www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

I have been using one of these since January, at that time there was a £699 offer at Jessops. 24 mega pixels and a very useful feature is the "smart teleconverter", actually it crops the sensor to either 12 mp (1.4 ) or 6 mp (2x). I have found this feature coupled with a Tamron 18 to 250 lens to be very useful. The smart teleconverter option could in theory be replaced by cropping at full resolution, but using the option along with the electronic viewfinder on the Sony is easier. Another feature on the a65 that I find useful is the built in GPS.

Out of interest I bought the Tamron 18 to 250 s/h for £170 and later bought a Minolta 100 to 300 s/h for £129 (The Sonys use the Minolta af fit bayonet). There are in fact a whole host of reasonably priced s/h Minolta AF lenses still out there that will fit the Sony Alpha "a" cameras. Something also out there is the amazing 500mm Minolta reflex lens (the lens was also made by Sony until about 12 month ago), the only reflex lens that had auto focus . It is fixed at f8 and needs good light but in the right conditions can give good images and is a whole lot lighter than a Sigma 50 to 500 lens!.

The Sony SLT system has raised some controversy but I have found them to be effective cameras, I find that in use the electronic viewfinder on the a65 is little different from an optical viewfinder outher than most of the camera's settings are also visable on screen. Certainly the SLTs work well for insect photos. I also own the earlier a33 and a recently acquired s/h a55 (the cameras lack the "smart teleconverter fuction} but I do still find that their slighter poorer EVFs are still perfectly useable for both insect and bird photography.

Nice to see some Sony enthusiasm here I've not tried the SLTs except briefly in a shop, but I'm very tempted to trade up from my A700 to an A77.

Re the 500/f8, I've seen some nice results from it, but the infamous 'donut bokeh' often spoils otherwise good shots, in my view.

If you take lots of buttefly pics, I'd recommend getting something more specialised than your 18-250 - you'll find it makes a huge difference if you use a dedicated macro lens.

dilettante wrote: I've not tried the SLTs except briefly in a shop, but I'm very tempted to trade up from my A700 to an A77.

I took the plunge: here's a shot with my new A77. I think I'm going to like it!

A77, Sony 100/2.8 macro

I've recently also acquired an A77 so I'll be watching your shots with more than usual interest.
All we need now is some sun & butterflies!

dilettante wrote:I think I'm going to like it!

With shots like that, I'm sure you will

I had never thought about the utility of GPS in a camera before but I clicked on your EXIF data and, with the help of Open Streetmap could see exactly where you took the photo. A handy feature.

Mike

MikeOxon wrote:I had never thought about the utility of GPS in a camera before but I clicked on your EXIF data and, with the help of Open Streetmap could see exactly where you took the photo. A handy feature.

That's why I have stopped publishing my iPhone pictures, Mike (except from non-butterfly sites) - because my present system of processing images allows the exif data to persist (my old system, using a very old version of Image Expert, destroyed exif data). I don't like the locations of my pictures to be easily traceable, especially where sensitive species or sites are concerned. Of course, nothing can stop a determined person working out where I was from other clues, but there are ways for determined people to find these butterfly sites anyway.

My question: How can I remove exif data from a picture before publishing it?

Guy

padfield wrote:How can I remove exif data from a picture before publishing it?

There are two sides to every coin!

If you use Photoshop (Elements) and choose the 'Save for Web' option then it will remove EXIF data by default. Other utilities, such as the free IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/), also provide options in the 'Save as' dialogue to remove the data.

I hope that not everyone does this, as I find it helpful to look what camera has been used and the basic exposure data. Since I do use 'Save for web' myself, I add these data to my figure captions.

Mike

Thanks, Mike. I've downloaded and tested Irfanview - it works!

I like to have the location feature for my own records but will now remove this information from pictures associated with particular butterflies!

Guy

For anyone interested in 'photo-stacking', especially at high magnification, the SLT has a great advantage in that it has no mirror and therefore no 'earthquake' effect from the mirror slap. (A65 + Sigma 105 macro + Nikor 10x plan objective. 99 image stack.).

Tony M.

On the GPS thing, I'm not too keen on publishing exact locations of where I live or where I've been. It's a shame you don't seem to be able to selectively remove bits of EXIF info in PSElements. I just re-uploaded the small tort picture with a 'save for web' version with all EXIF removed, which is a shame. The alternative of turning off GPS in camera seems a shame too, as then I don't have locations for my records.

dilettante wrote:On the GPS thing, I'm not too keen on publishing exact locations of where I live or where I've been. It's a shame you don't seem to be able to selectively remove bits of EXIF info in PSElements. I just re-uploaded the small tort picture with a 'save for web' version with all EXIF removed, which is a shame. The alternative of turning off GPS in camera seems a shame too, as then I don't have locations for my records.

And looking into this a little more: Windows users can download Microsoft's Pro Photo Tools 2, which allows you to selectively strip (or modify) GPS data in EXIF. Perfect!

Download here: Microsoft Pro Photo Tools version 2