 flash. In low or no light situations, the flash does not flash the IR light to assist the focus, like my maxxum did. Is something wrong or does the A2 use something other than passive IR to focus?

Can anyone explain specifically how the difference between fine and extra fine picture quality manifests itself? While the xfine file is larger, both pictures are exactly the same pixel dimensions and 72 pixels per inch? Also, is there a way to store the pictures right away at something larger than 72 ppi?

And I just noticed this a prior to purchase forum. I'll post these questions elsewhere also.

[Stevekin]

GDwight wrote:

And I just noticed this a prior to purchase forum. I'll post these questions elsewhere also.

Although this started as a 'prior to purchase' thread, the responses are from 'post purchase' members, so your question is relevant to this thread.

I'll let TerryThomas respond to your flash query more informatively, as I don't own one, but as far as I am aware the A2 has no low light focus assist lamp of any kind.

Re Extra Fine v Fine, the difference is that you will have more detail when it comes to larger prints and will allow for closer cropping of your images. I think !!

Look atBillDrew and Slipe's commentsin this thread, http://www.stevesforums.com/forums/v...270085#p270085

The numbers are slightly different but the explanation is relevant to your question about 72ppi.

Hope this helps,

Stevekin.

[Steve West]

GDwight wrote:

Question for Terry. I have the 3600 flash. In low or no light situations, the flash does not flash the IR light to assist the focus, like my maxxum did. Is something wrong or does the A2 use something other than passive IR to focus?

Can anyone explain specifically how the difference between fine and extra fine picture quality manifests itself? While the xfine file is larger, both pictures are exactly the same pixel dimensions and 72 pixels per inch? Also, is there a way to store the pictures right away at something larger than 72 ppi?

Although I'm not Terry, I did buy a 3600 flash for the A2. The A2 does not have the capability of firing either an internal or external low-light focus assist lamp. There's probably some technical reason for this, but I don't know what it is. If you go to the KM forum at dpreview, people have provided links to simple custom made low-light focus assists for the Ax cameras. They involve the use of the remote shutter control or the external battery pack. Both have access points to the circuitry so you can get an LED to fire when you hit the shutter button.

I've been amazed and happy with low-light focussing (again relative to my Nikon 4500, the low light focussing ability of the A2 is superb).

As far as xfine vs. fine. The pixel dimensions of the two are identical. What differs is the amount of image compression and hence the file size. In fine mode, you have more image compression (i.e., less true image information and a smaller file size) compared to the xfine setting.

Steve

[Stevekin]

Thanks for clearing that up Steve. :-)

Stevekin.

[Stevekin]

Steve West wrote:

If you go to the KM forum at dpreview, people have provided links to simple custom made low-light focus assists for the Ax cameras. They involve the use of the remote shutter control or the external battery pack. Both have access points to the circuitry so you can get an LED to fire when you hit the shutter button.

I wonder if this is of interest, (or use), to anyone ?? http://www.camerabright.com/

Stevekin.